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Posts tagged "Windows 11 context menu AutoHotkey"

AHK News: Why I fired my son last Sunday❗

Howdy %Name%,

A couple of months ago I hired my son to help me edit videos and work on the-Automator business.

I was impressed how fast he was learning to edit videos and upload our AHK Hero Call summaries to WordPress.

But, like many people, he hadn’t learned to prioritize keeping the boss happy over “his wants”.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t asking him to be like me.

During my junior and Senior years of High school, I worked ~ 60 hours a week. And, when I finished working my way through college, I frequently worked 80+ hours a week for Corporate America.

But the crazy hours I put in for Corporate America were mainly of my choosing and was mostly where I was investing in myself (learning to work smarter, not harder).

I fired my son because I felt he was “soft” and needed a “reality check”. (excuse the pun)

He can continue to live here while in College and I’ll keep him fed but he’ll have to fend for himself for money.

If he shows signs of realizing his poor judgment choosing to play online games with friends and leaving me waiting for him to work then I’ll reconsider.

The best part about being a Strategic / “Long-Term” thinker is that I don’t even feel bad because I know I’m “helping him“.

What do you think %name%, am I a “meanie“❓

Now on with the show…

Access all our Courses; Quit when you want

How AI can save you Thousands of Dollars and Reduce your Stress

I think most of us have used AI for some basic things but I came across a wonderful use case where AI can save you a crazy amount of money (and greatly reduce your stress).

Fittingly I used AI to create a video explaining how to use AI to save a fortune!

How to Use AI to fight Unfair / Complex Bills

Configuring New File Templates for AHK v2

During an AHK Hero call we got an interesting question about configuring a New File Template for AutoHotkey.

In this video Isaias walked us through how easy it is to configure multiple templates! It’s easier than you think!

Configuring your AutoHotkey v2 New File Templates

Greatly Simplify Your Code by Using Groups

Sometimes you want conditions based on multiple programs / windows etc. In that case using the Group methods can be a lifesaver! Check out how Isaias used them in this video.

Using Groups to Make your AutoHotkey Coding Life Easier❗

Using a Ternary to Simplify your Code

I was using Claude to create a tool. I’d given it our Notify class and told it I wanted a different notification based on conditions.

I have to admit I was surprised (in a good way) when I looked at the code.

We walk through it in this video.

Using Ternary with Notify

Improving People’s Lives: Story #69

A few months back our client AJ had mentioned he was tired of “buying new Stream Decks” because he kept killing his. We finally got the Hotkeys for 2^nd keyboard script working properly.

It needs more work before we share it with the general public but we got our client configured during a consultation.

Now he can map keys on a 2^nd keyboard to actions!

What we’re reading

Your Hard Drive is slowly dying – How to Make sure Your Data Is Safe
How to fix the most Annoying Things About Windows 11
How to block Internet access for Specific Android Apps

AI News that you Need to Know

How I used Copilot to share my screen (and have it show me where to click)
These free Deepfake AI tools are ridiculously good
Google’s new vibe coding AI Studio lets anyone build & deploy apps live in minutes

AI Superpower Guide: Know which to use depending on your task

⚡️Productivity tips: Just do 5 minutes

If you don’t want to do something, make a deal with yourself to do at least five minutes of it.

Usually, after five minutes, you’ll be up for doing much more!

A spot of Humor:

The best heckle I ever heard at the tennis!

What we utomated this week with AutoHotkey #109

This week we knocked out a bunch of client projects and I have to say, some of these solutions were pretty slick!

In this week’s video I walk you through things like our new long-press hotkey feature (which is way cooler than it sounds), bug fixes to our script maker tool, and how we’re helping clients automate their workflows in ways that would’ve taken forever to do manually. If you’ve ever wondered what kind of real-world problems AutoHotkey can solve, this one’s definitely worth a watch.

What we automated with AutoHotkey #109

Clients say…

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

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 484 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
Regular Expressions: Differences between AHK and RegEx101
API call to Google Sheets
Using an Edit Field to Filter a list
Using a Ternary to easily apply changes based on logic (instead of using if)
Update on Hotkeys for 2^nd Keyboard
Using SendTo for passing multiple files to a script
Script highlight: Windows 11 Context Menu Switcher

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

Burn the bridges back to mediocrity — Napoleon Hill
Learn a HotKey a day to keep inefficiency away! — Joe Glines
Whatever happens randomly can be made to happen on purpose — Dan Kennedy
Failure is not the opposite of success; It’s a part of it!

⏩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. One of my favorite quotes is :

Hard times create Strong men.

Strong men create Good times.

Good times create Weak men.

Weak men create Hard times.

Many will not understand, but you have to raise warriors, not parasites.— G. Michael Hopf

AHK News 2025-10-23 Oh that!

Howdy %Name%,

Years ago I worked at a company where a group of us would meet in the cafeteria for coffee before the day started.

One of the guys was always a “negative ninny” and complained about everything!

He was so bad that I decided to put my belief to the test.

When he and his wife returned from Paris, I asked him what he thought of the Mona Lisa.

“oh that”

was his initial reply (and he went on about “what a waste of time” it was❗)

What I didn’t realize at the time is how much people’s attitudes both affect you and wear off on you.

So be careful who you spend time with.

Our AHK Hero Club is packed with positive people that have a “can do” attitude!

Now, on with the show…

Pasting Files with a Hotkey

During our AHK Hero call last week we discussed updates to our Clipster function.

In this extract we demonstrated how, besides being able to paste HTML links and pictures, you can now paste files with a HotString or Hotkey.

Pasting files with a HotKey

65 uses of HotStrings

While we’re on the topic of HotStrings, I also discussed this list of 65 ideas for using HotStrings. Thanks again Ryan for helping me come up with the list!

Discussing HotString Use Cases

Free Tool for Seeing Hard Drive Usage

A client mentioned she was running out of hard drive space. In this video I mentioned she could use WinDirStat for seeing a visual of what is eating up file space on her computer. Several AHK Hero members mentioned they prefer WizTree.

See your Directory and File size with this cool free tool WinDirStat

Using Clipboard instead of a Variable

During a recent consultation, a client was asking for feedback on his script.

One thing I noticed was that he was, using the Clibpoard and continuously updating/changing the value (using StrSplit, SubStr, Regex, etc.) on it.

It made for a great topic during the Hero call.

Tips and Tricks on using a Variable or the Clipboard

Improving People’s Lives: Story #68

A new client joined the AHK Hero Club and asked for help automating updating parts on a website.

We wrote him a very robust tool using Rufaydium to get the cookies and then do the activities with API calls (instead of automating the browser)

If a human was to do update for a part it would take ~25 seconds (assuming they stayed focused)

The client had around 20,000 parts to update! This works out to ~139 hours (more than 3 weeks of work)

Our script took around ~2 seconds to update a part (and ran by itself) finishing the task in less than 1 day. And our script created log files tracking all actions taken❗

Ballparking it, they would have paid around $7,100 to have a human do it❗