Imagine you’re making your cup of morning coffee ☕. If you’re like my wife you like it with 2 sugars and 3 creams. However here is how you go about making it:
You pour 2 ounces of coffee in your coffee cup
You add 1 sugar
You add 1 cream
You pour 2 more ounces of coffee
You add the 2nd sugar
You add 2nd cream
You pour 2 more ounces of coffee
You add 3rd cream
You pour 2 more ounces of coffee
Great, now you have 8 ounces of coffee however it took you quite a bit of effort to get your coffee…
This sounds ridiculous however it’s how most people tackle tasks they do every day❗
They don’t spot the pattern and end up doing things individually and not batching them together.
Work on batching your tasks together (where it makes sense) and you’ll save a lot of time!
It’s also important to note that, while computers are far better at humans switching between tasks, your AutoHotkeyscripts can also be optimized by grouping together like-items. This is just one of the things we teach during our AutoHotkey Hero calls.
Now on with the show…
Pinning non-Executables to the Taskbar in Windows 11
A while back both Isaias and I made the switch to Windows 11. While it isn’t horrible (like Win 8) they did make a lot of changes (in the wrong direction as far as we’re concerned). One example is the lack of being able to pin an AutoHotkey script (or any non-executable) to the Taskbar. In this video I show a simple “work around”. If you’re like me and want the Taskbar on the side you can check out the ExplorerPatch tool I show during the video.
How to Pin a non-executable file to Taskbar in Windows 11
Creating custom functions in AutoHotkey (Extract from Intro to AHK)
If you’re new to AutoHotkey one of the fastest and best ways you can “level-up” is to be using the many built-in functions. I mentioned this last week and linked to this video which shows how to start using them.
The very next way to leap-forward it to start creating your own custom functions. I’ve extracted another video from the Intro to AutoHotkey course showing you how to create your own functions. As I like to say Functions are like go-subs on crack! Give it a look and you’ll understand why!
Using built-in Commands and Built in AHK v2
Don’t forget the Intro to AutoHotkey course is over 4 hours long and has a ton more value! And don’t worry, all our courses come with a 200% money back guarantee!
AI Creeping into our Tech everywhere…
This morning I was playing on my Android phone and accidentally discovered some AI on an image I was pressing.
I documented it in this video but, in another year, our world is going to be transformed!
AI on images in Android Phone
Examples of what I’ve used AutoHotkey to Automate
We were on a client call and he suggested I record more videos like this one where I share what I’ve automated lately with AutoHotkey. I told him I have an entire playlist of these however, since much of what we work on now is confidential client work, I can’t record videos on them. I did realize that there are lots of side-projects I have Isaias and Irfan do for me. So I’ll try and start making some more videos documenting some of the cool internal tools that we create.
AutoHotkey automation review (003) | What I automated with AutoHotkey
AutoHotkey & StreamDeck
We started using Elgato Stream Decks a while back and I have to say, I am liking them way more than I anticipated! Having said that, I basically use mine as a Hotkey for triggering scripts / programs because I do all the automating in my AutoHotkey script. Anyway, I happened to see this video from Walden’s Automation where he documents how to toggle your AHK script
Stream Deck AutoHotkey Launcher – Toggle Scripts with your stream deck
Great Episode by two Legendary Marketing Gurus
As you might know I’m a huge Dan Kennedy fan. I’ve read nearly every book he’s written and he’s an absolute marketing genius! I was really excited to find his Magnetic Marketing podcast. Over the weekend I was listening to this episode where he interviews Jay Abraham
Lumineries– World-class coaching, powered by AI. Users can gain access to a wealth of real-world knowledge tailored to their unique needs and aspirations.
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
Decisions without actions are worthless — Dan Kennedy
Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I’ll spend the first 4sharpening the axe — Abraham Lincoln
What I lack in Skills & Abilities I make up for with Optimism & Determination
What people think of you is irrelevant. But how you leave this world matters. Even if it’s all futile in the end, play your part as well as you can. Real courage is fear, in action. Play your hand. — John Carlton
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?
P.S. Batching things are a great way to be more productive. I find having a schedule really helps me stay organized and ensure I work smarter, not harder.
It’s one of there reasons I encourage our Clients to use their calendar to block time to work through our AHK Courses.
Things are coming along here now that I’m moved into my office we’re adding a carport. I actually helped dig the wholes the other day. It was tough work, but I’m looking forward to being able to park under it soon! Do you think my friend’s pickup is big enough??? 😲
Office hours tomorrow October 1st
Tomorrow we’re planning office hours with Thom from TabNation at 11 EDT. If you have a question you’d like answered you can submit it here (or just go to my YouTube channel and ask it live). After this week I’m going to start alternating the guests. I plan to bring in people like: Jean Lalonde (Quick Access Popup) , Maestrith (AHK Studio), Tank (AutoHotkey forum), Hellbent (AHK GUI guru), etc. If there’s someone you’d like to have on, let me know!
FileExPro from SKAN 📢
I found this amazing function from SKAN give you access 1,317 file attributes! Granted, the actual number depends on the type of file you’re working with but it’s pretty amazing none-the-less. I worked through using it in this video.
Cleaning 📞 phone numbers with a RegEx
Regular Expressions are amazingly helpful! I have a good series on them here. In this video I walk through how to use one for cleaning up US Phone numbers.
How to record Audio 🎙️ using AutoHotkey and BASS.dll
In this tutorial I show how you can use the BASS.dll to record audio on your computer. I tested recording .mp3, .wav, .ogg, and .aiff file formats. I think there are native tools in windows to record audio, but this was pretty cool and allowed for flexibility of file formats.
Have you watched the last webinar on Objects? Jean Lalonde, author of Quick Access Popup, did a great job showing Simple and Associative Arrays. The next AutoHotkey webinar Jackie and I will be discussing functions. You can sign up here
P.S. Special thanks to the following for purchasing multiple AutoHotkey Udemy courses this month!
4 Richard C.
3 Jean Claude L..
3 Frank W.
3 Bettye C.
3 Angelo D.
2 Ulrich S.
2 Robert R.
2 Pang L.
2 Marcos T.
2 Lucas A.
2 Juan J.
2 Eugene V.
2 Cristi A.
2 Chachrist S.
2 Bartosz S.
AutoHotkey Newsletter 9/23/2021
Hi %Name%,
I hope you’re doing well! I’ve still been super busy around my house. Thankfully I’m (mostly) moved into my new office and are getting ready for the car port to be built. I was going to go across the entire driveway (fifty feet) but decided I enjoyed the morning sun hitting me while I’m at the computer. After spending ~20 years working in fortune 500 companies, I hated being in huge buildings w/o even being able see any sunlight. Now I can sit at my computer and get a tan! 🌞
This weekend was particularly hard work. I spent 20 hours running a chain saw and cutting the trees we fell in our pond so I could burn them. They were one of the big reasons why we didn’t have year-round water at the pond so I decided to cut them down. Hopefully, next week, the excavator will come in and dig the pond down more and expand it. Then I can begin to try and fill it! While I was watching the fire burn, I took a picture and happened to notice what looked like a sad-face in the fire. I circled it below but no other editing was done. Am I crazy???
Great call with Hellbent!
I had a great call with Hellbent yesterday! He’s working on additions to my screen clipping tool 😲 but mentioned he had a need class for making it easy to use GDIP to create layered windows. Here’s the video where he walks me through how to use it. You can get all resources mentioned in the video here.
BTW- Hellbent is hoping to join us this Friday during Office Hours. Will you be there %name%? If you can’t make it, but have a question, you can submit it here. If you’re not aware of Hellbent, he’s got a great YouTube channel that you can watch here.
Calculating distances between Latitude & Longitudes
A subscriber mentioned he was using Google maps for calculating the distances between two points. I realized I’d already solved this in AutoHotkey (with Maestrith’s help). In this video, I walk through how to use the function.
Play / Pause a video in VLC- and get the time stamp
In this video I show how I automated starting/stopping VLC with AutoHotkey & the ACC library ⚡. More importantly my original script required the entire ACC library (and an #Include). I decided to “pull in” the functions I was relying on to have a self-contained script. Many users don’t understand how libraries work in AutoHotkey. Pulling in the functionality that you need reduces the issues you’ll have at a later date. Of course you also won’t have benefits if someone “improves” the ACC library, but I’d rather just trust what I have then hope new changes don’t mess-up my script!
P.S. Special thanks to the following for purchasing multiple AutoHotkey Udemy courses this month!
4 Richard C.
3 Jean Claude L.
3 Frank W.
3 Bettye C.
3 Angelo D.
2 Ulrich S.
2 Robert R.
2 Lucas A.
2 Juan J.
2 Eugene V.
2 Cristi A.
AutoHotkey Newsletter 10/16/2021
Hi %Name%,
Here’s a pre-post comparison picture of my house. We converted the carport into a bedroom & office. He did an amazing job making it look like it was part of the original house! 😁 Next is to add Solar 🌞 which will be awesome!
I had a great call with Leo Davidson from Directory Opus and Jean Lalonde from Quick Access Popup. Jean demonstrated some great functionality that is integrated with Directory Opus⚡️. It was wonderful talking with others that love to save time! I hope to do more calls with Leo & Jean!
Learn more about Directory Opus by watching these great videos
Just a reminder, Quick Access Popup is now back to free / donation ware! This is an amazing tool! I use it around 100 times a day and it saves me from a ton of manual programming in AutoHotkey!
Next Tuesday, Jean Lalonde will be giving us an Intro to Objects. Be sure to sign up so you get the email reminders and resources. Using objects in AHK allows us to group values in sequences (lists) or to group values by subject for example, properties of an item.)
In this webinar , Jean will cover basics of using objects and show a complete application reading a file to build list of records and songs.
BTW- I covered an intro into Objects in the Intermediate AHK Course
As I mention in this video, Automate This is a really interesting book. Not so much on “how” to automate,
but the tenacity & ingenuity used as well as the “never give up” mentality!
Quotable quotes
Winners are NOT those who never fail but those who never quit.
If you have time to whine then you have time to find solution. —Dee Dee Artner
The person who says it’s not possible needs to get out of my way — Joe Glines
P.S. Special thanks to the following for purchasing multiple AutoHotkey Udemy courses this month!
3 Jean Claude L.
3 Frank W.
3 Angelo D.
2 Lucas Silveira A.
2 Eugene V.
2 Cristi Marian A.
AutoHotkey Newsletter 09/09/2021
Greetings %Name%,
I hope you’re doing well. It was a trying week for me as I moved into my new office and had to go to storage to get the 27 boxes of books 📚 and my book shelves that I’d stored. Here’s a short video showing my new office layout. Still lots to be done, but it’s usable and much larger than my last one!
Developer’s corner 📢
As I mentioned in this video, TAB Nation and I are going to hold “office hours” 🆘 tomorrow, Friday Sep 10that 11 Eastern. We’re considering doing this regularly and would love❤️ your feedback on when to have them & where to host them (or if you have questions you want answered). Please complete this short form to let us know how we can better help you.
Speaking of TAB Nation, we made a video a little while back discussing how to improve the likelihood of getting help with your code. A bit of it was out of frustration because some people (I’m sure you’re not one of them) expect us to drop everything and solve their problems with very little direction.
Hotkeys that paste images 🖼️
I recently released this cool script that allows you to use a hotkey to paste images. If you have images you paste often It’s a huge time saver!
Quick Menu list of Text Snippets
Do you have a lot of text snippets ✍️that you frequently paste and can’t remember the HotKey or HotString for them? Typically I’d recommend Quick Access Popup however it can be daunting to people that want something so simple. So I wrote this little gem that displays a menu of your text snippets and lets you select from them.
Podcast #111 Pros & Cons of Windows 365 / Windows in the cloud
In this week’s podcast Jackie Sztuk and I discuss the pros & cons of Windows 365 and how it will affect our AutoHotkey usage
📢 AutoHotkey webinar on Objects
During our next webinar on September 21st Jean Lalonde, author of Quick Access Popup, will give us an intro to using Objects. Be sure to register for it as I’m sure he’s going to give us some great insights into using objects.
Speaking of Quick Access Popup, Jean Lalonde has recently made a HUGE decision! He’s decided to change QAP back to being Donation ware. As you know %name%, I’m an enormous fan of QAP. It saves me so much time it’s crazy to think that now, hopefully with a donation, you can have full access to this amazing tool! Thanks again Jean for this amazing tool!
P.S. Special thanks to the following for purchasing multiple AutoHotkey Udemy courses this month!
AutoHotkey Newsletter 9/09/2021
Greetings %Name%,
It’s hard to believe but my office and new bedroom are (basically) done! 😁 I’m waiting for my new desk to arrive to move in, but here’s a pic of it empty.
Developer’s corner
I was working with a client that frequently wants to paste specific pictures. A while back I’d shown how to automate putting a picture in the clipboard but
thought I’d make it a bit easier (and have it automatically paste). I also went through and pulled in the specific GDI functions so now the script is self-contained.
Calculating time / Money savings 💵
Someone commented on a video where I discussed how to calculate how much savings 💲 you have from automating. I’d honestly forgotten I’d made it! It’s a really important question though. %Name%, do you keep track of how much you save your company by using AutoHotkey?
Podcast that week
Last Tuesday’s podcast was a fun one as Jackie and I discussed if we should bother teaching our kids 👨🏫 AutoHotkey given the use of Tablets, Chrome books, etc. You can check it, and other podcasts out here.
AutoHotkey Webinar on September 21st
Last month’s webinar covering V2️ was really interesting (thanks again Dimitri!) Next month’s webinar Jean Lalonde, author of Quick Access Popup, is going to give us an Intro to using Objects. Be sure to sign up! BTW- are you a QAP User? If so, would you be up for a call with me sharing how you use the tool?
📢 THIS JUST IN! 📢 I got a note from Jean that he’d like to create a coupon for Quick Access Popup. So, if you love it like I do, now’s a great time to buy. You can get the discount code here but you better act fast, it will expirebefore you know it and you’ll feel as smart as the guy that sold Excel to Microsoft!
AHK Hero 🦸
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