AutoHotkey Community

Ace_NoOne · Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 333 Location: Germany

Hey guys,

I just got a weird reply over at the PSPad forums:

toralf · Joined: 31 Jan 2005 Posts: 3842 Location: Bremen, Germany

If you search this forum, you'll find several posts on this.

Yes it is true, Chris started off from the - at that time open source - code of AutoIt. It is mentioned several times in the documentation and in the source code of AHK. That's why he is maintaining the backward compatibility to AutoIt2 scripts.

AutoIt3 has some very nice features, but AHK has some as well. It is up to the user to decide which app he wants to use.

Some AutoIt users like to flame on AHK. Don't get annoyed, just choose the app you want to use.

And syntax preferences is very subjective. I like AHKs syntax. But I wouldn't bash on AutoIt. It's your personal choice.
_________________
Ciao
toralf

Ace_NoOne · Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 333 Location: Germany

I had tried the search function, but since it cannot be limited to searching the topic titles only (yet?), I got a huge list of results of mostly unrelated topics... Sad

Frankly, I currently don't see any reason to use AutoIt - as far as I can tell, AHK offers everything I need (except maybe RegExp). This might me simple ignorance on my part, as I would probably find some helpful functions if I delved into it, but then I'd probably miss a number of AHK features... Plus I don't really have the capacities to learn yet another language atm.

I don't suppose there's a concise list for comparison of the two languages? For some projects, it might be better to use one over the other, and such a list could help your decision.

PhiLho · Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 5:11 pm Post subject:

JSLover · Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 7:19 pm Post subject:

Chris · Site Admin Joined: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 10467

jagpanzer · Joined: 24 Jan 2006 Posts: 8 Location: Florida

I'm a complete newb here, but my vote goes to AHK... for whatever little that is worth. I was telling my roommate earlier, I have NEVER seen a forum where there is as much combined effort or as many people working to help each other out. I've been nothing but impressed and pleased.

Ace_NoOne · Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 333 Location: Germany

Yes, these forums are a definite plus. Without you guys here, I would probably have dropped the idea of learning AHK early on.

What confuses me though: How could they go from the GPL license to closed-source? They would've had to re-write all the code then, no? And was there any special reason for this step, because that really strikes me as strange...

PhiLho · Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2006 10:25 am Post subject:

BoBo · Guest

AGU · Guest

btw. there is already a very large thread concerning this subject:
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4363

Cheers
AGU

macscript · Guest

I just install both, I think Autohotkey is Better for GUI, an Autoit is better for doing other things.

Titan · Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 5068 Location: imaginationland

You might aswell learn (Visual)Basic if you think about AutoIt. Reason being is that they're similar in terms of difficulty and Basic is superior (and comes with IDE apps). Having used both AutoIt and AutoHotkey I can say that AutoIt's syntax is better programatically but AutoHotkey is far more simple which means you can do what you want faster and easier.

In my opionion, AutoHotkey is the real deal for quick automation or for making your own utils. Use AutoIt for making more bigger apps unless you can afford something better (like VB/C#/Java?).
_________________

RegExReplace("irc.freenode.net/ahk", "^(?=(.(?=[\0-r\[]*((?<=\.).))))(?:[c-\x73]{2,8}(\S))+((2)|\b[^\2-]){2}\D++$", "$u3$1$3$4$2")

PhiLho · Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 8:15 am Post subject:

Titan: your advices are good, but:

1) VB is compiled and need a large runtime (last time I checked, at least);
At least, AutoIt and AutoHotkey scripts run as fast as you save your file... Smile

and the runtime is small.

2) VB isn't able to do automation like the two above, although you can use AutoIt's ActiveX version with VB.

3) Java is useful, but is certainly not in the field of Windows automation. Perfect for big applications, as you write, though.

Note that Microsoft released a free version of Visual Basic. And some Basic(-like) languages are free as well, like Euphoria, etc.
There was even a free release of RealBasic, which wanted to gain legacy Visual Basic (unhappy with the .Net turn) and boasted complete compatibility.

Titan · Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 5068 Location: imaginationland

VB apps are compiled specially for a smaller file size and better performance (in the later IL-type versions anyway). AutoIt and AutoHotkey contain the whole library of commands in compiled scripts when only about a tenth of them are used in a typical script. You could say the speed vs. performance issue between AutoIt and VB is balanced.

Regarding VB and automation, I've used quite a few VB macros and game automation programs so I was speaking from experience. But since I don't have much experience in the VB language I won't contest your point.

Also thanks for the heads-up on the free VB scripting programs. I don't use VB much though but it's useful to know there's stuff out there..
_________________

RegExReplace("irc.freenode.net/ahk", "^(?=(.(?=[\0-r\[]*((?<=\.).))))(?:[c-\x73]{2,8}(\S))+((2)|\b[^\2-]){2}\D++$", "$u3$1$3$4$2")