AutoHotkey Community

[Guest]

Hello,

I wrote these script:

[Chris]

Does this seem to happen only when you do certain things, such as launching a program or document -- or is there any other pattern to it?

Background: Since #r and #e are normally used by Windows Explorer, defining them requires the keyboard hook so that the script can take ownership of them. The hook manages these hotkeys by tracking the physical state of modifier keys such as LWin and RWin. If there are times when hook's tracking is interfered with -- such as when a disk is spinning up or you're switching video resolutions -- the hook might think that LWin or RWin is physically held down when it really isn't. This is why only hook hotkeys (i.e. only #r and #e in this case) are affected.

Since this seems to be a problem for others too, I'm planning to give the hook its own dedicated thread. Although that should alleviate the problem, it might not entirely resolve it if there are ways in which the OS can force the hook to momentarily stop tracking keystrokes. Two of these ways are Win+L on XP (lock the computer) and the Ctrl+Alt+Del security screen, both of which are already addressed in v1.0.17 so should not be a problem.

If anyone else experiences this issue, it would help me if you describe the types of things you were doing right before keys get stuck down. So far, I've identified two other cases:

1) If you switch your video card to TV-out (or perhaps switch video resolutions) via an application hotkey, the hook is momentarily disabled in some cases.

2) If you launch a document such as a URL but MSIE takes a long time to launch (because it's not cached), it appears that the script's thread is tied up during the launch, thus the hook cannot track during this time. In this case, a dedicated thread should solve it.

Edit: In v1.0.39, a dedicated thread was added for the hooks. It should prevent keys from getting "stuck down". It should also eliminate mouse/keyboard lag during long operations such as UrlDownloadToFile.

[Guest]

Thanks for the information. I forgot, that Win+R are used by the OS. I'm so stupid. It had just occurred to me, that the problem be connected with it. For a workaround I defined other keys for "r" and "e".

The hotkeys will be start, when I write text. It doesn't matter where I write text, like a letter in Microsoft Word or a text in notepad. As soon as I type a "r" or "e" the hotkey starts. I doesn't make something else, I only write text and I doesn't press the Windows-Key.

I write very fast, so your explanation sounds very probably. Perhaps the driver is to busy, because I write to fast. - But, when I think about it, the hotkey will be starts when I write slow, too. OK, I don?t know. I hope, that I helped you with these clue to develop the software.

Michael

[Chris]

I've made a change that should reduce the problem of sticking modifier keys causing unintended firings of hook hotkeys: Details