AutoHotkey Newsletter 
AutoHotkey Newsletter November 10th, 2022
On November 10, 2003 Chris Mallet released the very first version of AutoHotkey(Beta .205)
We all owe Chris a huge Thank you❗
I just thought you’d like to know AutoHotkey has been around for 19 years now! I was lucky enough to stumble upon it around 2007.
I found AutoHotkey because I was tired of using AutoCorrect in MS office programs (mainly because, at the time, AutoCorrect didn’t sync between Word, Excel PowerPoint etc.) So HotStrings were my first love (which is why the HotStrings course was the first one I created)
Hard to believe that the beta Version of AutoHotkey 2 was released this year! Although we are expecting it to become the default version of AutoHotkey in 2024.
I just looked at my oldest backup of AutoHotkey.ahk file (which was from 2008) and it was quite a flash-back. When I first started using AutoHotkey I stuck with HotStrings and Hotkeys plus a little bit of bit of mouse clicks and a little RegEx to clean up text. Take a look at your original scripts. Have you “leveled-up”? If not, why not?
I know both I and AutoHotkey have come a long way over the past 19 years. If you haven’t progressed perhaps you should conser one of our courses to learn AutoHotkey?
To celebrate AutoHotkey’s 19th birthday I’m creating a store wide coupon for 19% everything we offer!
In the next week you can get any of our courses for 19% off. Just go here and select a course that you want to purchase. Then use “AHK19Birthday” as the coupon code during checkout.
This also includes Tutoring, done for you Consulting or even signing up for our AHK Hero group.
This coupon code will be valid for 19 days (until November 29th) but use it now to continue to improve yourself!
Joe, Isaias, and team
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P.S. Can you imagine a world without AutoHotkey? I can and it is scary! I’ve saved an amazing amount of time using AutoHotkey. I hope you realize it is more than sending mouse clicks and key strokes. Use this email as a point to jump-start your knowledge and shift your strategy to working smarter, not harder.
AutoHotkey Newsletter November 3rd, 2022
Howdy %Name%,
Do you ever wish you could custom design your own future as a programmer / Automator?
Cool! Then I’ve got one heck of a counterintuitive tip for you.
First, line up all the mistakes possible in your gig.
Then… go MAKE them. All of ‘em. Yes, every last one.
Why?
Cuz 99% of learning is from what we do wrong, not what we do right.
Now on with the show…
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Updates to the AHK Toolkit: Great way to test your code
I asked Isaias to spend some time on his AHK Toolkit. He made it super easy to switch between versions of AutoHotkey 😊. In this video we also discuss some of the other really cool features it has.
Streamline testing your code with this Update to AHK Toolkit
Adjusting Output window
Speaking of testing code, have you tried out our function that pays attention to the editor you are in and adjusts for you? Quite handy if you’re using more than one editor (or sharing your code with others that use a different editor). We discuss how to use it in this video but you can get the function here.
Debugging your scripts: Displaying text regardless of editors
Getting Properties from UIA
On a client call the other day we were extremely thankful for Descolada’s work on UIA. The programs we were automating were very “new” and impossible to peak inside of by any other method. It reminded me of this video where Isaias walks us through how to access properties.
How to easily access properties from UIA
🎃Spooky updates to AutoHotkey👻
On October 30th Lexikos released updates to both V1 and V2. In this video Isaias and I discuss the tweaks / patches released in V1.1.35.00. BTW- have you begun to program in V2 yet?
Context Sensitive Hotkeys in v2
If you are working in V2, you’ll need to rethink Context sensitive hotkeys using the #HotIf directive.
This is because: IfWinactive, IfWinexist, etc. have been removed as AxleFublr explains in this video. If you’re wanting to learn V2, his channel, AHK All the Way, only uses V2. Incidentally he was on our live Friday AutoHotkey help call last week. Thanks for dropping in Axlfublr!
Sometimes stupid works🤦♂️!
As you should know we rarely send keystrokes & mouse clicks. That being said, sometimes you realize it would be handy to just send mouse clicks…. The other day I was cleaning up my spam folder and realized a 3-line, super simple, script would be extremely “handy” (excuse the pun).
Super simple script for cleaning up spam folder
Reading And Writing text files
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m working on an email drip campaign for people new to AutoHotkey. One of the emails is how to read/write text files. Since I’m super lazy I decided to just extract a video from the Intro to AutoHotkey course. In this short video I show you how easy it is to in AutoHotkey. I also show how you can easily check if a file exists or not.
📚 What we’re reading
- The 10 Worst Computer Viruses in History (none written in AHK!)
- YouTube Premium’s Price Is Going Up,
- 9 Common Energy Vampires Running Up Your Electric Bill
⚡️Productivity tips: Break up your day
Consider breaking your day down into various time slots. Then have specific things you do during those slots and stick to it. For instance, I typically open my emails in the morning and then in the afternoon but, most of the day, I don’t have Outlook / Gmail open.
🤣 A spot of Humor: 🤪 Crazy people!
In 1990 Dudley Moore starred in “Crazy People”. A movie that is mostly forgettable except for the general idea of “what would happen if advertisers told the truth”? Some hilarious ads were written! 🤣🤣🤣
AHK Hero?
Want more time than the free hour? Have content that you can’t have on YouTube? Consider joining the 🦸♀️AHK Hero club! Members receive big discounts to courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.
They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and a 2nd “office hours” session which isn’t on YouTube.
🗣️ 💭 Quotable quotes
- Whatever Your Mind Can Conceive and Believe, It Can Achieve. — Napoleon Hill
- Work harder on yourself than you do on your job — Jim Rohn
- The secret to getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. — Mark Twain
Live AutoHotkey Support Tomorrow
Don’t forget on Friday’s you can get free AutoHotkey support on my YouTube channel. Or you can sign up for reminders and join the zoom room.
You can use either of the below to add a reminder for the Friday meetings. We hope to see you there!
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Joe, Isaias and staff
P.S. Due to the urging of our clients we’re going to be raising our prices soon (apparentely we offer way more value than what we’re charging). Anyway, I’m going to increase our overall prices however, AHK Heroes will be locked-in to the current price for the next year so you might consider signing up now if you plan to hire us in the future.
