AutoHotkey Community

[valenock]

The function below can help you easily detect multiple consecutive presses of a hotkey.
For example, you can run 3 different actions if "WIN + F1" hotkey was pressed once within 0.4 seconds, twice or three times in a row.

I use it quite often for functions like Mute / Unmute, Dial / HangUp, etc.
It's nice to run an on screen reminder (OSD) to inform what action was actually chosen.

Thanks to Chris and PhiLho who helped to debug it. Much of the code was stolen from Autohotkey help file.

CountPresses(param1, param2, param3) takes 3 params. Each must be a name of the label where you want to be GoSub'd in case hotkey is pressed once, twice or three times.

[Laszlo]

Nice idea to pack all these in a function.
Have you thought about using KeyWait instead of a timer? It might be simpler.

[jonny]

I don't think it would be simpler, because you'd need more involved code to track the 400-millisecond range when it doesn't time out.

[Laszlo]

[Laszlo]

The timer-less version of valenock's script works best, if the hotkey is activated when it is released (UP).

Sometimes you want the original function of the hotkey at single press, like F1 can call up normally the help of the current application, but double pressed F1 could invoke the AHK help. Below the subroutine KEY0 computes the key part of the current hotkey and sends it to the foreground application. It can be reused for many CountPresses calls.

Returning the press count can be useful, e.g. a subroutine label can be reused for different press count values, when the action it performs depends on the actual press count. Therefore, making the PressCount variable global (instead of Static) is often advantageous.

Here is an even compacter version of valenock's script, using only 5 AHK commands:

[jonny]

[Laszlo]

[Laszlo]

In the original function you have to use unintuitive assignments to static variables and rely on the funny behavior of GoSub %label%, just to hide some internal variables. If you don't mind using globals, you can simplify the timer based function (and allow 400ms delay between keystrokes):

[Titan]

Great idea. Here's a similar version that simply returns the number of key presses in the given time:

[Laszlo]

A few questions, Titan:
- Why do you default to 500 times to the system keyboard delay? Was not it better to set the default delay to 1000 or 500 in the parameter list?
- Did 250+250 (instead of 500) remained from a previous version?
- The DllCall returns an error in my XP SP2 system (A-4). Is there a problem with the call?
- Still, delay is set to 1 by the dll call. Should not it be 30ms or something similar?
- Because of the fix time window, it is hard to achieve large press counts. Is not it better to allow a delay between consecutive presses, and stop counting if there is a longer pause?

Still, it is a useful function. You can use it like

[sashabe]

Thanks a lot, invaluable scripts! Multiple presses should be incorporated into AHK engine, it seems, to lighten code.
Could please the author make the script insensible to long pressings, in the way the shift key is held for selecting text? I tried to attach a delete action to the shift double-pressed, but its common functionality stopped working..

[Richard B.]

does it work for mouse??

[infogulch]

This one gives you the option of up to four labels/presses. It immediately fires the last most label you specify on encountering that press. What this means is you can specify nothing (blank "") for labels, and that number of presses won't do anything. Also, if you specify a space, (" ") instead of blank for the first label, it sends the current hotkey's down-event. (e.g. the hotkey "a::" would send "{a Down}". Make it send an up event with "$a Up::Send {a Up}" and remember to include the dollar sign) This is nice to allow the first press to go through, but subsequent presses are captured by the program, and not sent to the window.: