AutoHotkey Community

I like to speed up the process of adding a new hotstring (auto-replace). Also I wish to suggest a very easy way to add new hotstrings to "normal users".

I'm not a programmer. Please regard my wish as a suggestion.
May be someone likes to realize the idea

The sketch:
(Edited: The suggestion is uploaded as
http://borumat.de/autohotkey-issues.php#hotstring4me )
Lets assume that a file "global-hotstrings.ahk" exists, which collects all the global hotstrings. User marks a string, e.g.:
by the way
this was typed
by autohotkey
Linebreaks are allowed

1 User marks a string in a text

2 User opens the script "hotstring4me.ahk" with the hotkey Ctrl+Alt+Shif+T. A dialog with one field, one text and two buttons opens

* Field:
[by the way] Hotstring
(the first 10 characters of the string are shown and they are selected)

* Text:
Automatically typed Text:

by the way
this was typed
by autohotkey

*Button: OK

*Button: Esc

3 User edits the hotstring as he likes

4 User presses Enter

Result: a new global hotstring has been inserted with just 4 steps at all into the file "global-hotstrings.ahk". And: The user has not been bothered with any decisions which are not relevant for him in this situation. If possible, the content of the clipboard will not be touched.

Background of my idea: Many years ago on my first computer, a second hand Mac powerbook, I used a tool called "TypeIt4me". This tiny smart auto-replace-tool offers almost a function like I described above. I never saw anythink smart for a windows-OS.
I'm quite impressed of AHK and I like to suggest it as auto-replace-tool for the mail-client thunderbird (and of course as a global auto-replace-tool) on my pages with the tip-collections (see my sig).

_________________
Andreas

http://borumat.de/autohotkey-autotexte-und-makros-tipps (german)
http://borumat.de/thunderbird-email-tipps (german)
http://borumat.de/firefox-browser-tipps (german)

Currently, there aren't too many more manual steps involved: the user could select text as you describe, press Ctrl-C to copy it (I know you said it shouldn't use the clipboard), and then right click the tray icon to edit the script. Inside, the user would type the abbreviation between pairs of colons, followed by Ctrl-V to paste the desired string.

However, I see why your idea would be useful to heavy users of hotstrings because they could press a hotkey to bring up a dialog that instantly adds the chosen hotstring to their current script. Here is an example that does exactly that:

Edit: Improved the example. It can now be found at the bottom of the hotstrings page.

Thank you for your example script and - thank you for your very impressing software

Let me explain why I regard the described features of "hotstring4me" as important.

1 Target group
These are people who write a lot, e.g. journalist or netizens

2 Keep content of clipboard
Of course that is not absolutely essential but smart of course I look for a smart "hotstring4me"
May be the user still has something important in his clipboard but suddenly, while typing he thinks "Hey, this string should be hotstringed".

3 Target file
I think it is good to use one central file to keep all global hotstrings. To mix up hotkeyscripts (here for the dialog) may make it more difficult to keep the overview about hotstrings

4 No "{Enter}"
The user should be free of the effort to insert "{Enter}" by hand when his replaced text contains linebreaks

5 No mouse
People who write a lot prefer the usage of the keyboard. They don't like to avoid to change to the mouse while typing because it consumes their time.
The target of the script really is: as few steps as possible

To your script:
The dialogfield keeps blank (apart from the four colons)
This doesn't change if the string is just marked or copied into the clipboard.

_________________
Andreas

http://borumat.de/autohotkey-autotexte-und-makros-tipps (german)
http://borumat.de/thunderbird-email-tipps (german)
http://borumat.de/firefox-browser-tipps (german)

The example I posted retains the clipboard and it works in Notepad. I know it will not work in more elaborate editors such as word processors and I see only one way to solve that: by saving and restoring the clipboard's contents. However, AutoHotkey cannot save clipboard formats other than plain text so this would be of limited usefulness.

That's a good point and is reason enough to add the example above to the hotstrings section. Also, I have changed it to use the clipboard because "ControlGet Selected" is known to be non-functional when used against most control types other than Edit controls. It saves and restores the current text on the clipboard, which will not work exactly right when the clipboard contains something that isn't plain text. But it seems better than nothing.

Thanks. I'll keep "centrally managed hotstrings" in mind as a future feature.

Good idea. I modified the script above to replace linebreaks with {Enter}.

Finally, I've added the script above to the bottom of the hotstrings page and credited you with the idea (if you'd rather not have your name shown here, please let me know).

Thanks for your suggestions, which have already made hotstrings better.

That is a strong reason to give up this feature for the "hotstring4me".
IMHO it is better to guarantee the result "clipboard is not touched" completly or not at all. Than the user has transparency.


Fine.
I will post some other suggestions regarding hotstringing soon.

Thank you.


Thank you for this.
Yout wrote "Andreas Borutta suggested the following script".
But the credits for the script is yours
May be you like to link instead just to the complete sketch:
http://borumat.de/autohotkey-issues.php#hotstring4me


The author of the article in the german magazin "c't" where I read about your software is true: you are a really engaged and helpful author.
I wish that autohotkey will have a lot of satisfied users.

To the new script:
Now the selected string is inserted into the dialog.
I entered a hotstring, pressed OK.
Result:
"Error at line 33
This line does not contain a recognized action"

@ Andreas
in welcher Ausgabe der c't wurde AHK wie oben zitert erwähnt ?

That is a good point but would defeat much of the usefulness of the script. I'll leave those lines in for now. Anyone can remove them if they prefer not to use the clipboard.

In this case, I think your original idea is much more valuable than the script

I will keep that in mind for a future version. Thanks.

A line continuation mechanism is planned. I will try to ensure that it works with hotstrings too.

I think someone else suggested this too. It's a good idea and hopefully someday it will get implemented. In the meantime, there are some other posts on the forum about ways to make your hotstrings context sensitive.

If Tekl or someone else wouldn't mind revising Tekl's UltraEdit script to use the master syntax files, that would be a great help.

That's a nice example. Currently, the script showcase is a less flexible method of doing this sort of thing. A wiki like that one might be a nice alternative someday.

I changed the script to use "send raw" mode. It should handle special characters better now, though in exchange, `n is now used in place of {Enter}, which might be harder to read.

I added a little more validation to the script at the bottom of the hotstrings page. If you get a chance, perhaps you could try it again.

Thanks for everything.

In the actual issue no. 3/2005 pages 196-200.
Author: Wolfgang Reszel.

_________________
Andreas

http://borumat.de/autohotkey-autotexte-und-makros-tipps (german)
http://borumat.de/thunderbird-email-tipps (german)
http://borumat.de/firefox-browser-tipps (german)

I just snip the parts, which are clear.

Thank your statements, which features you regard as interesting and plan to implement them.


What do you think about the idea to place the method onto
http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/Hotstrings.htm
In my eyes it seems to be something very essentially.


Hhm. When the user has a proper syntaxhighlighting, that's fine.
But may be I couldn't see what other disadvantages the raw mode has.
Why isn't it the default mode?

[script]
I tried it again.
I works almost.

First I got the message "The hotstring just added appears to be improperly formatted."

I found the reason.
The hotstring has been added directly next to the "return".
This causes the error message.

Then I tested a selected text over several lines.
The hotstring looks like expected:
:R:test::one`two`nthree

But when I trigger "test" in an email I just get:
one
The linebreaks are not "printed".


I thank you.

_________________
Andreas

http://borumat.de/autohotkey-autotexte-und-makros-tipps (german)
http://borumat.de/thunderbird-email-tipps (german)
http://borumat.de/firefox-browser-tipps (german)

Thanks; I will do that.

It was thought that users would be used to the syntax of the Send command, and thus find it easier to use {Enter} instead of `r, etc. But in hindsight, it might have been a little better to have "raw" as the default. In any case, I don't think it should be changed now since it would break a lot of existing scripts.

Thanks. I fixed that in the script by providing an extra line break before the hotstring.

I think that has been fixed in the script by using `r instead of `n. Please let me know if you spot any other problems with it.

Nice. Would you mind to give me a short email, when this happened?
How to realize local hotstrings is the last information I need to suggest and explain autohotkey for hotstringing to the readers of the thunderbird-tipcollection.


I understand.

BTW: How could one escape these "commands" inside a raw hotstring.
And: Could one sent a "Shift+Enter" inside a raw hotstring? This may be important in textprocessing because one wants a linebreak but not a new paragraph.


Now it works fine
Even with `n. Strange but true.

_________________
Andreas

http://borumat.de/autohotkey-autotexte-und-makros-tipps (german)
http://borumat.de/thunderbird-email-tipps (german)
http://borumat.de/firefox-browser-tipps (german)

No problem.

If a hotstring is raw, things like {Enter} are always sent literally. There is no way to change that once the raw mode is in effect for a particular hotstring. However, to mix raw and non-raw within the same hotstring, you could do something like this:

::btw::
Send By the way:{Enter}
SendRaw All of the following will be sent exactly as they appear: ^!#{Enter}
return

In raw mode, shift-enter might be equivalent to sending `n instead of a `r. In non-raw mode, you can use +{Enter} to send shift-enter.

I meant "`r" with "commands". These strings aren't sent literally in the raw mode. How could you sent them literally,while you are in the raw mode?

Example: Somebody adds a Text like

with the hotstring4me script.


I tested it in Openoffice.

The "`n" seems to performs a "Ctrl+Enter", means - a page-break.

In the non-raw-mode

works fine and adds linebreaks and not a new paragraph.

_________________
Andreas

http://borumat.de/autohotkey-autotexte-und-makros-tipps (german)
http://borumat.de/thunderbird-email-tipps (german)
http://borumat.de/firefox-browser-tipps (german)

That's a good point. A literal accent is sent by specifying two consecutive accents. I've fixed this in the script by adding the following line:
StringReplace, Hotstring, Clipboard, ``, ````, All ; Do this replacement first to avoid interfering with the others below.

Thanks for posting your findings about Shift-Enter and Ctrl-Enter.

Works perfect now

I think this script will ease the handling with hotstrings for many user considerably.
Further I hope it will be a step to expand the target-group.

Thank you for this nice script.

_________________
Andreas

http://borumat.de/autohotkey-autotexte-und-makros-tipps (german)
http://borumat.de/thunderbird-email-tipps (german)
http://borumat.de/firefox-browser-tipps (german)