AHK News 2025-04-03 Why Smart People Never Build Their Own Tools

AutoHotkey Newsletter

Howdy,

Let’s get real. Time is your most precious asset .

Far too many people (especially those who are smart, capable, and resourceful) fall into the trap of thinking they should do everything themselves.

But just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, team leader, or a tech-savvy professional, there’s a moment when you have to ask yourself:

What is the return on your time?

Imagine spending 20, 50, even 100 hours building out an automation or tool that kinda works, but lacks reliability, flexibility, or scalability.

That’s time you could have spent doing what you do best — or simply living your life.

Now imagine this: you hire the-Automator.

In a fraction of the time it would take you to cobble something together, you get a powerful, efficient, battle-tested solution built by experts who live and breathe automation.

Not only does it do what you wanted—it goes beyond that.

More features, better performance, cleaner code, and better User Interface.

You get the benefit of hundreds of hours of experience condensed into a tool that makes your life easier right now .

That’s not an expense; that’s high-yield leverage

Think about it—most people get excited over a 10–14% return on their investments.

But what’s the ROI on reclaiming your time, reducing your stress, and getting tools that elevate your performance or business?

It’s massive.
And it’s immediate.

Trying to do it all yourself means constantly juggling roles, context-switching, and usually building inferior tools that cost more in the long run.

Instead, hire AHK Gurus who already have the skills, tools, and systems to bring your ideas to life faster and better than you could on your own.

Leverage us. That’s what smart people do .

The-Automator doesn’t just save you time.
We multiply your impact.

So let go of that “I’ll just do it myself” mentality.
✅ Reclaim your time.
✅ Hire smart.
✅ Build better.
✅ Grow faster.

We’re here to help.  You can check out my calendar here

Now on with the show…

Learn how to Master VSCode Make the switch to v2 Intro to AutoHotkey Intermediate AutoHotkey Intermediate ObjectsGUIs are Easy w/AutoHotkey Access all our Courses; Quit when you want

lifeHackingBaby

World’s Best Clipboard Editor

Last Friday Jean Lalonde joined our AHK Hero call and gave us an amazing walkthrough of his latest tool Quick Clipboard Editor. 

If you’re a Power user then you’ll LOVE this tool!   I extracted the tutorial which you can see here.

It will have you rethinking how you work and wondering how you lived without a clipboard editor!

What’s a Clipboard Editor—and Why Is Everyone Talking About It?
What’s a Clipboard Editor—and Why Is Everyone Talking About It?


Advanced Tips When Sending Messages

Last week Isaias gave Irfan and I a quick lesson to “watch out for” when we’re sending messages.  You can see the video here.

Or go watch our playlist (mostly older AHK V1) on messages here.

Watchout for the Hit Test when Sending Messages
Watchout for the Hit Test when Sending Messages


Tips on Extending Classes in AutoHotkey

During a team meeting Isaias was giving us a little lesson on working with Classes.

You can check out the tutorial here.

Tips on Extending Classes in AutoHotkey
Tips on Extending Classes in AutoHotkey

If your using Functions in AutoHotkey, but not classes, our Objects course is a perfect fit for you!

We cover the basics of using Classes in AutoHotkey as well as introduce people to Functions.

And don’t forget our courses come with a 200% money-back guarantee so you have nothing to lose❗

200% Money Back Guarantee badge with a yellow and green starburst seal for AHK courses


Improving People’s Lives: Story #43

Kenneth Aar, an AHK Hero member, Introduced us to Scribe the other day (check out this video).

We signed-up and are now creating great little tutorials for people for our clients which will greatly reduce the amount of technical support calls they receive!

How This Hidden Tool Makes Documentation Magically Simple
♂️ How This Hidden Tool Makes Documentation Magically Simple


What we’re reading


AI / Chat GPT-3 News / Usage


⚡️Productivity tips:

Alt + Shift + Up/Down Arrow – Move selected sentences / paragraphs up or down in most editors


A spot of Humor Dilbert does Tech Support

Dilbert: Reboot
Dilbert: Reboot


What we utomated this week with AutoHotkey #81

This week I was surprised when we had 490 AutoHotkey files worked on!

I realized much of it was just adding a “Dev Path” to our scripts.

So this week’s episode was a bit shorter than normal.  You can check it out here.


Client’s say…

“My mind is blown” — Kelly Coughlin


Cartoon superhero mascot in green costume beside the bold text AHK Hero on a yellow background AHK Hero

Consider joining the AHK Hero club! Members receive 25% off courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.    Currently we have over 393 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to AHK Hero members❗

You can watch 1 hour a day for a year and not repeat content! That’s a lot of AHK Learning!

During this Friday’s call we’re planning to discuss:

  • Help AHK Hero Members with their Questions & Code
  • Using a “Non-space” space to align an image
  • Window tilted: ‘No Active Window!’; GrepWin is your friend!
  • What: A_ThisFunc, -1, -2 mean in a class
  • Likely problem when you have an issue that requires you to restart your script

They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and a 3 hours a week where we help people with their AHK issues (the Saturday calls are geared towards people new to AutoHotkey.)


️ Quotable quotes

  • It’s easy to see stupid in other people — Dan Kennedy
  • If every request is a five alarm fire, it’s your house that’s gonna go up in flames — Amy Landino
  • Failure is not the opposite of success; It’s a part of it! — Anonymous
  • When experiencing problems with tools, typically you should blame the operator, not the tool — Joe Glines

AHK Newsletter⏩SHARE WITH A FRIEND⏩

Do you know someone that would benefit from learning useful automation tips like the gems in today’s issue?

Take a second and forward this newsletter and bask in the glow of their undying gratitude.  Was this email forwarded to you?

Sign up for this Newsletter here.  We never share your email with anyone.  Ever!


The-Automator

Joe, Isaias, Irfan, Rizwan and staff


P.S. As I spell-out in the Intro, I do think anybody reading this CAN (given enough time and effort) do anything they want.  But the truth is most of us already have too much to do!

If you’re needing more time, consider hiring us to solve your automation problems.

I guarantee you’ll be happy that you did!   Check my calendar and book a meeting by clicking here.

AHK Newsletter 2025-03-13 Why I spent $88.32 to overnight a “Onesie”

AutoHotkey Newsletter

Howdy %Name%,

My wife “got the call” early on Thursday last week.

She got her “go bag”, jumped in the car and began the ~3 hour drive to the hospital where her daughter was working on having our third grand-child.

She messaged me during the drive because she realized that she forgot to bring the blanket & “onesie” that she’d bought for the baby’s first outfit and asked if I could over-night it to her or meet her ½ way.

I did a little research and found out I could get it delivered by 10:00 am for $88.32.

We’ve been very busy here at the Automator so, instead of driving 3 hours,

I chose to “buy back time” and pay to have it sent.

People often say we all have the same amount of time in the day however that is a flat-out lie!

Those of us that have can buy-back time!  

It’s one of the main reasons hire us to develop projects for them!  Whether we are buying back time for them, or helping their employees be more productive, the goal is the same!

Get more done in less time!

Now back to the reason for the onesie…  

My wife got there in time for the birth of Kenneth. 

A newborn baby wrapped in a white blanket with grey footprint prints, wearing a white knit hat, held in an adult's arms in a hospital setting

Thankfully the delivery went well and they’re now home resting.

Now on with the show…

Learn how to Master VSCode Make the switch to v2 Intro to AutoHotkey Intermediate AutoHotkey Intermediate ObjectsGUIs are Easy w/AutoHotkey Access all our Courses; Quit when you want

Easy Tweak to Add Functionality to all your scripts

Last week we released this video which showed a simple tweak we highly recommend you add this to your scripts!  I’ve come to depend on having it available!

Easily Adding Open Folder and Video link to system Tray Icon in an AHK V2 Script
Easily Adding Open Folder and Video link to system Tray Icon in an AHK V2 Script


Building Menus in AHK v2

A Hero member was having troubles with building menus in AutoHotkey.  Isaias led a short tutorial on building menus which we extracted here.

Learning Menus in AutoHotkey v2 [Excerpt from AHK Hero call]
Learning Menus in AutoHotkey v2  [Excerpt from AHK Hero call]


Intro to RegEx

We put together a great email drip campaign that helps get you started with Regular Expressions.  You can watch the first video here.

5 videos from RegEx course: #1 Using RegEx101
5 videos from RegEx course: #1 Using RegEx101


Improving People’s Lives: Story #40

I had a call with a new client that new very little about AutoHotkey today.   I set him up with a simple function that lets him use HotStrings or Hotkeys to paste snippets of text wherever he wants it (without blanking his clipboard).

While AutoHotkey can do 8-million other things, Hotkeys & HotStrings are, by far, the lowest hanging fruit!  (Both are covered in our Intro to AutoHotkey course)


What we’re reading


AI / Chat GPT-3 News / Usage


⚡️Productivity tips:  A HotKey a day keeps inefficiency at bay!

Most programs have built-in Hotkeys.  Make it a habit to learn one new hotkey per day!


A spot of Humor

I’m considering trying this in my local town.

Cop Shoots Cat Off Of Tree

Cop Shoots Cat Off Of Tree


What we utomated this week with AutoHotkey #78

In this week’s video I walk through 153 AutoHotkey scripts that we worked on over the past week.

Aroudn 14 minutes in I also go into a cool approach I did pushing my libraries into Claude.

What we Automated with AutoHotkey #78
What we Automated with AutoHotkey #78


Client’s say…

I had no idea you could do this with AutoHotkey — Jim F.


Cartoon superhero mascot in green costume beside the bold text AHK Hero on a yellow background AHK Hero

Consider joining the AHK Hero club! Members receive 25% off courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.    Currently we have over 384 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to AHK Hero members❗

You can watch 1 hour a day for a year and not repeat content! That’s a lot of AHK Learning!

During this Friday’s call we’re planning to discuss:

They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and a 3 hours a week where we help people with their AHK issues (the Saturday calls are geared towards people new to AutoHotkey.)


️ Quotable quotes

  • What gets measured gets improved — Joe Glines
  • If it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense — Grandma
  • If there is no wind; row — Virgil
  • Automation is inevitable , and the way we embrace it will define our future. Let’s make sure it’s a future we’re proud of — Elon Musk

AHK Newsletter⏩SHARE WITH A FRIEND⏩

Do you know someone that would benefit from learning useful automation tips like the gems in today’s issue?  Take a second and forward this newsletter and bask in the glow of their undying gratitude.  Was this email forwarded to you?

Sign up for this Newsletter here.  We never share your email with anyone.  Ever!


The-Automator

Joe, Isaias, Irfan, Rizwan and staff


P.S. Remember, when we use AutoHotkey we are, in essence, “buying time”.  We take more time now to save more time later. 

Or, if you don’t have the time, our developers can typically do in an hour what might take you a week.   I know because that is why I initially hired them!  Yes, they are that good!  

Check out my calendar and schedule a meeting where we can figure out how we can help you.

 

Kenneth and his “big sister”

A toddler girl with pigtails kisses a newborn baby in a brown onesie lying on a white knit blanket beside a plush duck toy

AutoHotkey News 2025-01-30 It’s time to take back your life!

AutoHotkey Newsletter

Howdy,

I was reading this article which estimated the number of hours wasted per day by Industry on mundane tasks.

Horizontal bar chart titled Hours Wasted Per Day on Repetitive Computer Tasks by Industry, ranking 14 industries from 3.5 hours (public services and

So, my question to you is:

How many hours a day do you waste?

And what would you do with those hours you’ve gained back through automation?

Small businesses are increasingly turning to automation as a powerful tool to level the playing field with larger competitors.

In fact, 88% of small business owners report that automation enables them to compete more effectively by helping them operate more efficiently, reduce errors, and improve customer service.

As I’ve said before:

Knowledge is power.  Automation knowledge is a Super-Power

If you’d like help, check our consultation prices and then book a call with us by looking at my calendar.

Now on with the show…

Learn how to Master VSCode Make the switch to v2 Intro to AutoHotkey Intermediate AutoHotkey Intermediate ObjectsGUIs are Easy w/AutoHotkey Access all our Courses; Quit when you want

Running out of Hotkeys❓

Isaias and I were discussing a weird update to VS code.  The update mentioned you could now “use the Insert key…”

Both of us were laughing because it’s one of the most un-used keys ever made!

I blocked the Insert key and Numpad Insert key at least 12 years ago with the following code:

  • Insert::Return ;Disable Insert command
  • NumpadIns::Return ;Disable Insert key on 10-key Numpad

But then I realized, instead of blocking it, we should repurpose it.

With that idea in mind we went on to demonstrate a few additional ways you can play with hotkeys to have additional actions.  (Watch for long-press or double press etc.)

You can check them out in this video.

Showing mulitple ways to define hotkeys for an unused key on your Keyboard
Showing mulitple ways to define hotkeys for an unused key on your Keyboard2


Menus in AutoHotkey v2 rock❗

During an AutoHotkey Hero call a hero member wanted to learn about creating menus.

Isaias gave a great overview of how easy it is to create menus, sub-menus and add icons.

Learning Menus in AutoHotkey v2 [Excerpt from AHK Hero call]
Learning Menus in AutoHotkey v2 [Excerpt from AHK Hero call]

If you want to learn more about GUIs you should consider our Intro to GUIs course.

There is over 4.5 hours of content broken-down into bite-size videos.  And it, like all our other courses, comes with a 200% money back guarantee !


Improving People’s Lives: Story #36

I helped a client record tutorials.  Unfortunately sometimes, due to background noise or low bandwidth, some of her lecture was garbled.

She’s very busy so, instead of taking up her time to “patch” the videos, we used Eleven Labs to clone her voice.

I was amazed that, when I swapped out the cloned patches, it was virtually impossible to determine which was her and which was her cloned voice!


What we’re reading


AI / Chat GPT-3 News / Usage


⚡️Productivity tips: Plan for “tomorrow”

When I say “tomorrow”, I don’t mean some random day in the far off future, I literally mean, at the end of the day, outline what it is you need to get done the following day.

It’s amazing how much your subconscious will help you during your sleep!


A spot of Humor  12 Funniest Times Facebook Fact Checked the Babylon Bee

The 12 Funniest Times Facebook Fact Checked The Babylon Bee
The 12 Funniest Times Facebook Fact Checked The Babylon Bee


What we utomated this week with AutoHotkey #73

This week we had 236 AutoHotkey files that we worked on.  You can check them out in this video.

#73 What we automated with AutoHotkey
#73 What we automated with AutoHotkey


Client’s say…

The content is great in general and often questions can actually help and improve interest in AutoHotKey. —  Rodrigo Costa


Cartoon superhero mascot in green costume beside the bold text AHK Hero on a yellow background AHK Hero

Consider joining the AHK Hero club! Members receive 25% off courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.    Currently we have over 372 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to AHK Hero members❗

You can watch 1 hour a day for a year and not repeat content!  That’s a lot of AHK Learning!

During this Friday’s call we’re planning to discuss:

  • Help AHK Hero Members with their Questions & Code
  • Converting FlexiFinder to handle the equal sign in the .ini file (or changing to json)
  • When you should use ClipWait and when it is not needed
  • Working from Memory instead of a file
  • Example tasks you should use AI for verse Program directly
  • FileMove, FileDelete, and FileRecycle
  • Programmatically determining the File delimiter

They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and a 3 hours a week where we help people with their AHK issues (the Saturday calls are geared towards people new to AutoHotkey.)


️ Quotable quotes

  • When experiencing problems with tools, typically you should blame the operator, not the tool — Joe Glines
  • If it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense — Grandma
  • The question isn’t who is going to let me it’s who is going to stop me — Ayn Rand
  • As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another — Proverbs 27:17
  • Motion beats meditation — Gary Halbert

AHK Newsletter⏩SHARE WITH A FRIEND⏩

Do you know someone that would benefit from learning useful automation tips like the gems in today’s issue?  Take a second and forward this newsletter and bask in the glow of their undying gratitude.  Was this email forwarded to you?

Sign up for this Newsletter here.  We never share your email with anyone.  Ever!


The-Automator

Joe, Isaias, Irfan, Rizwan and staff


P.S. So %name%, how much time do you waste daily on mundane tasks that could be automated?

Why don’t you automate more?

Personally, I used to spend 1/3rd of my day automating what I did.  How much do you spend?   Learning AutoHotkey is, by far, one of the best ways to automate the mundane❗

And don’t forget, all of our courses come with a 200% money-back guarantee !