AutoHotkey Community

[WhiteCloud]

I've got a script that triggers another program to move the caret around the screen and type about a hundred characters. It takes about 1 second. The other program is a terminal emulator that does some stuff that ahk won't in this particular instance (yeah a rare instance ), so I can't incorporate that part into ahk. I want to be able to type while this is going on yet have what I type happen AFTER the other stuff. It doesn't really matter if ahk waits for 1 seconds or checks something to see if the other program is done doing it's stuff. That's not an important issue.

So how would you guys do it? The input command? I trigger the other program's macro with a single unique keypress btw. I hope this is a fun idea to brainstorm about for ya'll.
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AHK = Hella fun

[Chris]

I think the only way to buffer your own keystrokes -- holding them "suspended" and then playing them back later -- is with the Input command, omitting the V (Visible) option. You could have that Input timeout after 1 second or have it terminated by a press of ENTER or some other end key. Once the Input has finished, you could use the SendRaw command to send whatever keys were collected (if any).

Note that currently, the Input command cannot directly collect non-character keys such as {Down} and {F4}. If that's a problem, the following topic suggests a workaround: http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=595

[WhiteCloud]

yeah that would work pretty well. I should be able to put that to into my script. I'm not sure if it will 100% reliably catch all the keystrokes every time though. Since in between loops a key could be hit. (I could be wrong about this though, i haven't tested it.) I would be executing this portion of the code about 600 times a day for info going into a database so reliability in this case is the most important thing.

I'll probably wait until the feature is implemented into hotstrings. There are a lot of other scripts i can work on in the mean time.

Looking at the the big picture of how AHK works overall, I think buffering keystrokes is very important for it. All other programs in windows do it while they are "thinking" right? It feels constraining to have to remember not to press anything or risk those keystrokes being lost. And the uncertainty of not knowing exactly when you can start interacting with the computer again is a small but frustrating hindrance as well. Optimally I'd like to be able to do what I'm doing and not have to even glance at the screen.
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AHK = Hella fun

[Chris]

[WhiteCloud]

I'll look for some sort of block input command that buffers keystrokes in the other program (it's a terminal emulator). There's a good chance it has a way to do it or has a work around.

Maybe in the future AHK's BlockInput could have an option to buffer keyboard activity. Maybe someone will stumble upon this thread in a few months and add an idea or two to it.
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AHK = Hella fun

[WhiteCloud]

It seems like the more endkeys one adds to the Input command, the more If statements the loop needs to detect them, which is time spent outside of the Input command -- losing keystrokes. Then the script will have to use the BlockInput command while those If statements are running.

I'm not sure how fast I'd have to hit a key after I hit an endkey to cause it to not be buffered... I'm guessing anything's possible when there's this terminal emulator and a virus scanner taking up varying loads on the cpu at the same time.

Oh well, if other people find a need for this they'll post about it.
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AHK = Hella fun

[Chris]