This tutorial has been replaced by a much better tutorial. The new tutorial can be found at:
http://www.autohotkey.net/~JoeSchmoe/rstut/rstut.html
When you first open Redstone, you will see a screen something like the following:
Redstone is organized around a collection of filters, and a list of the easiest ones to use is given on this screen. Most of what you do in Redstone will be selecting and using different filters.
By default, the Redstone window is set to disappear whenever it loses focus. If you want to bring it back, just press Alt-{space}.
A first filter to check out is the "Start Menu" filter. There are three ways to navigate to it:
1.) The above picture shows my "User Filters" filter. If you are looking at your "User Filters" filter and your cursor is the the edit box in the bottom right hand corner of the window, you can just type "s", and "t" to select "Start Menu" and then press the Enter key.
2.) If you'd rather use your mouse, just click on the windows icon, 
, in the bottom left hand corner of the window.
3.) Finally, if you aren't looking at your "User Filters" filter and you want to use your mouse, you can click on the ">" symbol in the upper left of the window. (Look for 
.) It will show you a list of all of the User filters. Just click on "Start Menu." If you want to see more filters, including hidden ones, right click on this same button.
By the way, if you ever get into the wrong filter, you can always go back to the previous filter by pressing Alt-{leftarrow}. Like all hotkeys, this hotkey is configurable using the "configuration" hotkey.
You might wonder what the "v" is in the
control. It controls what the window does when it loses focus.
1.) if it displays a "v," the window will disappear when it loses focus. (Typical for a launcher program.)
2.) if it displays a "^," the window will always stay on top of other windows.
3.) if it is empty it will behave like a normal window.
If you follow the above instructions to get to the "Start Menu" filter, you will see something like this:
Your cursor should be in the edit box in the lower right hand corner of the window. If it isn't there, get it there.
Suppose you want to open AutoHotkey help. Type "aut hel." Redstone uses an implicit AND between "aut" and "hel," so it searches for a file with both "aut" and "hel" in the name. When I do this, I get:
You can then use the {up}, {down}, and {Enter} keys to launch the specific program that you are most interested in.
Redstone may be slow to search for files the first time you use it because it has to index everything.
Note that you can resize the window if you have a large monitor or just need to read long path names as I do above.
Redstone is smart enough that if you start typing and it is clear that you aren't doing something else, it will automatically start searching as if you were in the Start Menu filter. Thus, if I want to open up AutoHotkey help, all that I need to do is type:
Alt-{space} "aut hel" {Enter}
which can be done quite quickly.
Because Redstone will automatically switch to searching the start menu, you never have to use the three methods I described above to get to the Start Menu filter. You can use any of them to get to the configuration screen, though, and that is where we are going next. The icon for the configuration screen/configuration filter looks like
We are checking out the configuration filter now because, you may want Redstone to search some location other than the Start Menu. Perhaps you want it to search a folder of documents. You can change this by going to the configuration filter, opening "Items to Scan" (perhaps using the arrow keys), and adding a new directory to scan. To do this, right click on the list area and choose New. You can add your directory using AutoHotkey variables, which is useful if you want to use this on a USB flash drive. I won't go into the details, but drop me a line if you want them.
At this point, we have only covered about a quarter of what the program can do. I'll let you explore for the rest, but let me know if you want me to extend the tutorial and I will. Otherwise, you can just go through the other User Filters. Once you are done with them, RIGHT click on the ">" symbol in the upper left of the window. (Look for
.)
While you explore, keep in mind that Redstone is extremely customizable and that
much of the functionality is accessed through right-click context sensitive menus, so right-click on everything and see what is available.
For example, one of the filters is for your favorite things to launch. Whenever you find a file as we did above with AutoHotkey help, before you open the file and leave Redstone (or even afterward, because it stays in the same place), just right click on the file, choose "Add to List"->"Favorites," and the file will appear in your Favorites filter. If you find yourself using the filter a lot and are technically inclined, you can check out the following post:
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=207096&highlight=#207096
It is in response to the following request:
Quote:
Also, is there a way to set a hotkey so that you open Redstone to a specific filter? For example, there are a number of files that I use extremely frequently. I would like to put them in my favorites filter. Suppose I could open Redstone to my favorite's filter by pressing !{spacebar}. I just press that, then the first one or two letters of the file's name, then enter, and the file pops up immediately. That sounds terrific, but it hinges on being able to get to the favorites filter very rapidly.
Good luck exploring. Any feedback or requests based on this tutorial are welcome.
A link to this tutorial is
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=208581&highlight=#208581
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