AutoHotkey Community

[Dippy46]

Hi,all
Someone asked me recently, as to the limitations of AHK. I said that as far as I know it does'nt do three dimensional molecular transformations, BUT! we're working on it.
Seriously though,the point at which Chris introduced DllCall, there ceased to be ANY limitations other than the users Imagination/Ability. I currently use a graphics library that I wrote last year. However for political reasons I can't release the Library at this time. However I have extracted some of the more salient functions and written them out as subroutines.
The code attached is intentionally verbose, and with lots of bits to tweak making it easier for newbies to grapple with.

CAVEAT: Any use of SelectObject into a DC must be matched immediately with a DeleteOject as soon as the operation it was used for, is completed. FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN POSSIBLY FATAL MEMORY LEAKS.. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!.
The code attached shows basically how to set up a buffer/canvas on which to draw (avoids flicker) and then blits the result to the AhkWindow. Just a few simple draw functions such as drawing ellipses,rectangles & lines + a quick look at font handling! Feedback on this will be greatly appreciated,and questions are welcome (if I can answer them even better).
More demos will be downloadable in the near future showing simple Animations and hopefully some spriteing! So,finally as Eintein said,
"make it as simple as possible,but no simpler". Have Fun.

[corrupt]

Nice. Thanks

[Laszlo]

Cool! The seconds hand moves a little irregularly, though. How hard is it to add numbers at the hour positions?

[Chris]

Thanks for sharing this. I've moved it to the Scripts forum because it might get more attention there.

[Grendel]

this is a very good example how flexible and genius AHK-Scripts can be !

great stuff...thanks for giving several ideas
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greets Grendel

[not-logged-in-daonlyfreez]

Great stuff!

Thru peeking at MSDN on GDI, I quickly was able to add an Arc

[Dippy46]

Hi all,
Thanx for the responses.
@Laszlo, yes re: irregularity,my fault for choosing a slow timer rate but that was done to show up the lazy graphics. Just reduce it to a more normal 100msecs or less and it should be ok!
As far as Numbers go there are several solutions ranging from the elegant thru to totally gross.
I should have some methods up on the board within the next 24hours or so
@N-L-I daonlyfreez
I have mixed feelings about adding more complexity to AHK's internal abilities, and I think in some ways it would spoil it for those users who enjoy the simplistic and friendly interface. I think it would probably be more prudent to build an official include file or rather a set of approved
includes for those users who require additional functionality. I may be wrong but there have been many posts on the subject QED.
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Simple ideas lie within reach, only of complex minds

[Laszlo]

I like this pure AHK analog clock, but it is too slow or the hands movement is irregular, so I made a little mod. The clock is updated now 4 times a second, but if the value of seconds did not change, we do nothing. This is a factor of 2 speedup, with smoother hands movement.

The original script redrew the whole clock constantly, which was slow. Instead, the outer circle and the markers are now kept unchanged, only the hands are erased and redrawn. This gives more than ten fold speedup. There are a number of simplifications for further speedup and making the script shorter. The end result is less than 1% processor load in my laptop, down from 20%, and the length of the script is reduced more than twofold.

I have my taskbar on the left edge of the screen, and the clock is docked there. Since it is transparent, I still can see or click on everything underneath. Of course the clock can be made to appear in a corner of the screen, always on top, or let it come to the top regularly, and then get back to the bottom.

[Laszlo]

I updated my version with
- OnExit, to clean up when the script exits abnormally (like a new version is started)
- Round the coordinates in the DrawHand function (instead of truncating), to improve accuracy
- Colored the hands for demo

Don't forget to edit the location. On lower screen resolutions the clock could be outside.

[Dippy46]

@Laszlo, Nice one!
The main reason I popped this code up was to generate a little bit of interest. Thanx for taking up the challenge. I wonder if you've sussed the best way to produce the clockface numbers

Back Soon
Regards
Dave.
_________________
Simple ideas lie within reach, only of complex minds

[Laszlo]

As you see, no numbers in my version, either. I've been too lazy, and waited for you to do the numbers.

Another question: the lines, circles would look much nicer, with some dithering or anti-aliasing, or how is it called, when the edges of straight lines made blurry, to avoid sharp steps at pixel boundaries. Does anyone know a simple way to do it?

[Jaytech]

Ok, this string has ben dead for quite some time, but I was in need of an analog clock. Finding this was a good send considering that I know almost nothing about how it works. That being said, I did make a couple small changes. I increased the size and added numbers. Woot!

So for anyone who wants it, here my additions: