How to start a program and hide it immediately?

[Super Foxy]

I want a specific chrome window to start with windows start, and I already know hot to do that, but I also want the window to start already hidden, without autohotkey having to wait for the title to load, so is there a way to start a chrome window (or any other program) with some kind of attribute to make it hidden?

[kunkel321]

If I'm reading the help docs correctly, this should work:

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#Requires AutoHotkey v2+
;Note space before webpage.
target := "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" " https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/v2/lib/Run.htm"
Run target,, "Min"

It doesn't seem to be starting minimized though....

[boiler]

FYI, this:

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target := "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" " https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/v2/lib/Run.htm"

...is the same as this:

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target := "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/v2/lib/Run.htm"

You are concatenating two literal strings with no real reason to have them separated with two pairs of quotation marks. If you want to have quotes as part of the strings, which is recommended for the Run function in case there are spaces in the paths (although these have no spaces), then you need quotes inside your quoted string like this:

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target := '"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" "https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/v2/lib/Run.htm"'

To see the differences/lack of differences:

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#Requires AutoHotkey v2.0
target1 := "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" " https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/v2/lib/Run.htm"
target2 := "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/v2/lib/Run.htm"
target3 := '"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" "https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/v2/lib/Run.htm"'
MyGui := Gui()
MyGui.SetFont('s12','Consolas')
MyGui.Add('Text',, target1 '`n' target2 '`n' target3)
MyGui.Show

[kunkel321]

....To see the differences/lack of differences:

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#Requires AutoHotkey v2.0
target1 := "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" " https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/v2/lib/Run.htm"
target2 := "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/v2/lib/Run.htm"
target3 := '"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" "https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/v2/lib/Run.htm"'
MyGui := Gui()
MyGui.SetFont('s12','Consolas')
MyGui.Add('Text',, target1 '`n' target2 '`n' target3)
MyGui.Show

Very nice!
Any thoughts on why the "Min" option isn't working?

[Noitalommi_2]

Hi.

@kunkel321
The Min option doesn't seem to work when Chrome was previously closed as maximized window.

[Noitalommi_2]

@Super Foxy

This hides the Chrome window but you have to wait until the window exists.
It didn't work for me without WainWait.

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Run("Chrome.exe",,,&pid)
WinWait("ahk_pid" pid)
WinHide
Sleep 1000
WinShow

Alternatively, without waiting, you could launch the Chrome window outside of the visible screen area.

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F1:: {

	global pid
	Run("Chrome.exe --window-position=0," A_ScreenHeight+100,,,&pid)
}
F2::WinMove(0, 0,,, "ahk_pid" pid)