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Tag: vscode

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

Most common “gotchas” when starting-out with AutoHotkey

When diving into AutoHotkey, beginners often encounter a few common pitfalls. Recognizing these can significantly smooth out the learning process. Here’s a breakdown of the top mistakes:

  1. Neglecting the AHK Documentation:
    • AutoHotkey has excellent, comprehensive documentation. Many beginners try to learn through scattered online examples, which can lead to confusion.
    • Mistake: Not thoroughly reading and understanding the official AutoHotkey documentation.
    • Solution: Prioritize familiarizing yourself with the core concepts and syntax from the official source.  Of course, you also could learn oodles from our AHK Courses
  2. Trying to Imitate a Human instead of using an API approach
    • Most people start off with AutoHotkey sending keystrokes and mouse clicks
    • Mistake: AutoHotkey has built-in ways to automate programs far superior and are much more reliable. This is especially important if you plan to use it on more than 1 comptuer!
    • Solution:Schedule a call with a Pro that can quickly let you know which is the best way to automate your specific program
  3. Trying to Automate an entire process at the start
    • Many people get carried away thinking they can easily automate 100% of a process.
    • Mistake: Automating an entire process takes a lot of time!
    • Solution: Identify the “pain points” and automate those (to start). The next time through, automate a bit more…
  4. Not Using Comments:
    • As scripts grow in complexity, it becomes difficult to remember what each section does.
    • Mistake: Writing scripts without clear and concise comments.
    • Solution: Always add comments to explain the purpose of different code sections. This will make your scripts easier to maintain and debug.  (I guarantee you’ll thank me later❗)
  5. Misuse of Hotkeys and Hotstrings:
    • Choosing hotkeys that conflict with existing system shortcuts or creating hotstrings that trigger unintentionally.
    • Mistake: Using common key combinations or creating hotstrings that are too short.
    • Solution: Select unique and less frequently used hotkey combinations. Test hotstrings thoroughly to avoid unintended triggers. Binding them to a program, by making them context sensitive, can greatly reduce this issue!  We cover Hotkeys & HotStrings in Intro to AHK
  6. Not Understanding How to do basic Debugging:
    • When a script doesn’t work as expected, beginners often struggle to identify the cause.
    • Mistake: Not utilizing MsgBox or other debugging techniques to track variable values and script execution.
    • Solution: Learn to use debugging tools and techniques to identify and fix errors.
  7. Working in a “bubble“:
    • When people try and learn AutoHotkey on their own they often waste an incredible amount of time.
    • Mistake: Not finding a “coding buddy” / expert to ask questions to.
    • Solution: If you don’t know anyone, the AHK Hero Club is an excellent way to get help from AHK Experts!
  8. Working with AHK v1 instead of AHK v2:
    • A lot of people are using AHK v1 because there are so many examples
    • Mistake: AutoHotkey v1 is depricated.  There are no updates being done and new funcionality is not being added.  For all intents and purposes AHK v1 is dead.
    • Solution: AHK v2 solves many of the issues AHK v1 had.  It was in development for over 10 years and now is the official version.  If you wan to use AI to help write V2 Code, I definitely recommend Claude or Deepseek.   We have an excellent AHK v1 to v2 course.

By being aware of these common mistakes, you can significantly improve your AutoHotkey learning experience.