Home Posts tagged "VS Code integration AutoHotkey"

Tag: VS Code integration AutoHotkey

AHK News 2026-01-15 Why I spent $187.89 on a bobblehead doll👀

Tag: 2025-      Subj: Why I spent $187.89 on a bobblehead doll

AutoHotkey Newsletter

Howdy %Name%,

So I got an offer the other day that I just could not pass up!

You may be aware that I have my Undergrad was in Marketing and my Masters in Market Research.

I spend ~20 years working in corporate America in/around Marketing.

The one thing I learned is that the vast amount of Advertising & Marketing done by Corporate America is crap?

Around 15 years ago I happened upon a video from Dan Kennedy and, within a couple of minutes, I could tell he was different.

One major difference is that he insisted that everything was tracked!  If you could not measure it, you didn’t do it!   Period.

Over the years I’ve watched hundreds of seminars from him and read all of his books.

He teaches mostly about direct mail, and marketing, however he does also emphasize productivity.

I’ve learned so much from him that, when I saw the chance to order this Bobblehead doll I had to do it!

Bobblehead doll of a man with blond hair, glasses and a goatee riding a white goat with curved horns

Now, when I feel myself “goofing off” I just glance at him on my desk and get back to work!

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

runAprogram

Advanced Tips for Programming with AI

During last week’s Hero call, Isaias gave a tutorial on how he’s found better ways to work with AI.

He showed how, if you’re using VS Code, you can restrict its ability to edit files, and much more.

Check it out in this video.

Advanced AI Lessons using VSCode and Agents | AHK Hero Extract
Advanced AI Lessons using VSCode and Agents | AHK Hero Extract

Feeding your Data to Various AI tools

Speaking of AI, in this video I walked through some of the cool things I’ve been doing with AI.

From easily creating deployable Apps to leveraging NotebookLM to write marketing materials, AI is really becoming incredibly helpful!

Pushing Data into various AI tools | AHK Hero Extract
Pushing Data into various AI tools | AHK Hero Extract

Automating Parts of the AHK Newsletter

I’ve been writing the AHK Newsletter for over half a decade and have been, over time, streamlining the process.

In this video, I discuss some of the improvements I just made and also discuss some that I’m considering with AI

?? Automating Content Curation: My AI Newsletter Workflow Revealed | AHK Hero Extract
?? Automating Content Curation: My AI Newsletter Workflow Revealed | AHK Hero Extract

Scraping Data from an App

A hero member was asking how we can use AutoHotkey to extract data from an app.   This led to a great discussion of various ways to rip the data which you can see in this video.

?? Web Scraping Secrets: Fake Browser Authentication Like a Pro! | AHK Hero Extract
?? Web Scraping Secrets: Fake Browser Authentication Like a Pro! | AHK Hero Extract

Improving People’s Lives: Story #75

One of our clients does “official” reporting where she has very clear requirements from her employer.

Unfortunately her data was “messy” but, thankfully, she new the logic behind “the rules” really well so, a few Regular Expressions later, and we got her code that saved her hours of time!

?? What we’re reading

?? AI News that you Need to Know

??Productivity tips:  Excel Tips

  • Ctrl + Space – Select entire Column
  • Shift + Space – Select entire Row

?? A spot of Humor:  Tiny Hands

Ranking Tiny Hands Pranks ♥???
Ranking Tiny Hands Pranks ♥???

What we ??utomated this week with AutoHotkey #117

This week’s video is packed with some really cool stuff?

I walk you through an AI-powered icon finder that actually understands what you’re looking for (no more guessing keywords!), show off a Google Maps tool that geocodes customer addresses and scrapes restaurant data, and share some debugging sessions from our HERO club calls.

Plus, I reveal my favorite automation trick: using SetTimer with ExitApp to make scripts that automatically “clean up” after themselves – it’s such a simple thing but it makes life so much easier!

What we Automated with AutoHotkey #117
What we Automated with AutoHotkey #117

Clients say…

How can I pay more for this? — 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 509 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
  • How I run Android apps on Windows
  • AHK Script Maker: Debugging Debugger
  • Using a Ternary to easily apply changes based on logic (instead of using an “if“)
  • Comparing strings, case sensitivity, how to handle when in map, etc.

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

??? ?? Quotable quotes

  • Work first, reward second, in order — Dan Kennedy
  • Love will always have baggage attached. Get over it. Love is essential to a full life. No matter what — John Carlton
  • I will always hire a lazy person to do a hard job, because they will always find an easy way to do it — Bill Gates

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 and staff

P.S. Yes, I really did pay that much for the Dan Kennedy Bobblehead doll.

And, with how much time it saves me it was worth every penny!

I’m sure it’s exactly how our customers feel after having us automate something for them!

Why My Driveway Upgrade Was the Best Time Hack of the Year❗

AutoHotkey Newsletter

Howdy,

I moved “to the country” mid Covid.   We bought a house with 7 acres (and I still love it!)

One of the few things I didn’t like about our move was how dusty my office would get because I was closest to our gravel/dirt driveway.

Around twice a year I’d “amuse” my wife and use a leaf blower to “dust” my office.

This saved me a ton of time and did a decent job with little work.

About a month ago I sold our last rental home and I had extra cash so I decided to redo our driveway with crushed asphalt.

HOLY COW ! 

My only regret is that I didn’t do it years ago!

Now I know just how people feel when they hire us to automate their tasks.

I can rest peacefully knowing I’ve made a sound investment and will not have to blow-out my office.

And my entire family can breathe easier❗

%Name%, what things can you pay for now that will prevent future work❓

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

AutoHotkey to the Rescue

This is how I feel when I meet new clients for the first time. How about you %Name%?


AutoHotkey to the Rescue

Easily Transcribe Multiple Media Files

Our Transcribe & Summarize tool is quite amazing!  It’s got lots of “bells & whistles” however, if you only want transcripts, it was overkill.

So we created our Transcriber tool that lets you drag multiple files to it and it will transcribe them.  There is an option to create a summary, but that’s all.   Check it out in this video.

Transcribe Multiple Video or Audio files with Transcriber
Transcribe Multiple Video or Audio files with Transcriber

Adapting our OCR tool to do more!

Our AI OCR tool is quite amazing at performing OCR on whatever you select from your screen however I realized it is easily adjustable to do much more!  In this video I explain my ideas and show how powerful it could be.

Adapting OCR for flexiblility
Adapting OCR for flexiblility

Change your Drive Icons

During an AHK Hero call I walked people through how easy it is to give yourself a visual reminder by adding icons to your Hard drives that show up in Windows Explorer (and most tools).

I’ve been doing this for 30+ years, but sometimes it’s good to cover the basics!

If you’ve never done this check out how easy it is in this video.

Easily Changing the Icons of your Drives
Easily Changing the Icons of your Drives

Improving People’s Lives: Story #71

Our client needed a quick way to transfer a lot of info from a Word Doc to an Online Survey.

I quickly wrote a “simple” loop that would allow him to copy 5 data points.   Then it would automatically switch to the questionnaire, parse the clipboard content, and paste in the respective fields.

It probably took me about 20 minutes of work but saved him hours (because he had a crazy long survey❗)

What we’re reading

AI News that you Need to Know

Welcome to Google Antigravity
Welcome to Google Antigravity

⚡️Productivity tips:  Play Hide-and-Seek with the Ribbon❗

Control+F1 Toggles the visibility of the Ribbon in most office programs (Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint, Word, etc.)

A spot of Humor:

Between Two Ferns bloopers Non stop laughter!

Between Two Ferns bloopers Non stop laughter!

What we utomated this week with AutoHotkey #111

This week I dove into a ton of AutoHotkey tools we’ve been building – everything from XML processing solutions for clients to launching our new ASM editor for just $4.99 (or Free if you have an All Access Pass)!

In this week’s video I walk you through about 20 different automation tools including hotkey managers, media players with extensive controls, invoice calculators with Stripe integration, and even a clever one-click incognito mode solution that AI helped me figure out.

What we Automated with AutoHotkey #111
What we Automated with AutoHotkey #111

It’s amazing how AutoHotkey keeps solving real-world problems and making tedious tasks disappear.

Come see what we’ve been cooking up!

Clients 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 490 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to AHK Hero members❗

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

  • Help AHK Hero Members with their Questions & Code
  • Regular Expressions: Differences between AHK and RegEx101
  • Ahk Script Maker
    • Searching your clipboard history
    • Adding notes that are “important”
    • Adding Check for Update
  • Creating a Hash versus Encoding
  • Adding a @Important and Note in VSCode to remind you of a problem
  • 5 Git commands that feel like Magic
  • Using a Ternary to easily apply changes based on logic (instead of using an “if”)

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

️ Quotable quotes

  • Work Hard; Be Curious; Be Honest❗— Joe Glines
  • It’s easy to see stupid in other people — Dan Kennedy
  • Better to Remain Silent and Be Thought a Fool than to Speak and Remove All Doubt — Mark Twain
  • 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 and staff

P.S. We have a lot of tools that help us work Smarter, not Harder.

What AHK programming tools help you get more done quicker❓

AHK News 2025-11-13: How to Identify Tasks for Automation

AutoHotkey Newsletter

Howdy,

Previously I’ve made videos on how our brain works differently when we explain things to other people.

Well I’ve been blown away by how much more of my work I’ve been able to automate because of conversations I’ve had with my son (when I was training him to edit our vidoes)

Just like with debugging, you don’t have to be talking to an expert.

When you explain what you’re doing your brain “works differently.”

One of the best things the person you’re talking to can do to help is to question your assumptions.

Surprisingly I find it can help if the person is less knowledgeable about what you do.

They are more likely to, unwittingly, question your assumptions (because they don’t “know better”).

So my advice is to find somebody that’s willing to listen to you and explain your process to them.

Ask them for ideas on things to automate (just not how to do it).

When they propose something, don’t explain “why their suggestion isn’t possible.”

Think about what you would have to do in order to make it possible.

Remember to question your assumptions

Of course you could also just join an AHK Hero call and have a bunch of people throw ideas out to you…

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

explainingAHK

Identifying Path of #Included File

During an AHK Hero call Connie asked if we could “detect” where a given file had been Included from.

It was a pretty interesting challenge which we discussed in this video.

Identifying the #included path
Identifying the #included path

Backing Up Your Post

Have you ever been filling out a form / writing something in a browser and “lost” all the content of what you’ve written❓

That’s what Hero member Harry challenged us with.   Isaias came up with an interesting solution with AutoHotkey, and I offered a JavaScript version at the end with a Bookmarklet.

Auto Backing-up Forum post
Auto Backing-up Forum post

Why Shared Scripts Break

During an AHK Hero call we walked through this list of the Common Reasons why your AHK scripts might break when shared with others (or ran on a 2nd computer).

You can watch our discussion here.

Why Scripts Break when Shared
Why Scripts Break when Shared

Benefits of Setting your Working Directory

While developing AHK Script Maker, Hero member Connie found an issue where AutomateMyTask  would not run.

It failed to run because the script relied on relative paths but we failed to set the Working Directory with SetWorkingDir.

Check out the full discussion in this video.

Benefit of Set Working Directory and Relative Paths
Benefit of Set Working Directory and Relative Paths

Keep Computers up to date with Action1

For one of our clients we’re constantly pushing updated versions of our tools to their 9 computers.

Originally we had to remote in to each computer and transfer the files, however Isaias knew there had to be a “better way”.

After some research and testing we settled on Action1.

Learn more about this (mostly) free tool in this video.

Remotely control computers with Action1
Remotely control computers with Action1

Improving People’s Lives: Story #70

I was on a consultation call with AJ (the client we’re working on the 2nd keyboard tool for) when he mentioned how he needs to use a new hotkey 3 times in order to remember it.

After our call I sent him our HotKeyString lookup tool which can make it very easy to find those created HotStrings / Hotkeys.

What we’re reading

AI News that you Need to Know

Screen sharing and Highlighting with CoPilot
Screen sharing and Highlighting with CoPilot

⚡️Productivity tips:

Great Windows Hotkeys, do you know them all❓

Amazing Windows Shortcuts You Aren’t Using
Amazing Windows Shortcuts You Aren't Using

A spot of Humor:

If you’ve ever shot a pistol you know how ludicrous this is!

Lethal Weapon – “Target Practice”
Lethal Weapon - target practice

What we utomated this week with AutoHotkey #110

In this week’s video, I walk you through a bunch of client projects and tools we cranked out with AutoHotkey – everything from creating a secondary keyboard that actually works on different hardware setups to wrestling with Google Sheets API (which was a fun adventure!).

We tackled some really cool automation challenges like capturing video content from the internet and building distributable programs that solve real-world problems.

It’s amazing how much tedious work you can eliminate when you get creative with AutoHotkey!

What we Autoamted with AutoHotkey #110
What we Autoamted with AutoHotkey #110

Clients say…

I am so thankful for all you are doing to help us in this conversion and our mission to produce a solid product. — Stephanie Holland

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 487 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to AHK Hero members❗

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

  • Help AHK Hero Members with their Questions & Code
  • Regular Expressions: Differences between AHK and RegEx101
  • Using Edit field to Filter a list
    • Change Search to “Fuzzy” match via RegEx
  • Adding Check for Update to Ahk Script Maker
  • Using a Ternary to easily apply changes based on logic (instead of using an “if”)
  • Changing show 50 on YouTube- rethinking our UIA script
  • Changing our Licenses to be a 1-time check instead of checking on start every time
  • Comparing strings, case sensitivity, how to handle when in map, etc.
  • Using SendTo for passing multiple files to a 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

  • The secret to getting things done is to get started; The secret to getting started is to divide your task into small pieces with “quick wins”. — Joe Glines
  • Never give up, never surrender, and always go for the win. — Charlie Kirk
  • Work hard, Be honest, Be kind — Buckin’ Billy Ray Smith

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 and staff

P.S. You really should get another set of eyes on your processes.

You’ll be amazed at how much more can be automated!