AutoHotkey Community

Lexikos · Joined: 17 Oct 2006 Posts: 2486 Location: Australia, Qld

Windows won't let you put a (virtual) gap between two monitors.

agar · Guest

I've hesitated to write this since I'm such a huge fan of this script. With a wide-screen laptop and a 24" monitor being used together, then separately, as I undock for meetings then dock back in my office, I'm gathering/shifting/resizing windows constantly. Thank you again, lexicos, for the work on this.

I use both numpad controls when docked (separate keyboard) and the Capslock control when undocked (notebook keyboard only). Another great feature that you support the no-numpad use case.

Now to my small issue. Let's say I use Capslock just to switch to all caps to type, oh, DES (data encryption standard). What often happens is the time between pressing Capslock and pressing D isn't long enough and WindowPad picks it up as a Capslock-D and shifts the window to the right.

Is there a way to set the "sensitivity" on the Capslock key, so (for example) Capslock must be held down for a period of time (250ms?) before activating the "window move" hotkey combination? Maybe the capslock+modifier must be held down for a certain period of time before it captures the key as a shortcut?

I looked briefly through the code, and unfortunately with my rudimentary skills wasn't able to find a way to insert logic of this type.

LexiKos, any thoughts on an approach? I've dealt with this since first installing WindowPad so it's not a huge deal, but an irritant I hit a few times a day.

Lexikos · Joined: 17 Oct 2006 Posts: 2486 Location: Australia, Qld

I've encountered this sort of problem with hotkeys in the past, so it was an easy fix.

WindowPad v1.51:

Use WindowPad_Init(IniPath) to initialize WindowPad if it is #included in another script. IniPath may be omitted. Gosub WindowPadInit will also work as before.
Added D option to the Hotkeys command. For example, the following will use CapsLock as a hotkey only if it is held for 0.1 of a second.

Code:

CapsLock = Hotkeys, Active Window (WADS), D0.1

Currently only "visible" keys (caught by the Input command) are checked. If D is specified without a number, the default delay is 0.1.
Added commands: Minimize, Unminimize, Restore. Minimize and Restore accept a window parameter (standard WinTitle, P or M; defaults to A if omitted.) Unminimize works only with the top-most minimized window in the z order.

agar · Guest

Sweet. Works like a charm. Thanks.

In case someone else is interested, I thought it was worth mentioning a couple of .ini tweaks that work for me:

Implemented the new D option. D0.1 works well so far.
I set CapsLock+s to be MaximizeToggle. This works a bit better for me since the default behavior maximizes (first press) and then swaps screens (second press). MaximizeToggle matches my expectation a bit more. If I want to swap, I just use the default CapsLock+Space key.
I took advantage of the new option and set CapsLock+Esc to Minimize the active window. Since the next windows in the Z order gets activated, I can quickly minimize many windows sequentially. Very convenient when I have a lot of emails open and need to get them out of the way.

For reference, the top section of the WindowPad.ini is now:

Lexikos · Joined: 17 Oct 2006 Posts: 2486 Location: Australia, Qld

mpareja · Guest

Hi,

WindowPad is the best solution I have found for managing windows using single and dual monitors. I stopped using UltraMon because I prefer WindowPad . I have one feature request:

Allow disabling WindowPad for certain processes and/or windows.

A configuration option similar to the Gather Exclusion would be nice.

My biggest reason for this is RDP, VNC and virtual machines. I often connect to machines using remote desktop, and I often run virtual machines. I install windowpad on ALL machines i use - including virtual ones.

By disabling WindowPad for these applications, I can use the WindowPad instance on the remote/virtual machine.

Anyway, WindowPad is one of my favorite AHK scripts. Great work!

Mario Pareja

Lexikos · Joined: 17 Oct 2006 Posts: 2486 Location: Australia, Qld

I've added an [Exclude Windows] feature. Unfortunately, autohotkey.net seems to be having problems. I've uploaded the new version, but for the moment you'll probably get "Internal Server Error" if you try to download it.

In the interim, you may add something like the following to the top of Hotkey_Params():

mpareja · Guest

Wow!

Lexikos, I can't believe you implemented that feature so quickly! Great work. Once again, I must say WindowPad is one of my favorite utilities on my machine and every machine I ever have the pleasure of sticking my USB key into.

Thanks,

Mario

Thracx · Joined: 12 Mar 2007 Posts: 10 Location: Northern VA

Props to Lexikos - awesome work!

I decided to try WindowPad out before posting in this thread, and I've been using it on and off for a few weeks now. It does seem to work very well - it's very customizable and performs all it's tasks well on the various dual-monitor configurations that I have.

I did find one issue, which involves how WindowPad moves windows after consecutive identical commands. I briefly tried reading through the script, but I didn't find anything worth reporting.

When pressing the same shortcut more than once, WindowPad sometimes continues to move the window in that direction. For example, let's say a window starts aligned right-most. When you issue 'align left-half' (NumPad0 + 4 using my configuration, 'WindowPadMove, -1, 0, 0.5, 1.0' in the code), the window moves to the left-half of that same monitor. If you have a monitor to the left, then pressing the shortcut again will move the window in the right-half of that left-monitor. Pressing it yet again will move it to the left-half of that left-monitor. This is great, I love it!

However, this is not consistent with the 'corner' moves. If a window is in the bottom-right corner of the right-monitor and you issue a 'left-corner' command, the window moves to the left-corner of the right-monitor. If you issue the same command again, nothing happens. While this is different than the behavior of the 'half-screen' commands, it's still fine - I can use the half-screen moves to change monitors, and then use the corner command to move to the proper corner.

The bug that I think I am seeing is that one of the corner move commands does keep moving the window across the monitors. All my corner-move commands simply move the window into the specified corner of the current monitor, except the lower-right corner command when run on a window on the left-monitor . The first press moves the window into the lower-right corner of the left-monitor, the second moves the window into the upper-left of the right-monitor (!!!), and the third moves the window into the lower-right of the second monitor.

Ideas? I will try to find other dual-monitor machines with different configurations to test how this behaves, but the issue may be due to my non-standard dual-monitor configuration, which is [L_R] = [1280x1024_1024x1280]. This is when using WindowPad v1.52 with my other AHK scripts closed.
_________________
-Thracx

"Man wants to know, and when he ceases to do so, he is no longer a man."
-Fridtjof Nansen

Lexikos · Joined: 17 Oct 2006 Posts: 2486 Location: Australia, Qld

WindowPadMove works by finding the monitor one pixel beyond the relevant edge or edges. If there is no monitor in that direction, it does nothing. In your case, the right monitor is down and to the right of the left monitor, but the left monitor is not down and to the left of the right monitor.

Thracx · Joined: 12 Mar 2007 Posts: 10 Location: Northern VA

Max99 · Joined: 10 Jul 2008 Posts: 3

Medium technically literate but not very familiar with scripting.

I am in same position as Pieter333 on page 6 of this topic. I have generated .exe file using compliler. Run the .exe and get the WindowPad icon in the systray but non of the functions seem to work.

Have also run .ahk file from AutoHotkey and same result.

Should I be placing the .ini file somewhere other than the folder that I run the .exe or .ahk file from i.e. maybe in one of the Windows system folders?

Sorry for the basic question but have searched documentation for AutoHotkey and WindowPad and can't seem to find a simple answer (well, simple to me anyway).

Desperately want to use this utility as Nvidia nview utility which came with my graphics card crashes my PC (not the only one it seems from searching Google)

Many thanks.

Lexikos · Joined: 17 Oct 2006 Posts: 2486 Location: Australia, Qld

Double-click the tray icon and go to View -> Hotkeys and their methods, then tell me what you see. The script also sets WINDOWPAD_INI_PATH to the path it is using, so also go to View -> Variables and their contents, and check its value.

WindowPad.ini should be wherever you tell the script it is; i.e.

Max99 · Joined: 10 Jul 2008 Posts: 3

Many thanks for reply.

Double clicking the tray icon and viewing "Hotkeys and their methods" shows this:

Type Off? Running Name
-------------------------------------------------------------------
k-hook CapsLock
k-hook Numpad0
k-hook NumpadDot

Section of script I think you are referring to is this:

WindowPad_Init(IniPath="")
{
global WINDOWPAD_INI_PATH
; if A_IsCompiled ; Load icons from my custom WindowPad.exe.
; {
; ; Default icon is 32x32, so doesn't look good in the tray.
; Menu, TRAY, Icon, %A_ScriptFullPath%, 11
; }
; else
if (A_LineFile = A_ScriptFullPath)
{ ; Set the tray icon, but only if not included in some other script.
WindowPad_SetTrayIcon(true)
; Use OnMessage to catch "Suspend Hotkeys" or "Pause Script"
; so the "disabled" icon can be used.
OnMessage(0x111, "WM_COMMAND")
}

if IniPath =
IniPath = %A_ScriptDir%\WindowPad.ini
WINDOWPAD_INI_PATH := IniPath
WindowPad_LoadSettings(IniPath)
}

WindowPad.ini is in same folder I run the .ahk script in/from. If I run the .exe file instead of the .ahk file, double clicking the tray icon does nothing.

Didn't understand the last bit of your reply (the bit about environment variables) as I am not really script literate. Just a user who wants the utility to work!

Hope this helps solve my issue. Many thanks for looking at this. Apologies for ignorance.

[/code]

Lexikos · Joined: 17 Oct 2006 Posts: 2486 Location: Australia, Qld