AutoHotkey Community

[bekihito]

Hi everybody!
Just recently I started doing some work with Autohotkey and found myself amazed with the posibillities.
Although I find the help files rather good I think that you should add a Option/parameter list for each Standard Control/Function/Command.
Ok, there are some nicely elaborated, but for some it ends up with spaghetti tracking through the help file and some have a silly [param1,param2...]/[option1,option2...] look which is not helpfull at all since I don't know which options are planned to be used for the specific command.
Intelisense helps a lot but if it cannot find it specified in Commands.txt it's reading the help file or find simillar script and figure out.
Just the other day I was playing with SmartGui trying to get a feel of it and made a Simple Text Label, After that I lost around 15 minutes to figure out how to make its background transparent.
I believe that the learning curve of Autohotkey could be even shorter if you provided us with sort of a old school syntax grammar.

[PhiLho]

Can you be more precise?
The "some nicely elaborated" / "some ends up with spaghetti" part is vague, have you names to denounce?

AFAIK, each control/function/command has a complete list of options/parameters/arguments. Where is it lacking?

What do you mean by "old school syntax grammar"? Can you give an example?
For me, the GuiControlGet, OutputVar [, Sub-command, ControlID, Param4] format is very classical in computing docs.
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vPhiLho := RegExReplace("Philippe Lhoste", "^(\w{3})\w*\s+\b(\w{3})\w*$", "$1$2")

[Guest]

I'm not him, but I have noticed this, here's an example...

some nicely elaborated...

• SplitPath (each param nicely named & listed in a table)

some ends up with spaghetti...

• Functions
  
• ListView
  
• TreeView

[bekihito]

Sorry for not responding earlier.
I would like to thank guest for the help he is trying to bring into this discussion but I think that the some of the things you placed as examples are not exactly what I had in mind, I might say even opposite. For instance the list/tree view is OK.Although a long read, everything is in one continuous page with links to other but similar stuff.
The splitpath is the exact thing I 'm refering to as the "old school" command syntax grammar (remember DOS help?).
SplitPath, InputVar [, OutFileName, OutDir, OutExtension, OutNameNoExt, OutDrive]
-> OK I understand that this principle is not applicable on each and every but...
However when talking of the spaghetti style explanation I was thinking more of something like this:
Text control (GUI)
there are some references to options width, row (leads to another page), height, asks to see general options (leads to another page) and position and sizing of controls (leads to another page)
->(leads to another page) 3 times when explaining something=spaghetti
For not elaborated:
Button (GUI)
you can put default into Option parameter
->when you add Button, after which comma (,) does the option parameter stand? what are the other possible option parameters?
I hope now you see what I was aiming at.
I understand that making documentation is a PITA but on the other hand I believe that this kind of effort would bring more people to using Autohotkey and not "Close and forget about it.It's to complicated." decision.
If there exists a complete list for each and every, I wasn't able to find it in help file so please point me in the wright direction and I'll delete this thread because it's then in the wrong board (ask for help would be the proper one).
Best regards,

[bekihito]

Just for exercise!
to PhiLho:
Step 1.presuming from the number of posts, you are a long AutoHotkey user and therefore you have most of the regular expressions in your head.
Step 2. please post here syntax for the Text Control (GUI) and all of the options you can remember (you don't have to explain them).
Step 3. mark the time and open the help file and go through your list of options - click through help, use index and search as you like
Step 4. sum the time you needed to achieve the goal and add 20%
(optional) Step 5. Post the resulting time here.

This will show you how much time is needed for the newbie to get introduced with a single command (that's the +20% time, we newbies are not that fast as long time users ).
After introduction there is some time needed for actually learning how to implement the command but if you lack the start you'll never get to it.

[Guest]

[bekihito]

Thank you guest.

SplithPath is the exact thing that I want. I was refering to DOS help as the way it should be.

Listview/Treeview are not in the desired format but everything is in one scrollable page so it can be used but also it can get improved.

It is not a waste of effort and if I knew enough (or had the needed input) I would do it myself/ work with someone to achieve it.

ups! It should be "each and every COMMAND"

Yes this thread is about optimization and adding missing data in the help files rather then inventing something new.

Thanks for the guidance about BB forum but I ment to contact Admin/Mod for deleting /moving I spoke about.
best regards

[majkinetor]

I totally agree. Altho AHK help is elaborate, its more describing one then technical.

See GuiControl.
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[bekihito]

Hi everybody!
I see by the few replies I got that I'm not the only one thinking about recomposing the help files.
Also I can guess that nobody is looking forward on actually doing the job so I propose to do the tiresome part of the work if there are some of the more adept Autohotkey users willing to provide me with the syntax grammar (like the SplithPath command) for every command/function etc.
If I manage to come up with a decent product it would be nice in to make a working group in order to do it quickly and to involve Chris Mallet into the production so that the help file can keep track of the new stuff being added.
BR