AutoHotkey Community

[skrommel]

I don't know when all these functions were introduced, but for those who haven't come across them yet, here's a script that uses some pretty impressive AHK variable functions.

I've put them in an AutoComplete program that reads the users settings from a file, and uses them directly through variables.

The advanced stuff is

[Laszlo]

So, you rewrote HotStrings, using a script and an ini file, instead of just a script with all the HotStrings. It is certainly educational for newcomers.

You don’t even need

[skrommel]

Should I reread the help file, you think?

I made the script in response to http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3302. If you can show me a way of making an end user definable autoreplacer using hotstrings from a compiled script, I'd be grateful. But autoreplacers wasn't my point.

AHK is the most dynamic language since my HP 48G calculator, which could rewrite it's own running programs. I don't think AHK needs to go that far, but dynamic code can really simplify some chores.

Isn't that what we all want?

Skrommel

[Laszlo]

I copied the script below from the forum, but I don’t remember, who posted it. I apologize to the author, but I changed the script name, the comments, etc., to my taste, and I don’t have the original. (This is the version I use.) The basic idea remained: the user is asked for a shorthand for the marked text, which is used to form a HotString command, appended to the script, which is then reloaded. It even has an error check, for malformed HotsStrings your default editor is called with the script already loaded, so you can edit it. It handles special characters and multi-line replacement texts well.

[Laszlo]

There is a drawback of your script: the abbreviation text must be a well formed variable name, so "a-z" or "100%" cannot be expanded. You can get around this by applying the Hexify() function from the list manipulation library.

What I meant about the Transform, Deref magic is that

[skrommel]

So I need to reread the help file after all!

I wasn't aware that := expands a variable reference. Thanks Laszlo!

I find that very few end users wants the hazzle of installing AHK just to try a script, not to mention keeping up with the latest version to make everything work. So I compile.

Hexing the variables is so clever! Thank's again, Laszlo!

So here's the elaborate version.

Skrommel

[toralf]

Nice Script,

Isn't it possible to use a endless loop for the checking the input, instead of using "Start: / Goto Start"?
_________________
Ciao
toralf

[Laszlo]

Now it looks great! Thanks for posting it. The abbreviations have practically no restrictions any more, so we have the same flexibility as AHK’s built-in hotstrings.

(...and only losers read documentation.)

Before I integrate it into my wife’s utility script, some little enhancements would be nice. If the ini file gets screwed up (and knowing her it takes only minutes) it is tedious to figure the even-odd line numbers. It could be easier for me to fix it if the file had single line hotstrings like

Abbreviation->Replacement string

Of course, it means loosing possible substrings "->" inside the abbreviation, but it is a little price for my timesaving in fixing problems. Any other weird character or character combination could be used as separator, like ASCI 187: "»".

(Even better: abbreviations should be terminated by Enter, Space, Tab, ', ", ",", ".", ":", ";", "!", "?", "/", "]", ")", "}" – so the first occurrence of any of them in the line could be the separator. ":" or "/" look the most intuitive.)

Also, automatic extension of the ini file would be nice, similar to the other script from my earlier posting. When a piece of text is marked, a hotkey activated function asks for an abbreviation and inserts the corresponding replacement rule into the ini file, and activates the new rule.

[skrommel]

Check out http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=21844#21844.

Skrommel