AutoHotkey Applications

"AutoHotkey Applications" is neither a beginning tutorial nor an advanced technical manual. It is an intermediate level guide to building useful applications with AutoHotkey. Many of the scripts discussed are quite simple and can be implemented by anyone with a basic understanding of AutoHotkey. Others are a bit more involved.

The vast majority of this book, "AutoHotkey Applications", is about building apps with the AutoHotkey GUI (Graphical User Interface). These GUIs are a set of pop-ups which simulate many of the windows found in tools. Although they are not quite as simple as text replacement with hotstrings, the AutoHotkey GUIs offer a wide variety of ready built gadgets which can create useful Windows controls and practical gadgets for your everyday use. These include calendars, edit windows, list boxes, Windows Explorer-like trees and lists, menus, slider controls, progress bars, updown wheels, status bars, and a number of other controls.

The AutoHotkey scripts discussed in this book go beyond the standard tools and introduce apps which can be used in everyday life. The scripts in this book are designed to inspire more ideas for AutoHotkey apps and include:

• A barebones Windows media player script for playing music and videos (SoundPlay and FileSelectFile)

• A Multimedia Greeting Card (Progress/Splash Image, ComObjCreate(), including external files and compiling)

• An egg timer script with a graphic countdown bar (UpDown and Progress Bar GUI Controls, SoundBeep)

• An AutoHotkey Script for Instantly Creating Temporary Hotkeys (HotKey GUI Control)

• A Slider App for Dimming the Computer Screen (Slider and StatusBar GUI Control)

• A Daily To-Do List App (ListView GUI Control, Saving a Data File, Resizing and Positioning the GUI, and Right-Click Menus)

• An Address Book App (ListView, Right-Click Menus, CSV Data File, E-mail,a Formatted Input Screen, and Deletion Protection)

• A Calorie Counting App (ListView and GroupBox GUI Controls, FileRead, and Accessing Web Data)

• A Recipe Book Script (TreeView GUI Control, Right-click Menus, and CSV Data File Format)

• An AutoHotkey App Control Center (ListView with Menus and Adding System Icons)

Also highlighted in this book are a few useful apps written by other AutoHotkey enthusiasts. These free scripts include a dictionary app which draws data directly from the Web, a scratchpad app, a powerful Windows Clipboard manager, and a couple of other scripts available through the AutoHotkey Web site.

Plus "AutoHotkey Applications" includes tips for:

• Automating Right-click Context Menus

• Protection Against Rogue Windows Hotkeys (#IfWinActive, ErrorLevel Breaks Loop)

• Fixing Broken Word Wraps

• Adding Icons to AutoHotkey Menus (IfInString, Menu,...,Icon)

• An Easier Way to Get Your Computer to Talk to You (ComObjectCreate)

• Pop-up Labels for All Your Programs (ToolTip Command)

• A Script to Change the Windows Registry (RegRead and RegWrite Commands)

• Adding Color to ListView Rows (A_GuiEvent)

• And More!

Plus, more about the Inner Workings and Hidden Mechanisms of AutoHotkey:

• Combining Apps into One Script (#Include and DetectHiddenWindows)

• Packaging Files When Compiling (FileInstall Command)

• Hiding the System Tray Icon and Running in the Background (NoTrayIcon)

• Common AutoHotkey Messages and Errors

"AutoHotkey Applications" shows what AutoHotkey can do rather than the teaching every possibility for each command.