AutoHotkey Community

AHK ScriptWriter v.023 Alpha

Updated- 2/6/07

Slight GUI changes (including ToolTip option), replays mouseclick on Start Menu better, etc... Tested only on Win XP and Win 2000.

AHK_ScriptWriter Goals:

1. Make an useful scriptwriter tool that will one day replace and surpass AutoScriptWriter and its “legacy” derived code.

2. Use the AutoHotkey language and push the script to its limit and find innovative ways to overcome any limitations that are found.

3. Replace or provide options to replace mouseclicks and sleep commands with ControlSend, ControlClick, and Control commands whenever possible.

Written by Thalon with parts from Skrommel. Experimented on and additional features written by AHKnow.

Note 1- The GUI is launched from the Traymenu. When you press Record, there will be a little "Stop" button on the upper left corner. Play = PlayBack.

Note 2- Only links will be given. AutoHotkey.net provides free space, so its easy.

Note 3- Code will not be cleaned up until nears Beta.

Note 4- GUI for test purposes and may go through numerous changes.

very nice

can't wait to see the next update

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I'm surprised you haven't gotten more feedback on this. Maybe it's because most frequenters of the forum tend to be veteran users who find it easier to write macros by hand.

Confirmed (IMHO). But, I think there's a need for it, even it's "only" about to attract novice users. Thx for the effort. Much appeciated.

I think AutoHotkey is an easier language to type and think in, so many people don’t mind typing out what they want to do.

But, there are many users that are more into automation for automating tasks, installs, etc…This is why the quality of the ScriptWriter becomes important.

The way AHK ScriptWriter is now, you can record, then easily edit the script, and then play it back.

Later on, combine this with AutoHotkey tools like Isense, AHK Window Info, etc… and it just makes life easier for automation.

Also, AutoHotkey is a “shortcut” language by nature. Many people use it, because it’s quick and easy. Something you “grab off the shelf and get the task done”. People that are into hard core programming will often go a different path. Funny thing though, this pursuit of “proper” programming languages and all that “typing” may be causing people to go down the wrong path.

There are different ways you can “instruct” a computer. You can type it, tell it (if you got voice recognition hooked up), or SHOW it. Of all the ways, probably the most effectivhee for a regular user is to have the computer COPY your actions. AutoHotkey is an excellent language to modify those actions. In fact, the best language that I’ve seen, so far. This includes visual programming languages that I've played with. Because how powerful AutoHotkey is now, I think there is almost no limit to the level of automation you can take your computer to.

One of my goals is to have the AHK ScriptWriter become better and better at recording whatever actions the users does and then make it very easy to make changes to the script.

It occurred to me that having AutoHotkey users able to easily modify their recorder, will allow the ScriptWriter to constantly evolve. Even if only a few users are “officially” modifying it, constant change is taking place, so the ScriptWriter will only get better.

i'm making a program like that, so i have a question: can i you ahk scriptwriter in it??

Of course you can. Any improvements that you make and share with everybody will be greatly appreciated.

It doesn't do much for me.

It records mouse clicks only in a tiny area in the top left
(around the stop button).

All keypresses are ignored. The program seems useless

The main focus is on mouse clicks at the moment. If you can only record mouse clicks in one area than something might be wrong with your computer or you are using Windows 98 or older. The program works fine on Windows 2000 and Windows XP computers, so far.

The program is a Alpha, if you feel its useless than you can always use the present AutoScriptWriter or make corrections to the script yourself.

Tim Tyler, and others, you may want to look out for updated versions, as it addresses some of your comments.

I will take note of any comments made and try to improve the program. BUT remember, as this program is an Alpha, different things are being tried and there is a lot of playing around with the code. Not all changes will work out, but overall and as time goes by, there will be improvement.

@AHKnow
It seems that the programm "loses" parts of the code after some clicking around... Only the code fitting into the tooltip is overtaken into the code-window afterwards!
So it works for very short recordings, but not for more than some clicks...

Thalon

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This is an easy fix.

1. Increase the number of characters being displayed by ToolTip to 5000, for example.
then change to-


Of course the ToolTip can get huge and go all over the screen, depending on what you select and get in the way of the control you want to click.

2. The next release will have a GUI option to remove the ToolTip.

The AHK ScriptWriter works fine without the ToolTip and this is the way that AutoScriptWriter works.

The ToolTip is a "Plus and Minus type of thing". It can be good when you want to see exactly what code is showing up as you click and press, but it can get in the way and not help if you are doing lots clicks and key presses.

By the way, I found a way for clicks on the "Start Menu" Button to work properly. Even AutoScriptWriter was messing this up and failing on this, so that will be another "1 up" for the AHK ScriptWriter.

@AHKnow
In the version I gave you it was different!
The tooltip was only used to show the last snippet of code, but the internal code was always complete!

Maybe you can check my version again for this handling.
I don't think it's good to restrict the catched code to that amount the ToolTip can handle! This should be completely independend in my eyes...

Thalon

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Thalon, I will look into it.

EDIT- Looked into it. Problem corrected, will post update soon. The contents of the variable ScriptHold was being sent to the ShowGUI1's Edit field (variable ScriptEdit). Just changed variables, so the one for the ToolTip is not the same one that the ShowGUI1's Edit field uses.

I think the issue was not noticed because only ToolTip was shown and there was not any transferring data to a GUI. I changed the variable from "tooltip" to "scripthold" because it was causing other problems. Which anybody can feel free to confront through experimenting.

If you simply transfer the data to the GUI’s edit field, in way that AutoScriptWriter does, than you do NOT see the problem.

If you turn off the ToolTip or comment out the ToolTip than you will NOT see any data loss. If you increase to a large amount then it takes longer to see the problem.

The ToolTip is nice, but like I stated, it is a “Plus and Minus” situation. Even with a small ToolTip, it will only show so much data and there will be times that it gets in the way.

So, I think it’s better to make ToolTip an option that you can turn on or off and of course fixing the ToolTip issue would be nice (done).

I can maybe have a look into the problem today...

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