AutoHotkey Community

[savage]

I've been using AHK for a while now and found it to be one of the most useful programs I've ever found for windows, alongside Litestep, Powerpro, and Directory Opus. I've got to little requests though.

First, and I think this has been discussed before, could there be an option to catch non-character keys in Input? Similarly, when we get hotstring support, could the same be true for that? I think I brought this up before I registered, but that would make it really easy to set up something swank like emacs-style keychains. I think they really add to the number of things you can bind to the keyboard (after all there's only so many practical hotkeys).

Maybe you could define a hotstring (though I guess they wouldn't be all that different from normal hotkeys now) like so:

:^X^C::Send, !{F4}

The second thing I'd like to see is an option for WinActivate to not raise the window to the foreground. Windows, X-Mouse behavior is nice, but it switches to the desktop, which X doesn't do. I wrote a little ahk script to do X-Mouse and ignore the desktop, but it raises the window, which basically just sucks .


On a side note, I'd like to say that AHK's simple syntax is a real boon for tossing together spur of the moment things to make life easier. It just takes a moment with window spy and an editor to quicken all sorts of things. Thanks!

[Chris]

[savage]

I couldn't get that method for not raising windows to work. I'm trying to figure this out with messages, but I'm not having any luck. If I send wm_activate or wm_setfocus to the window under the mouse it basically freaks everything out.

[Chris]

[savage]

If you turn on XMouse in tweak UI (or manually), when you move the mouse over a window, it activates and gets focus but doesn't come to the front like it normally does. The problem with this in windows is that when the mouse is in the desktop it gets the focus. In X the sloppy focus ignores the background. I'm tring to duplicate this effect, ie to activate a window without bringing it to the foreground. By doing this in AHK rather than just using X-mouse, I'll have more control over what windows this affects.

[Chris]

I understand what you mean now, and I tried TweakUI and saw the effect. It seems that this effect is achieved by a global system change known as SPI_SETACTIVEWINDOWTRACKING. This message is broadcast to all windows whenever you change the setting in TweakUI.

I do not think there is an easy way to achieve this effect on a specific window. It might be impossible if it's a low-level, global feature in the OS.

The problem lies in the fact that SetForegroundWindow() is the only call I know of to give the keyboard focus to a window of a *different* app. And that call always brings the window to the top as a side-effect.

It might be possible to save the window's z-order position, activate it, then put back its original order (hopefully retaining its status as being active). However, I'm doubtful that even this would work and if it did, there would almost certainly be an unwanted flashing/redrawing effect when it happened since the target window would be momentarily on top of other windows before it was put behind them again.

If there were an easy way, I'd add it to the WinSet command. However, the odds seem to be against it. If it's important, I'll make a note to experiment with it.

[savage]

I figured it was a lower level thing. Oh well, don't worry to much about it, I really wanted it to switch easily between console windows, but I set up a window group for them, and that really works a lot better.