Second Edition of the New Beginner’s Guide Includes More Windows Program Automation

Two New AutoHotkey PC Software Automation Chapters in the Second Edition of Jack’s New Beginner’s Guide to AutoHotkey

In the course of editing Jack’s Motley Assortment of AutoHotkey Tips, I discovered two chapters discussing Windows program automation which long ago I had intended to add to the AutoHotkey Beginner’s Guide. My bad. I have now fixed that omission and added them to the Second Edition. The new chapters appear as follows:

Chapter Seventeen: Automate Any Program in Windows, Part I (New in Second Edition)

• Use AutoHotkey to Automate Your Favorite Windows Programs
  
• AutoHotkey Works with Any Program
  
• Automating Program Menus
  
• Using Menu Shortcut Keys
  
• Cascading Menus
  
• Navigating Pop-up Windows
  
• Click to Success!
  
• Finding AutoHotkey Key Names

Chapter Eighteen: Automate Any Program in Windows: Part II (New in Second Edition)

• Find the Hidden Names of Program Controls to Automate Windows Applications
  
• Using Control Names to Automate Programs
  
• Finding Control Names
  
• Control Commands
  
• Less Code with ControlSetText Command
  
• Save As… Dialogue

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New Book of Jack’s Motley Assortment of AutoHotkey Tips

 

Jack’s Motley Assortment
of AutoHotkey  Tips

A Living Book

This first edition of my new book Jack’s Motley Assortment of AutoHotkey Tips includes more than 80 chapters of AutoHotkey tips, tricks, and techniques. But, that only reflects the starting point for this Living book. Every six months to a year, I will add 30 or more new chapters based upon my current explorations of AutoHotkey. If you purchase this book, you will get all of these new editions free. You only need to buy this book once.

To review the “Table of Contexts” and “Index”, see this Motley Tips page.

Add Emoji Characters to Any Windows Document (AutoHotkey Hotstrings)

Why Search Through Pop-up Tools When You Can Directly Enter Any Emoji into Your Documents, E-Mails, and Web Editing Windows with AutoHotkey?

“I went to the 🏖 on a 🌞day. The 🌞 was so 🔆 that I needed to wear 🕶. I was lucky enough to see a 👩 in a 👙🖐 to me. I saw 🌊s, ⛵s, 🌈s, and a 🦄. Maybe, I had a few too many 🍻s.” 🙄

Years ago I wrote about an AutoHotkey app called WinCompose: a Robust Compose Key for Windows which adds special characters to any Windows document or Web editing field. It appeared to use the Input command in conjunction with a “Compose” key to enter memorable keystrokes for inserting special characters. WinCompose has since converted to a different programming language and added emoji support. Similar to emoticons, emojis add special cartoon-like pictograms to your documents. Unlike emoticons, many programs recognize emojis—as long as the software includes UTF-8 support.

A Trick for Inserting Next Friday’s Date into Any Document (AutoHotkey Tip)

An AutoHotkey Technique for Determining Date for Any Coming Day of the Week, Plus a Pop-up for Picking Future Weekdays

“Do You Know Next Friday’s Date?”

We record upcoming events on our monthly calendars, but we live one week at a time. Most people work Monday through Friday and relax on Saturday and Sunday. If someone gives us a date for an occasion, we ask, “What day is that?”—meaning “Give me the day of the week.”

A Beginner’s Guide to Understanding AutoHotkey If Statements

It Can Get Pretty Confusing When Considering Which AutoHotkey If Conditional to Use

Occasionally, when updating or modifying a script I run into a problem where an If conditional just stops working. At first, I experience the usual confusion, but, eventually, it occurs to me to enclose the subject of the conditional in parentheses. The code starts working again. How does this happen?

Swapping Dyslexic Letters (A Favorite AutoHotkey Trick)

Sometimes the Little Things Remind Me How Much I Like AutoHotkey

As I worked on one of my blogs, I accidentally transposed two letters (probably “form” for “from” or vice versa). I placed the cursor between the errant letters and hit the R key while holding down ALT. The two characters exchanged position. Pleased with myself, I decided to highlight the letter-swapping Hotkey combination in this blog as one of my favorites.

Accessing Web Pages (AutoHotkey Tips)

Find a Consistent Relationship in URLs to Redirect Web Pages

A while back I wrote a script which accessed the AutoHotkey online documentation quickly bringing up information about commands and variables. It took advantage of a hidden index in AutoHotkey.com which loaded key pages. However, as happened at the time, relying upon that index does not guarantee access. As with any Web page, things change.

The online documentation is currently going through some modifications. Possibly, in preparation for future use with the coming AutoHotkey version 2.0, we see a number of new revisions. With those alterations, the secret index has once again disappeared. That means much of my earlier work no longer functions as designed. I’ve decided to completely redo my AutoHotkey reference app with the following goals:

1. Drop reliance on any hidden index to quickly return AutoHotkey command and variable information.
2. Add simultaneously support for both AutoHotkey V1.1 commands and the parallel V2.0 functions.
3. Add support for locating changes in V2.0 not directly correlating with V1.1 commands.