- Goal: Increase productivity by --- 1) launching programs and 2) switching between windows; using custom hot keys created with AutoHotkey.
- Looking for a free Windows utility that you can use to quickly close all programs currently running in Windows? This can be quite useful, for example, when.
The Beginner’s Guide to Using an Auto. Hotkey Script. Auto. Hotkey scripts are a great way to customize your computer, but may seem daunting at first. Don’t worry – getting started is much easier than it looks!
AutoHotkey scripts are a great way to customize your computer, but may seem daunting at first. Don’t worry – getting started is much easier than it looks! Awesome-AutoHotkey - A curated list of awesome AutoHotkey libraries, library distributions, scripts, tools and resources. Automation Program AutoHotkey Works Well, But Takes Knowhow. It's a problem we've seen in PCWorld Downloads with programs such as Better Paste.
Go to the Auto. Hotkey download page. You will be presented with a number of download links: Click the first one, the installer for Auto. Hotkey. Save it to your hard drive – that’s what we’re going to use. A Bit of History: Why Are There Two Versions?
You may be wondering why the download page offers both Auto. Hotkey. What happened is that Auto. Hotkey’s original developer decided to stop working on the project; but Auto. Hotkey wouldn’t die so fast.
Since the project is open- source and has an vibrant developer community, a number of efforts to continue development were started. Out of these, Auto. Hotkey. The installer is fairly straightforward except for this next step which offers multiple choices: We recommend to keep this at the default, Unicode 3. If you’re running a 6. Windows you could opt for the 6. Unicode version, but it doesn’t offer significant performance gains for most scripts. Regarding ANSI, you should only choose this option if there’s a specific script you’d like to run which you know for sure doesn’t play well with Unicode.
This very rarely happens. Some Auto. Hotkey scripts are so short, they’re posted online as short snippets of text. You can see one such script in our recent post about How to Fake Back and Forward Buttons With a Three- button Mouse. Select the script text and copy it: Now run Notepad and paste the script in.
Make sure you got the whole thing, from the very beginning to the end. Next, save the file somewhere on your computer. The filename doesn’t matter, but the extension must be AHK. If you installed the Unicode version of Auto. Hotkey. Most scripts would probably work if you save them using the default encoding (ANSI), but Unicode is a safe option. Pro Tip: Understanding Character Encodings.
AutoHotkey gives you fast, scriptable desktop automation with hotkeys. Automate almost anything: Send keystrokes & mouse clicks; launch programs and documents; work. Collection of AutoHotkey scripts I use. Click a window to close it.
If you find all this talk about Unicode and ANSI a bit confusing, you might want to take a quick look at our recent post explaining What Are Character Encodings and How They Differ. Getting The Script: Saving a File. Some scripts go on for more than just a few lines; these are often offered as files rather than pasted in- page. We recently posted one of these larger scripts under How to Get Spelling Autocorrect Across All Applications on Your System, so that’s what we’ll use for the example.
Right- click the link to the AHK file and select to save it locally: Again, make sure you save it as an AHK file. Running The Script.
You should now have an AHK file somewhere on your system, and Auto. Hotkey all set up. Simply double- click the AHK file to run it. When the script is running, you should see a small icon in your system tray. Hovering over this icon with your mouse will pop up a tooltip showing the name of the script.
Auto. Hotkey and Auto. Hotkey. However, if your script won’t run and pops up an error message, go back to the Auto. Hotkey download page and get “Auto. Hotkey Basic” (the second option).
Create your own shortcut keys with Autohotkey (tutorial)How will you open your Web browser? Are you using a Desktop shortcut? You can simply assign keys to do whatever you need. You can assign alt + C to open Chrome browser or you can set that combination to open your Movies folder or to shutdown your pc. Auto. Hotkey is a small handy utility used to create Hotkeys for anything that we would like to do in our pc from creating shortcut keys to open programs to Muting your speaker with a single keystroke. It can be used to do some cool things like creating multimedia keys (if your keyboard don't have any), remapping keys (making a key to work as another key) it would be useful if you have damaged any important keys in your keyboard. So, in this post I will explain you how to use Auto.
Hotkey in a productive way. First, You must have installed Auto. Hotkey in your pc. Download Auto. Hotkey.
After installing it, right click anywhere in your desktop or in Windows Explorer. Then select New and then Auto. Hotkey script. Name that file and open it using notepad. Delete any existing codes in the newly created Auto. Hot. Key script. Now, you are all set to use this utility.
Just copy paste and save some of the codes given below into that notepad file. Before running every code don't forget to read the descriptions. Hotkey is a key or combination of keys used to trigger some actions in our pc. To use Auto. Hotkey you need to know howto represent keyboard keys as a hotkey in this software.
Ctrl,Shift and Alt keys are called as modifier keys. To use these keys as a hotkey we must represent those keys as follows,Key. Auto. Hotkey representation. Control^Alt! Shift+Windows Key#Note: Don't use separate notepad files for each codes you can use single file for all of your favourite codes.
Hotkeys set by you will work until you close the script. To close the script right click the green Auto. Hotkey iconin the notification area and select Exit. The combination keys before two colons could be replaced by the hotkeys you prefer.
Remember one thing you can use a single key in place of those combination keys you want and this is not recommended as the actions will be executed with single keystrokes. Still, you can replace it with a single key. I assume you won't use Insert key often so, you can use that kind of keys. To create shortcut keys. Yes, you can use this utility to make shortcuts keys not only for your favourite programs but also for the folders frequently accessed by you. Just check the following codes.^+c: : run chrome^+m: : run D: /Movies.
Enter your hotkey followed by two colons and a space. Now type run followed by the program you want to run.
To find the name of your program simply right click the desktop icon of that program and select properties. In target dialog box you can see your program's name. Eg: . To find the path of the specific file/folder right click that file and select properties. Under general tab, after location you could find the complete path of that file. Just copy paste that into your script. That's all. To create Multimedia keys. Do you want to turn off you speakers with a single press?
Obviously, you can do it with Auto. Hotkey. All you have to do is insert some simple codes into your script file. You're all done.^+u: :send . A single script in Auto.
Hotkey can solve that problem too. Check the following code. The above code will replace 1 with . Edit the above code and create one as per your needs.^+s: : Send Regards. Here the text marked with yellow is replacable and . Use 1 instead to shutdown and 2 to restart.
Always on top^SPACE: : Winset, Alwaysontop, , AWhat'll you do when you want to watch a video and browse the web simultaneously. If you select one window, the other one will disappear to prevent this use the above code.
Select the window you want to be on top and press Ctrl + Space. Now, it'll be on top until you press Ctrl + space after selecting that window. This trick was taken from the world's famous tech blog labnol. Set your numlock be always ONSet. Num. Lock. State, Always. Onset. Caps. Lock. State, Always. Off.
You can use Auto. Hotkey to set your num/caps lock key state. If you use the first code in your script numlock will be set to always ON. You can't OFF it until you stop the script.
Second code will set your capslock OFF. You can't ON it either, until you stop the script.
Make everything portable. If you are familiar with the shortcut keys, you can make it portable by compiling the script you run. Just right click the script and select compile script that's all. One . exe file will be generated by this action. You can use that . Auto. Hotkey. Check this one I have created a . Autorun it! You need to rerun the script or .
I know You'd not want to rerun the script after every restart. So, autostarting your script would be a better option. To autostart your script create shortcut (Right click . You can access starup folder by selecting start . Don't search for startup it won't showup.
Some random tips. Do you hate the H icon in the notifications area? No problem you can remove it by adding #No.
Tray. Icon to the top of your script file. After adding that code that green H icon will disappear. You can assign a hotkey to even quit your script. Use the following code.^+e: : Exit. App. If you can't quit your script by any explicit methods close it by opening your taskmanager.
You must end Auto. Hotkey. exe process to quit the script.
You can create similar codes by reading the tutorial file provided with Auto. Hotkey. To access it right click the Auto. Hotkey icon in the notificationbar and click help while you run any script. I hope you like this utility and use it everyday.
If you find this useful please share this article on your favourite social network. If you have any doubts regarding this utility let me know with your comment...