AutoHotkey Community

[Jon]

Hi, I'm having problems with keys sticking again. With this script the windows key sticks but which ever key I use as a hotkey will stick e.g. control or alt.

On one computer it will stick almost every time and on the other it will stick every other time. Both computers run windows XP.

It is the script below that is causing the trouble-

[beardboy]

I tested with this slightly modified script and had the same problem on windows 2000, AHK 1.0.12.

[beardboy]

Ran the same script with AHK 1.0.11 and the keys did not stick.

thanks,
beardboy

[Chris]

Beardboy, I think it's a coincidence that they didn't stick in 1.0.12 because I can reproduce this on my XP machine even with 1.0.12.

To the original poster: First just a brief observation that you probably meant to use IfWinNotExist here:
ifnotexist, Untitled

Now the explanation:
This is a known limitation whenever the keyboard hook isn't installed. To workaround it, try any one of the following:

- Use the following in place of ControlSend:
Control, EditPaste, %clipboard%`r`n, Edit1, Untitled

- Reduce delays at the top of the script, or inside this hotkey subroutine, as follows:
SetKeyDelay, 0
SetWinDelay, 10

- Specify the line #InstallKeybdHook anywhere in the script.

Only one of the above should be needed to resolve this.

Explanation for this limitation: When the keyboard hook is not installed, the program does not know which keys the user is physically holding down so must make a best guess. So, if the send occurs after #HotkeyModifierTimeout has expired (due to WinDelay and KeyDelay in this case), the program assumes that any modifiers in a down state are that way intentionally and not as part of the hotkey. Such modifiers therefore become part of the persistent modifiers which the Send command insists be down for all letters being sent. But if modifier really is part of the hotkey (LWin or RWin in this case) and the user releases it during the send, the program will push the key back down again to enforce the fact that the key should be down for the entire send.

There may be a way to improve this behavior in the future, but it's a very tricky thing to do without the keyboard hook. The hook makes AHK nearly omniscient so virtually all keyboard problems like this disappear completely.

[beardboy]

[jamestr]

If i select some text in notepad instance 1(to send to notepad instance 2), and then 'hold down' the hotkey, the hotkey suffix 'q' will sometimes showup in notepad 1, or notepad 1 will receive a ctrl q, and open up the quick open dialog.

I realize that 'control editpaste' is the proper way to do this.

[Chris]

Does that happen with v1.0.12 or some earlier version? I made some changes in the original release v1.0.12 that might help, and for v1.0.13 I'm planning another improvement that was inspired by the contributors to this topic.

[jamestr]

thats with XP and 1.0.12

also

the processing of the code below has changed with 1.0.12.

with v1.0.12 when i release the a & xbutton1 keys, ahk sends an undesired 'a', which it did not do with the earlier releases.

key history shows both mouse and keyboard hooks are running.

[Chris]

Darn, sorry about that. I applied a fix to the installer that you can re-download if you want:

http://www.autohotkey.com/download/

Fixed hook hotkeys that used a keyboard prefix but a mouse button suffix when the prefix was also a suffix as in this example, which was broken in v1.0.12 [thanks jamestr]:
$a::send, a
a & lbutton::

[Chris]

[Jon]

Thanks, that seems to have fixed it. It also copies into notepad alot faster now.

Thanks, Jon