How to save time by automating tedious tasks with autohotkey

My AutoHotkey Scripts

The scripts I am using with AutoHotkey macro program for Windows to automate tedious tasks on my computer.

List of scripts

Currently included list of scripts inside My_AHK_Scripts.ahk file:

1. French Accents ✅ The script works in any input field, such as in the browser or the notepad application
2. ⌨ For example, you can insert:
   • ç by typing ,,c and hitting SPACE
   • è by typing “e and hitting SPACE
   • é by typing ”e and hitting SPACE
   • ê by typing ^^e and hitting SPACE
   • ë by typing “”e and hitting SPACE
   • œ by typing ==oe and hitting SPACE .
3. German Accents ✅ The script works in any input field, such as in the browser or the notepad application
4. ⌨ For example, you can insert:
   • ä by typing ::a and hitting SPACE
   • ß by typing ==ss and hitting SPACE .
5. Click the “Next” button inside Rosetta Stone Ctrl
   • ⚠ It only works when the browser tab window is titled “Welcome to Rosetta Stone!”. You might also need to adjust the X and Y coordinates of where the mouse cursor has to click the button. You can help yourself with one of these examples to get the exact cursor position
   • 🎮 I advise you to use antimicro app to map Ctrl to a specific button on your controller (such as the wireless Xbox one), so you can lean back on your chair while studying a new language. The mouse movement and LMB can also be assigned to other buttons on your controller for making it possible to select different answers on your screen. Of course, you only won’t be able to complete the exercises that require to type something on your keyboard.
6. SoundCloud/YouTube Downloader ⚠ You need to have Python and youtube-dl installed in order for the script to work
7. ⚠ It only works in the specified windows: Windows Terminal, ConEmu64 or cmd.exe. Of course, you can extend it by adding more window classes
8. ⌨ This script supports the following hotstrings:
   • yt followed by SPACE will autocomplete a youtube-dl command to which you only have to paste a SoundCloud song link. The downloaded song will include all the metadata with an embedded thumbnail
   • ytv followed by SPACE will autocomplete a youtube-dl command to which you only have to paste the YouTube video link. It will use the best possible video quality and write down its thumbnail to a separate file
     • ytm is similar, but will only download extracted audio in 320 kbps mp3 format.

1. Download and install AutoHotkey (only available for Windows).
   • alternatively, you may want to use the beauty of Python by wrapping AutoHotkey with the Python ahk library.
2. Put the AutoHotkey script from this repository inside the installation folder, such as C:\Program Files\AutoHotkey .
3. Run the script by double-clicking the file and start saving a lot of time!
   • optionally, you can follow these 3 simple steps to make sure that your script runs every time you turn on your PC.

Learning to develop your own AHK scripts

If you are willing to explore the world of automation, here are some resources that can help you on the way:

Lowell is the founder and CEO of How-To Geek. He’s been running the show since creating the site back in 2006. Over the last decade, Lowell has personally written more than 1000 articles which have been viewed by over 250 million people. Prior to starting How-To Geek, Lowell spent 15 years working in IT doing consulting, cybersecurity, database management, and programming work. Read more.

Have you ever needed to perform the same mindless task over and over on your PC? Instead of wasting hours clicking buttons and hitting keys, this is the perfect time to use your AutoHotkey skills to make your PC do the work for you.

Note: This particular example is a real one that I used earlier today to save a small amount of time, but these are techniques that I’ve used many times over the years to literally save myself days worth of time.

The Scenario

I was trying to go through and clean out a bunch of incorrect broadcast messages in our email newsletter account, when I realized that their interface required me to manually click the Delete button and then confirm it on every single message—we’re talking about 300 incorrect messages that needed to be deleted. To make matters worse, the interface is extremely slow, which means I would have spent a good 30-40 minutes just clicking and making my carpal tunnel even worse.

Instead of doing that, I created a new AutoHotkey script and quickly wrote up a script to do the work for me.

The first step was to identify exactly which clicks and keys I needed to automate—obviously the first step is to click on the X button, which brings up this Ajax confirmation dialog:

Luckily the Delete button is automatically highlighted, so you can simply hit the Space key to confirm. Once the record has been deleted, everything slides up as if the row was never there. Knowing this, we’ll move on and create a script that automates clicking the X button, waiting 3 seconds for the confirmation dialog, presses the Space bar, and then waits another 3 seconds for the row to disappear.

Creating the Script

The first thing we’ll want to do is create a loop that will repeat the same actions a number of times—in this case, we’re estimating that we’ll need to repeat this 300 times, so we’ll use the Loop syntax like this:

Now we’ll need to automate the click action, which is easy in AutoHotkey—you just type click. You can use a more advanced click syntax if you want, choosing exactly where you want it to click on the screen, or choosing the button click. For our purposes, we’ll just be using the default, which leaves us with this:

Now our script will click 300 times in a row, but unfortunately we’ve got that confirmation dialog to deal with, so now we’ll use the Send function to send the Space bar keystroke to the active window.

If you look at the documentation you’ll see all of the syntax for special keys—regular keystrokes can be entered normally—for instance, if you wanted to type test and then end it with a Space, you’d use this:

So now we’ve got a script that clicks the button and then hits the Space bar, which would be alright except the interface is slow, so we need to insert a small pause between each execution of the click and send functions. To accomplish this, we’ll use the Sleep function, which takes only one argument—the delay in milliseconds.

Now we’ve got a script that will successfully delete the items, waiting 3 seconds before it starts so that you can move the mouse cursor over the first X, clicking the button, waiting 3 seconds, hitting the Space bar, and then waiting 3 seconds before it goes through the next set. You could use this simple script right now if you wanted to—but what if you want to stop the script?

What we’ll do is use the GetKeyState function to check whether you’ve hit a certain key—for testing, we’ll use the F8 key and add the following into the middle of the loop. This will detect whether the F8 key has been pressed, and then use the break to exit the loop.

GetKeyState, state, F8
if state = D
break

The Final Script

Here’s the final script all put together, which probably won’t help you too much since it’s specific to my scenario—but you can use it to create your own scripts by simply modifying the clicks and keystroke sending.

Loop 300
GetKeyState, state, F8
if state = D
break
sleep 3000
click
sleep 3000
Send,
>
Return

To illustrate how this works in practice, here’s a quick video that shows it in action:

In this particular scenario, it took me about 3 minutes to throw together a working script—time saved: 27 minutes. Just enough time for me to record the video and write this article!

Batch file renamers, photo organizers, and other automation tools have saved people countless hours. Despite all the tasks that are automated you still run into terribly tedious ones that aren’t. Create custom AutoHotkey scripts to breeze through tedious tasks.

Computer tips and tricks blog How-To Geek was sick of wasting time with tedious and repetitive tasks, including dealing with a stubborn email client that lacked a “select all” function.

I was trying to go through and clean out a bunch of incorrect broadcast messages in our email newsletter account, when I realized that their interface required me to manually click the Delete button and then confirm it on every single message—we’re talking about 300 incorrect messages that needed to be deleted. To make matters worse, the interface is extremely slow, which means I would have spent a good 30-40 minutes just clicking and making my carpal tunnel even worse.

The solution? They wrote a quick and simple AutoHotkey script that mimicked a user sitting at the computer and hand deleting each unwanted email. Check out the full guide at the link below to learn how to create your own automated AutoHotkey helper. Don’t be put off by the idea of scripting if you’ve never programmed or scripted before, AutoHotkey is easy to work with and their guide is easy to follow. If you’re looking for a primer on AutoHotkey, take a look at our guide to turning any action into a keyboard shortcut with AHK.

Turn Any Action Into a Keyboard Shortcut: A Beginner’s Guide to AutoHotkey

We waste a ton of time every day clicking through menus and typing repetitive text. AutoHotkey is…

Here on the Zapier blog it isn’t often that we dedicate a full post to highlighting the automation tool we’ve built. Today’s post does just that, introducing you to Zapier’s power, showing you the basics of setting up a “Zap” (aka automation) and supplying you with 10 ideas that will hopefully cut out at least one tedious task from your weekly routine.

How Zapier Works

Zapier is event-based automation. An event, let’s say a new email with an attachment, triggers an action, such as downloading that attachment to a specified folder. This simple equation— an event happens in one place, triggers an event in another place—is then applied to a massive integration of over 400 apps, including Gmail, Dropbox, Evernote and Twitter. That means when you receive a new email, besides Dropbox, you could trigger off an action in hundreds of other apps, making the automation possibilities of Zapier seemingly infinite.

But before we get to even just a few of those possibilities, let’s first look under the hood of Zapier to see how easy it is to set up one of these automations.

How to Set Up Automation

After , you’ll soon find a button with the short phrase, “Make a Zap!” Click it to enter into the “Zap editor”.

For an example, let’s set up that Zap to automatically save all email attachments of new emails that arrive in your inbox. The first step in doing so is to turn that statement into a Zap—set the “trigger” (new Gmail attachments) and the “action” (Dropbox copies file from Gmail).

From there you’ll need to connect your Gmail and Dropbox account to Zapier—this allows the tool to receive and send data between the two apps. After specifying the Gmail folder you want this Zap to trigger on (you’re able to select Inbox or narrow it down to a specific folder) you’ll pick the Dropbox folder where you want these new attachments to be placed.

You’re almost near the end now. The second to last step asks you to test the Zap to make sure it’s working as intended. And the final step: turn the Zap “On”. Or in the famous words of infomercial legend Ron Popeil, “Set it, and forget it!”

So what’s the best way to use Zapier? Try one of these 10 Zaps to eliminate a tedious task out of your day.

1. Automatically Save Attachments to Dropbox

This Zap can be set up to only save attachments placed in a particular Gmail folder, sent from a designated email address or from emails containing a keyword, such as “report”. Attachments can also automatically be sent to Box or Google Drive, too.

2. Get a Text Reminder to Take out the Trash

Whether you need a weekly reminder to set out the trash or a monthly reminder to pay rent, Zapier offers a “Schedule” app that lets you trigger and reoccurring action. That action could also come in the form of a mobile push notification, to-do list addition, calendar event, Evernote reminder and more. The frequency of the action can be set daily, weekly or monthly.

3. Save Needed Receipt Details and Archive the Rest

Use Zapier’s free email parser to turn any template emails you receive, such a receipt from Amazon, right into spreadsheet data, bookkeeping entries, CRM contacts and more.

4. Enter Biz Cards Into a CRM with a Mobile Pic

Eliminate the annoying task of manually entering new business cards you collect into your CRM or other contact management system, such as Google Contacts. Instead, simply take a pic of the card with the FullContact Card Reader app and let their human-powered service and Zapier take care of the rest.

5. Permanently Save New Twitter Search Results

Whether you’re monitoring a brand, keeping tabs on a developing story or saving tweets containing a certain hashtag, Zapier can automatically archive new Twitter search results straight to a Google Docs spreadsheet. You’re able to pull in not only the body of the tweet, but its time and location along with details about the profile it came from—the individual’s name, follower and following count, location and more.

6. Queue Sharing on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+

Buffer is a super handy tool to schedule and track social media postings, and when hooked up with an RSS, it becomes a convenient way to streamline sharing new blog posts. This method is preferred over directly sharing new posts right to social media sites because with Buffer you’re able to look over your queue and make any final edits before your content is later shared.

7. Add Contacts to a Newsletter—Right from Gmail

When an email exchange leads to someone asking you to sign them up for your company’s newsletter, just save their email to a specific Google Contacts folder and automatically have it added to a MailChimp list (they’ll first be asked to opt-in). If neither of those applications are in your toolkit, then connect one of the many CRMs or form builder apps on Zapier to the email marketing service of your choice.

8. Get Email Updates for Spreadsheet Rows

If you’ve ever relied on Google Docs’ form builder or collaborated on a spreadsheet, it can be tempting to go in and check for new data way too often. Instead, wait for those items to come your way by setting up an email alert when a new row is added to your Google Doc. The alert, which could also be in the form of a text message, mobile push notification, team chat app message and more, can include the contents of the new row, too.

9. Share Photos to Facebook Directly From Dropbox

You’re already saving photos to Dropbox; don’t upload them to Facebook again. Instead, let Zapier do that. You can even add a “capture” as your file name, so Zapier can post the picture and tell your followers about it automatically.

10. Get Notified When a Favorite Blog Publishes a Post

Instead of consistently checking a site or RSS reader, let new posts of your favorite blog arrive right in your inbox.

More Tedious Tasks to Eliminate

Zapier users find all sort of ways to cut tedious tasks out of their workflow, but we want to know yours. What tedious task have you eliminated—or wish to eliminate—with the help of automation? Please share in the comments below!

Credits: Gear photo courtesy Sonny Abesamis

Save yourself from the drudge of repetition

If you work from home or attend classes online, then you no doubt have phrases you type on a regular basis. Or maybe you have a specific file you need to open often, but not leave open. Whatever the reason, Windows Autohotkey can provide you a fast way to perform a series of tasks.

What is Windows Autohotkey?

Windows Autohotkey is a free and open-source scripting language that allows users to create scripts for Windows. While it uses its own programming language, you don’t have to be skilled at coding to make use of the tool. It’s intuitive and easy to pick up, especially given the wealth of resources available online.

This tutorial will walk you through the basic steps involved with using Windows Autohotkey. To put into perspective how useful this tool can be, “Windows Autohotkey” is 18 characters long including the space. It was typed throughout this article using only three keystrokes. Interested? Read on to find out how.

One thing to keep in mind is that this tutorial only covers the basics. Windows Autohotkey is a powerful tool with far-reaching applications — too many to cover in a single tutorial. This tutorial will help you get your feet wet so you can start experimenting.

Downloading and Building Your First Script

Windows Autohotkey is not built into the Windows OS, so you will need to download it from the website. Once you download it, follow the on-screen instructions. If asked to choose between ANSI and UNICODE, select UNICODE — it has wider support for non-English characters. Once you’ve installed the program, go to your Desktop.

Right-click any empty spot on the screen and select New > Autohotkey Script. The script will appear as a file on your desktop. Give it a name that makes it easy to identify and hit Enter. After this, right-click the file and choose Edit script.

This will open an editing screen, most likely in Notepad. For the example, we will make a script that automatically types:

Sincerely yours, George Jetson

All you have to do is hit the hotkey. First, type:

^j::

The ^ symbol means CTRL, so you will hit CTRL+J to activate this hotkey. If you’re confused about why that symbol means CTRL, don’t worry — there will be more on that later in the tutorial.

Send, Sincerely yours, George Jetson

The command in this line is Send. Anything after the comma will be displayed on screen.

return

Once you have finished this, save the script. Right-click it once more and click Run script.

When all is said and done, it should look like this:

^j::
Send, Sincerely yours, George Jetson
return

Now whenever you type CTRL+j, the phrase “Sincerely yours, George Jetson” will appear.

Creating a Hotstring

The above command was a hotkey. Now we will show you how to build a hotstring, or a shortcut that types a word or series of words. This is the same process used to type “Windows Autohotkey” without actually typing it.

The command is simple. Rather than a double colon (::) to the right of the hotkey, you will surround the abbreviation with two sets of double colons, like this:

::wah::Windows Autohotkey

The text within the colons will serve as the shortcut, while the text to the right of the colons will be what appears when the command is typed.

Hotkey Symbols and Their Meanings

This section will provide a brief explanation of the various symbols and what they mean.

These are the most basic symbols. There are several others that are more complicated, but these aren’t necessary to know for learning the basics. You should also know that you can combine multiple symbols together to make them work; for example,

People have created scripts that do everything from converting a joystick into a mouse to resizing windows with nothing except the right mouse button.

The forums are a great place to not only find pre-made scripts, but to ask for help in crafting your own. Once you’ve mastered the basics, explore the capabilities of Windows Autohotkey to streamline your own user experience.

Windows Autohotkey is a powerful tool that goes far beyond these few basic scripts, but learning these scripts and commands is the key to learning how to put the program to use for yourself on a much greater level.

Aside from using Windows Autohotkey to automatically type longer phrases, it can be used to open files, run programs, and much more. The sky’s the limit — you just have to learn to walk first.

Patrick is an Atlanta-based technology writer with a background in programming and smart home technology. When he isn’t writing, nose to the grindstone, he can be found keeping up with the latest developments in the tech world and upping his coffee game. Read Patrick’s Full Bio

คุณเคยต้องการทำงานที่ไร้ความคิดแบบเดียวกันบนพีซีของคุณหรือเปล่า? แทนที่จะเสียเวลากับการคลิกปุ่มและกดปุ่มนี่เป็นเวลาที่เหมาะสำหรับการใช้ทักษะ AutoHotkey ของคุณเพื่อทำให้พีซีของคุณทำงานให้คุณได้.

บันทึก: ตัวอย่างเฉพาะนี้เป็นของจริงที่ฉันใช้ก่อนหน้าวันนี้เพื่อประหยัดเวลาเล็กน้อย แต่นี่คือเทคนิคที่ฉันใช้หลายครั้งในช่วงหลายปีที่ผ่านมาเพื่อช่วยชีวิตตัวเองให้คุ้มค่ากับเวลา.

สถานการณ์

ฉันพยายามอ่านและทำความสะอาดข้อความออกอากาศที่ไม่ถูกต้องในบัญชีจดหมายข่าวทางอีเมลของฉันเมื่อฉันรู้ว่าส่วนต่อประสานของพวกเขาต้องการให้ฉันคลิกปุ่มลบด้วยตนเองแล้วยืนยันข้อความทุกข้อความ – เรากำลังพูดถึง 300 ข้อความที่ไม่ถูกต้องที่จำเป็นต้องถูกลบ เพื่อให้เรื่องแย่ลงอินเตอร์เฟซช้ามากซึ่งหมายความว่าฉันจะใช้เวลา 30-40 นาทีในการคลิกและทำให้อุโมงค์ carpal แย่ลง.

แทนที่จะทำเช่นนั้นฉันได้สร้างสคริปต์ AutoHotkey ขึ้นใหม่และเขียนสคริปต์เพื่อทำงานให้ฉันอย่างรวดเร็ว.

ขั้นตอนแรกคือการระบุว่าการคลิกและปุ่มใดที่ฉันต้องการให้เป็นแบบอัตโนมัติขั้นตอนแรกคือการคลิกที่ปุ่ม X ซึ่งจะแสดงกล่องโต้ตอบการยืนยัน Ajax นี้:

โชคดีที่ปุ่มลบจะถูกเน้นโดยอัตโนมัติดังนั้นคุณสามารถกดปุ่ม Space เพื่อยืนยัน เมื่อลบระเบียนแล้วทุกอย่างจะเลื่อนขึ้นราวกับว่าแถวไม่เคยอยู่ที่นั่น เมื่อทราบสิ่งนี้เราจะดำเนินการต่อและสร้างสคริปต์ที่ทำให้การคลิกปุ่ม X โดยอัตโนมัติรอ 3 วินาทีสำหรับกล่องโต้ตอบการยืนยันกด Space bar แล้วรออีก 3 วินาทีเพื่อให้แถวหายไป.

การสร้างสคริปต์

สิ่งแรกที่เราต้องการทำคือสร้างลูปที่จะทำซ้ำการกระทำแบบเดียวกันหลายครั้งในกรณีนี้เราประมาณว่าเราจะต้องทำซ้ำ 300 ครั้งดังนั้นเราจะใช้ลูป ไวยากรณ์เช่นนี้

ตอนนี้เราจะต้องดำเนินการคลิกอัตโนมัติซึ่งเป็นเรื่องง่ายใน AutoHotkey – คุณเพียงแค่พิมพ์ คลิก. คุณสามารถใช้ไวยากรณ์การคลิกขั้นสูงถ้าคุณต้องการเลือกตำแหน่งที่คุณต้องการให้คลิกบนหน้าจอหรือเลือกปุ่มคลิก เพื่อจุดประสงค์ของเราเราจะใช้ค่าเริ่มต้นซึ่งทำให้เรามีสิ่งนี้:

ตอนนี้สคริปต์ของเราจะคลิก 300 ครั้งติดต่อกัน แต่น่าเสียดายที่เราได้รับกล่องโต้ตอบการยืนยันที่จะจัดการดังนั้นตอนนี้เราจะใช้ฟังก์ชั่นส่งเพื่อส่งการกดแป้น Space bar ไปยังหน้าต่างที่ใช้งานอยู่.

หากคุณดูเอกสารคุณจะเห็นไวยากรณ์ทั้งหมดสำหรับการกดแป้นพิเศษปกติสามารถป้อนได้ตามปกติตัวอย่างเช่นหากคุณต้องการพิมพ์ ทดสอบ และลงท้ายด้วย Space คุณจะใช้สิ่งนี้:

ดังนั้นตอนนี้เรามีสคริปต์ที่คลิกที่ปุ่มจากนั้นกด Space bar ซึ่งจะไม่เป็นไรยกเว้นอินเทอร์เฟซช้าดังนั้นเราต้องแทรกการหยุดชั่วคราวเล็กน้อยระหว่างการดำเนินการคลิกและส่งแต่ละฟังก์ชัน เพื่อให้บรรลุสิ่งนี้เราจะใช้ฟังก์ชั่นสลีปซึ่งใช้เวลาเพียงหนึ่งข้อโต้แย้งคือความล่าช้าเป็นมิลลิวินาที.

นอนหลับ 3000
คลิก
นอนหลับ 3000
ส่ง อวกาศ

ตอนนี้เรามีสคริปต์ที่จะลบรายการสำเร็จรอ 3 วินาทีก่อนที่จะเริ่มเพื่อให้คุณสามารถเลื่อนเคอร์เซอร์ของเมาส์ไปเหนือ X แรกคลิกปุ่มรอ 3 วินาทีกด Space Space แล้วรอ 3 วินาทีก่อนที่มันจะผ่านชุดถัดไป คุณสามารถใช้สคริปต์ง่ายๆนี้ได้ในตอนนี้ถ้าคุณต้องการ แต่จะทำอย่างไรถ้าคุณต้องการหยุดสคริปต์?

สิ่งที่เราจะทำคือใช้ฟังก์ชั่น GetKeyState เพื่อตรวจสอบว่าคุณได้กดคีย์เพื่อทำการทดสอบหรือไม่เราจะใช้ปุ่ม F8 และเพิ่มสิ่งต่อไปนี้ลงในกึ่งกลางของลูป วิธีนี้จะตรวจสอบว่ามีการกดแป้น F8 หรือไม่แล้วใช้ตัวแบ่งเพื่อออกจากลูป.

สคริปต์สุดท้าย

GetKeyState, state, F8
ถ้า state = D
หยุด
นอนหลับ 3000
คลิก
นอนหลับ 3000
ส่ง Space

ในสถานการณ์เฉพาะนี้ฉันใช้เวลาประมาณ 3 นาทีในการบันทึกเวลาทำงานของสคริปต์: 27 นาที มีเวลาพอที่ฉันจะบันทึกวิดีโอและเขียนบทความนี้!

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Many of you are probably already familiar with AutoHotKey. This small and free utility lets you automate tasks and make your PC work exactly the way you want it to. The program is driven by a custom scripting language that’s easy to understand — even for someone with little or no programming experience.

You can write a macro using a simple text editor, like notepad, or use the included macro recorder to create hotkeys for virtually any button or combination of keys. That may not sound like a big deal, but once you start grasping its potential you’ll see it can be incredibly handy.

For example, you can assign a hotkey to launch any application you use regularly, or just switch to it if it is already running; assign abbreviations that expand as you type them; save time on repetitive tasks by setting the computer to auto-click a confirmation screen; or make the ‘Scroll Lock’ and Pause/Break keys do something useful for a change. The best part is that scripts can be compiled into an executable file and run on computers that don’t have AutoHotkey installed.

Today we’ll be looking at three simple time-saving scripts that can make your life easier and more productive.

There’s an endless number of scenarios where it can be useful to have a window show “on top,” however this functionality is usually crippled by how inaccessible it is depending on the program. For example, say you’re trying to use the Windows Calculator and a PDF file at the same time, need to copy data from one document to another, or simply want a chat window visible while working on other stuff. Some programs have this option built in them, but if you simply can’t be bothered with looking for it every time then a simple script can save you from constantly shuffling back and forth between windows.

Just create a new text file on Notepad, enter “^SPACE:: Winset, Alwaysontop, , A” (without the quotes), and save it as plain text with the .ahk file extension. Double-clicking this file loads the script on AutoHotKey. Now you can select any window and press Ctrl+Space to keep it on top even when it’s not the active window. You can change the “^SPACE” portion to whatever you like if you would prefer to use another hotkey, just remember to reload the script.

If you regularly need to access hidden files or change file extensions but don’t like the extra clutter that comes with leaving them always visible, there’s an easy way to toggle them on or off without the hassle of going into the Windows Explorer options every time.

Create a text file and paste the following code: (credit How-To Geek)

; WINDOWS KEY + Y TOGGLES FILE EXTENSIONS

#y:: RegRead, HiddenFiles_Status, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced, HideFileExt If HiddenFiles_Status = 1 RegWrite, REG_DWORD, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced, HideFileExt, 0 Else RegWrite, REG_DWORD, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced, HideFileExt, 1 WinGetClass, eh_Class,A If (eh_Class = “#32770″ OR A_OSVersion = “WIN_VISTA”) send, Else PostMessage, 0×111, 28931. A Return

; WINDOWS KEY + H TOGGLES HIDDEN FILES

#h:: RegRead, HiddenFiles_Status, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced, Hidden If HiddenFiles_Status = 2 RegWrite, REG_DWORD, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced, Hidden, 1 Else RegWrite, REG_DWORD, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced, Hidden, 2 WinGetClass, eh_Class,A If (eh_Class = “#32770” OR A_OSVersion = “WIN_VISTA”) send, Else PostMessage, 0x111, 28931. A Return

Double-clicking this file will load the script on AutoHotKey. Now you can toggle hidden folders using the Windows Key + H and toggle file extensions using Windows Key + Y. Again, you can change the key combination to whatever you like.

Ideas often come when you are in the middle of something else, but if you neglect writing them down immediately as they come it’s likely you’ll be sorry later trying to remember what they were.

One simple way of going about when there’s no pen and paper at hand is sending yourself quick email reminders. With a simple AutoHotKey script you can save a lot of time and avoid distractions by not having to even open an email client or browser window.

First you’ll need to grab this VBScript file from Cybernet News and customize it with your email account details – basically your email address and password. Once you’ve done that you’ll need to create a new AutoHotkey script in the same folder with the text below, replacing the email address with your own: (credit Lifehacker)

After loading the script you can hit the Win+Alt+E shortcut key (or whatever you change it to by replacing the “#!e” portion), type in your reminder into the box and hit enter. An email will be sent to your email account with the reminder in the subject line. Note that the VBS script you downloaded first is configured to work with Gmail accounts but you can use it with other services by modifying the SMTP server configuration. Also, it would be wise to either encrypt the file or at least creating an extra email account just for sending these emails, since the password would be stored in plain text.

This is just scratching the surface of what AutoHotKey can do. You can find many helpful resources on their developer’s forum and around the Web. If you regularly use other scripts that you find useful, feel free to share them in the comments.

We’ll be on the lookout for more time-saving ideas to revisit this topic in the future. In the meantime you can download the aforementioned scripts in a single executable file here to run them without AutoHotKey installed.

Bạn đã bao giờ cần phải thực hiện cùng một nhiệm vụ không suy nghĩ lặp đi lặp lại trên PC của bạn chưa? Thay vì lãng phí hàng giờ để nhấp vào nút và nhấn phím, đây là thời điểm hoàn hảo để sử dụng các kỹ năng AutoHotkey của bạn để làm cho PC của bạn thực hiện công việc cho bạn.

Chú thích: Ví dụ cụ thể này là một ví dụ thực tế mà tôi đã sử dụng trước đó để tiết kiệm một ít thời gian, nhưng đây là những kỹ thuật mà tôi đã sử dụng nhiều lần trong nhiều năm để tiết kiệm thời gian theo nghĩa đen của bản thân.

Kịch bản

Tôi đã cố gắng duyệt và xóa một loạt các tin nhắn quảng bá không chính xác trong tài khoản bản tin email của chúng tôi, khi tôi nhận ra rằng giao diện của chúng yêu cầu tôi nhấp vào nút Xóa và sau đó xác nhận nó trên mỗi tin nhắn – chúng tôi đang nói về 300 tin nhắn không chính xác cần phải xóa. Để làm cho vấn đề tồi tệ hơn, giao diện cực kỳ chậm, điều đó có nghĩa là tôi đã dành 30-40 phút tốt chỉ bằng cách nhấp và làm cho đường hầm ống cổ tay của tôi trở nên tồi tệ hơn.

Thay vì làm điều đó, tôi đã tạo một kịch bản AutoHotkey mới và nhanh chóng viết ra một kịch bản để thực hiện công việc cho tôi.

Bước đầu tiên là xác định chính xác những nhấp chuột và phím nào tôi cần để tự động hóa – rõ ràng bước đầu tiên là nhấp vào nút X, sẽ xuất hiện hộp thoại xác nhận Ajax này:

May mắn thay, nút Xóa được tự động tô sáng, vì vậy bạn chỉ cần nhấn phím Space để xác nhận. Khi bản ghi đã bị xóa, mọi thứ sẽ trượt lên như thể hàng không bao giờ ở đó. Biết được điều này, chúng tôi sẽ tiếp tục và tạo một tập lệnh tự động nhấp vào nút X, đợi 3 giây cho hộp thoại xác nhận, nhấn thanh Space và sau đó đợi 3 giây nữa để hàng biến mất.

Tạo tập lệnh

Điều đầu tiên chúng tôi muốn làm là tạo một vòng lặp sẽ lặp lại các hành động tương tự nhiều lần – trong trường hợp này, chúng tôi ước tính rằng chúng tôi sẽ cần lặp lại 300 lần này, vì vậy chúng tôi sẽ sử dụng Vòng lặp cú pháp như thế này:

Bây giờ chúng ta sẽ cần tự động hóa hành động nhấp chuột, điều này thật dễ dàng trong AutoHotkey – bạn chỉ cần gõ nhấp chuột. Bạn có thể sử dụng cú pháp nhấp nâng cao hơn nếu bạn muốn, chọn chính xác nơi bạn muốn nhấp vào màn hình hoặc chọn nhấp vào nút. Đối với mục đích của chúng tôi, chúng tôi sẽ chỉ sử dụng mặc định, điều này cho chúng tôi điều này:

Bây giờ tập lệnh của chúng tôi sẽ nhấp 300 lần liên tiếp, nhưng thật không may, chúng tôi đã có hộp thoại xác nhận đó để xử lý, vì vậy bây giờ chúng tôi sẽ sử dụng chức năng Gửi để gửi tổ hợp phím Space vào cửa sổ đang hoạt động.

Nếu bạn xem tài liệu, bạn sẽ thấy tất cả cú pháp của các phím đặc biệt – chẳng hạn như tổ hợp phím thông thường có thể được nhập bình thường – ví dụ, nếu bạn muốn nhập kiểm tra và sau đó kết thúc nó bằng một Space, bạn sẽ sử dụng cái này:

Vì vậy, bây giờ chúng ta đã có một tập lệnh nhấp vào nút và sau đó nhấn vào thanh Space, sẽ ổn, ngoại trừ giao diện chậm, vì vậy chúng ta cần chèn một khoảng dừng nhỏ giữa mỗi lần thực hiện chức năng nhấp và gửi. Để thực hiện điều này, chúng tôi sẽ sử dụng chức năng Ngủ, chỉ mất một đối số – độ trễ tính bằng mili giây.

Bây giờ chúng tôi đã có một tập lệnh sẽ xóa thành công các mục, đợi 3 giây trước khi nó bắt đầu để bạn có thể di chuyển con trỏ chuột qua X đầu tiên, nhấp vào nút, đợi 3 giây, nhấn vào thanh Space, sau đó đợi 3 vài giây trước khi nó đi qua bộ tiếp theo. Bạn có thể sử dụng tập lệnh đơn giản này ngay bây giờ nếu bạn muốn – nhưng nếu bạn muốn dừng tập lệnh?

Những gì chúng tôi sẽ làm là sử dụng chức năng GetKeyState để kiểm tra xem bạn đã nhấn một khóa nào đó chưa – để kiểm tra, chúng tôi sẽ sử dụng khóa F8 và thêm phần sau vào giữa vòng lặp. Điều này sẽ phát hiện xem phím F8 đã được nhấn hay chưa, sau đó sử dụng ngắt để thoát khỏi vòng lặp.

GetKeyState, tiểu bang, F8
nếu trạng thái = D
phá vỡ

Kịch bản cuối cùng

Đây là tập lệnh cuối cùng được tập hợp lại, có lẽ sẽ không giúp bạn quá nhiều vì nó đặc trưng cho kịch bản của tôi – nhưng bạn có thể sử dụng tập lệnh này để tạo tập lệnh của riêng mình bằng cách sửa đổi các lần nhấp và gửi phím..

GetKeyState, tiểu bang, F8
nếu trạng thái = D
phá vỡ
ngủ 3000
nhấp chuột
ngủ 3000
Gửi, Space

Để minh họa cách thức hoạt động của nó trong thực tế, đây là một video nhanh cho thấy nó hoạt động:

Trong kịch bản cụ thể này, tôi mất khoảng 3 phút để tập hợp một kịch bản làm việc – thời gian lưu: 27 phút. Chỉ đủ thời gian để tôi ghi lại video và viết bài viết này!

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Automate tedious tasks with these five apps

Image

AutoIT 1

AutoIT 1

ntFor those experienced enough to be users of Windows 3.1 back in the early to mid-90s, Microsoft had this neat little utility called Macro Recorder, which could log your keystrokes as well as mouse movements and clicks, then record them to a file for playback at a later time. Such automation could take the tedious nature of tasks completely out of the picture all the while saving you time and energy. In subsequent versions of Windows, the Macro Recorder no longer was bundled with the operating system.

ntLuckily, third parties have jumped in to fill the void with quality step-by-step task automation toolkits and macro recorders that either meet or exceed the functionality of the classic Macro Recorder of old. Here are five applications that provide this convenience to Windows users.

ntn n

ntCredit: Images by Matthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

AutoIT 2

AutoIT 2

ntFive Apps

nt1. AutoIT v3

ntIf you are looking to script macros using a powerful, yet easy to follow and understand scripting language, AutoIT is an excellent option. You can write out lines of code that can be run with the AutoIT interpreter or you can optionally compile your scripts as small stand-alone EXE files that you can carry around with you, thus eliminating the need to provide the interpreter. AutoIT v3 is freeware.

ntCredit: Images by Matthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

AutoHotkey 1

AutoHotkey 1

nt2. AutoHotkey

ntThis product is essentially a spinoff from AutoIT, having features such as a similar scripting syntax, keystroke scanner, and more. However, as the name implies, this app’s call to fame is in its hotkey management system, where you can map various repetitive tasks that were either scripted or recorded directly to keys on your keyboard, like the top row function keys. AutoHotkey is also free and fully open-source under the GPL, with source code ripe for user modification.

ntCredit: Images by Matthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

AutoHotkey 2

AutoHotkey 2

ntCredit: Images by Matthew Nawrocki for TechRepublic

My AutoHotkey Scripts

The scripts I am using with AutoHotkey macro program for Windows to automate tedious tasks on my computer.

List of scripts

Currently included list of scripts inside My_AHK_Scripts.ahk file:

1. French Accents ✅ The script works in any input field, such as in the browser or the notepad application
2. ⌨ For example, you can insert:
   • ç by typing ,,c and hitting SPACE
   • è by typing “e and hitting SPACE
   • é by typing ”e and hitting SPACE
   • ê by typing ^^e and hitting SPACE
   • ë by typing “”e and hitting SPACE
   • œ by typing ==oe and hitting SPACE .
3. German Accents ✅ The script works in any input field, such as in the browser or the notepad application
4. ⌨ For example, you can insert:
   • ä by typing ::a and hitting SPACE
   • ß by typing ==ss and hitting SPACE .
5. Click the “Next” button inside Rosetta Stone Ctrl
   • ⚠ It only works when the browser tab window is titled “Welcome to Rosetta Stone!”. You might also need to adjust the X and Y coordinates of where the mouse cursor has to click the button. You can help yourself with one of these examples to get the exact cursor position
   • 🎮 I advise you to use antimicro app to map Ctrl to a specific button on your controller (such as the wireless Xbox one), so you can lean back on your chair while studying a new language. The mouse movement and LMB can also be assigned to other buttons on your controller for making it possible to select different answers on your screen. Of course, you only won’t be able to complete the exercises that require to type something on your keyboard.
6. SoundCloud/YouTube Downloader ⚠ You need to have Python and youtube-dl installed in order for the script to work
7. ⚠ It only works in the specified windows: Windows Terminal, ConEmu64 or cmd.exe. Of course, you can extend it by adding more window classes
8. ⌨ This script supports the following hotstrings:
   • yt followed by SPACE will autocomplete a youtube-dl command to which you only have to paste a SoundCloud song link. The downloaded song will include all the metadata with an embedded thumbnail
   • ytv followed by SPACE will autocomplete a youtube-dl command to which you only have to paste the YouTube video link. It will use the best possible video quality and write down its thumbnail to a separate file
     • ytm is similar, but will only download extracted audio in 320 kbps mp3 format.

1. Download and install AutoHotkey (only available for Windows).
   • alternatively, you may want to use the beauty of Python by wrapping AutoHotkey with the Python ahk library.
2. Put the AutoHotkey script from this repository inside the installation folder, such as C:\Program Files\AutoHotkey .
3. Run the script by double-clicking the file and start saving a lot of time!
   • optionally, you can follow these 3 simple steps to make sure that your script runs every time you turn on your PC.

Learning to develop your own AHK scripts

If you are willing to explore the world of automation, here are some resources that can help you on the way:

Why Automate?

Well before we start, let me first ask “what are you hoping to accomplish?”

I’ll also ask you this “is there any repetitive tasks that you do day-to-day?”

Just one more thing “can you walk me through what you do every day?”

If you can answer yes to some of that then read on or tell me about it here and get a FREE quote.

This is a guide to tell you some of the things and benefits I know you can get from automating.

First a little Q and A about Automation scripts.

Q: What Is this Automation Your talking about?

A: Its writing a computer Script that will tell a computer what steps to perform and when, an Automation script is made by taking the steps that you do manually and writing them into code so the computer can do them.

Q: How do I Automate my task then?

A: Lots of ways, one is to buy a macro program that will cost you an arm and a leg after the free trial, another is to use a free scripting language like AutoHotkey and learn with the how-to’s here on JSZapp.com or the easy way just hire a freelancer like me to code it all, this way you will only pay for what you need, not having to use all your time to learn how to write code or learn the ins and outs of a complicated new program. Let me give you a free estimate.

Why do I need Automation scripts?

Let me start by giving a personal example, I have found that automation can dramatically reduce work load, for a business this is a good thing. Instead of having to use your employee’s time every week on the same task you can pay for an automation script with a one-time fee and have the same task done in less time.

On the other side as an employee. You have the change of making a higher dollar amount as you will get more work done in the same time frame and thereby be more productive. I have automated tasks since the start of 2012. It has help reduced our work force from 52 to 47 by not needing to rehire. It also made my job safer and easier. I can manage more tasks and also be more efficient.

I work at a Lange hospital. I used to spend hours a day looking at and monitoring lots of systems and equipment. I had to react manually and issue workforce by phone or paper. That is now all automated (not all by me) but I have made scripts to watch, operate and alert me in addition to allowing me to issue the right worker in less time all from one computer.

My job is a better place and for the hospital the reaction time has greatly improved and facility down time has been lowered by 30%.

I have tried to make a list of positive things you can get or do with automation.

If you want to Save time:

You may have a task that has 8 steps and each takes you 1 minute, then manually it takes 8 minutes. Most times you can take those 8 minutes and turn them into a lot less, sometimes even seconds. I recently took a client’s weekly 2 hour process and reduced it to less than 5 minutes.

Other time consuming things you can automate:

• Boring tedious work that may be to repetitive for a person to do for very long
• Automatic Installation or removing of Software
• Schedule and Automate System and Network Tasks
• Automatic Data Retrieval and Data Consolidation
• Automating Internet and Web Tasks
• Easily Extract Data and automatically Generate Reports
• Batching Multiple Tasks Together with scripts
• Copying data out of programs like Excel and into web form’s
• Even Automating the game’s you play at home

If you need to Reduce Errors:

Then computers are amazingly good at doing the same thing over and over again. If given the same input, you’ll get the same output every time.

Computers don’t make errors because they’re tired or because they forgot a step. Having your work automated means you’ll get the same consistent result each time, without errors.

Tasks and things where automation can reduce errors:

• Replicate the same processes consistently and with a better precision or even quality than a person
• Eliminating Repetitive Data Entry by letting a script read from Databases/Excel/CSV and automatically input it into any other app.
• Schedule and Automate System or Network checks
• Automatic Data Retrieval and Data Consolidation
• Making a Gui (Graphical user interface) to interact with multiple Incompatible Applications
• Scripting File Transfers and Internet Downloads
• Automating the Internet explorer browser
• Easily Extract Data and automatically Generate Reports
• Monitoring Applications and Windows
• Transferring data from one screen to another
• Copying sales data from emails into programs like your financial system

If you like to Save Money:

Then yes there is a small up-front cost for the development of the automation script. However, this cost is saved many times over once the script is used regularly.

Using one of my client’s as an example, she’ll save almost 2 hours of expense per week by automating her process. Those 2 hours can now be used to create even more of her product.

This in fact doubles the value of the time saved. Seen this way, the time and effort that would have been put in to this task each week only as expense can now be used to create profit.

More ways you will be able to save money:

• Help employees be more efficient at the same hourly rates
• Speed up tasks to accelerate workflow
• Allow tasks to happen more frequently
• Reduce costs of tasks by reducing the need for manual interaction
• Improve employee coverage
• Ensure quality consistency
• Improve the reliability of processes
• Allow work to be done by staff with less skill
• Define the work process and reduce dependence on the few employees who know it

Now when you ask yourself Why Automate you will know a little more of how you could benefit from automation? Don’t have time to do it yourself. I can provide it all be it Script development, consultancy and/or training.

From a casual user to a IT professional, everyone wishes to be as productive as possible when using a computer. When it comes to computer tasks, repeating multiple times does make users faster but might not result in large productivity gains. Some software tools could provide a huge boost to productivity, and making our lives easier along the way.

Automation Tools

As the name suggests, an automation tool is a software that automatically performs tasks which are often performed by the user. It can save and energy especially for those repetitive and tedious tasks, which you have to perform almost every day or every time you login to your computer . They all work almost similarly: you have to write a script that does set of actions and then open it under the automation software. Depending upon the tool, writing these scripts might not be easy, especially if you are not that into programming, but there are several tutorials and lessons spread across the web to help you. Nowadays there are several of these tools available, which are simpler and you can develop basic automation without much programming knowledge. This article explains covers three tools across three different operating systems.

Windows: AutoHotkey

AutoHotkey is one of the several automation tools available for Windows. It is the richest in terms of features. It can work with scripts, and also it has a built-in macro recorder, which makes writing automatic scripts much simpler. As the name suggests, one of the biggest features is the use of hotkeys – «virtually, any key, button or combination can become a hotkey». It has other interesting features such as “abbreviation expanding”, in which you can define abbreviations that, when typed, result in complete phrases or text blocks; for example, typing “btw” could automatically produce “by the way”. AutoHotkey can also remap keys and/or buttons in your keyboard. Any script can be converted in an .exe file that can be run on computers not running the program. AutoHotkey is free to download.

Linux: AutoKey

AutoKey is an automation tool available for you. For the users running any Linux distros, AutoKey is developed for Linux and X11 only and it works similarly to AutoHotkey. It has a Python scripting engine, which is useful for everyone familiar with this language.

AutoKey is also free of charge, available for download in the project’s homepage.

Mac: Action(s)

For the Apple fans, Action(s) is a tool that provides similar features and functions. However, its workflow is a bit simpler, based on tasks defined by default – while making the program simple to work with, this also represents a bit of a limitation, making it hard to achieve more complex tasks. Fortunately, there are some action packs available for download which cover for these limitations. Action(s) is also available for Windows, and it does not require any installation at all: it initiates from a Java applet which can be found within the tool’s website.

Recently we have heard countless conversations about how automation improves productivity and reduces operational costs for businesses coupled with stories of how automation is taking jobs away from workers. Yet, according to a report by McKinsey Global Institute, it is not the case – less than five percent of occupations consist of procedures that can be fully automated.

Far more common is the robotization of repetitive tasks for a given role. According to McKinsey, there is currently about 60 percent of occupations with at least 30 percent of all operations that make up a specific job ready for automation.

Programmed robots are not taking away your job

Activities most susceptible to automation include physical ones in predictable environments, such as operating machinery and preparing fast food. Collecting and processing data are two other categories of activities that increasingly can be done better and faster with machines. This could displace large amounts of labor—for instance, in mortgage origination, paralegal work, accounting, and back-office transaction processing.

McKinsey Global Institute

It is important to note that even when some procedures and tasks are automated, employment in those occupations may not decline, but rather people may start to perform new tasks.

Reduce the number of manual, time-consuming tasks

One of the ways employees in all departments can benefit from automation in their daily workflow is by reducing the number of tedious, rule-based tasks that are essential to keep the business running.

According to Smartsheet’s survey, every 4 of 10 people spend at least two hours on routine, repetitive processes with data collection, transformation, and data entry occupying the most time.

Opportunities for Automation

One of the most significant opportunities that automation brings to enterprises lies in reducing time spent on repetitive work. So the short answer would be to start the robotization of the routine.

Which repetitive tasks would workers most like to see automated?

Smartsheet found three leading productivity killers that employees would like to automate:

• Data Collection. Automation of tasks related to extracting data from different sources eliminates human error and the time needed to perform the job.
• Approvals. Automation allows businesses to become more efficient by automating approvals, sign offs, and confirmation requests faster and without any unnecessary paperwork.
• Reports. Automatic updates sent right to your email or Slack, or another system helps to reduce the time spent on creating reports.

More Time for High-Value Work

By giving workers more time to be creative, robotization of routine tasks leads to more significant changes in businesses.

It’s time for businesses to take a look at the processes — and bottlenecks — they have in place and think about how they might automate them to make their employees more productive. People are ready for companies to leverage automation to increase efficiency and free up time so that everyone can contribute to business success more actively by participating in analytical and strategic business processes.

If you want to learn more about the opportunities that automation brings to businesses or want to see ElectroNeek RPA at work, start a free trial that’s available for all pricing plans. Choose the most suitable plan, invite teammates and successfully automate your routine!

How would you feel if you need to do some tedious task repeatedly in your daily job…?

What would you do if you need to extract the information from the Excel sheet and you need to insert the bulk entries in the database manually?

How would you feel if you need to monitor some files, reset the password or restart some services again and again? Of course, it’s quite a frustrating, time-consuming, and dull job for IT experts in any organization.

These kinds of monotonous tasks not just consume time but also make you exhausted throughout the day. So what’s the solution to this problem? Well, if you’re a developer then you can write some script or a program to automate these kinds of boring tasks. Being an IT expert you can also use some tools to automate these tasks.

There are so many processes in the IT sector that can be automated. Automating these kinds of tasks will help you to focus on important things instead of doing mundane fixes and updates all the time. Today in this blog let’s discuss some common tasks that you can automate to save your time and efforts…

1. Password Reset

Today in every organization due to the security issue, keeping the password and relying on it for the safety of your data has become important. 20-25% of all support tickets involve passwords and it’s increasing day by day with the advancement in technology. Well, time to time resetting the password is also important, and this is an easy job for anyone or the IT experts. But don’t you think resetting the password several times is such a tedious job for anyone?

As a developer, you can write some script to automate these kinds of tasks. You can also take the help of some tools for automation. You can use some help desk software that includes a password reset automation. It will save time, money, and resources.

2. Identity Management

Identity management is all about ensuring that people have appropriate access to technical resources. IT security and data management comes under identity management. Identity and access management system, entitlement management system, user provisioning system, access governance system, all these are the various forms of the terminology used for identity management.

Basically in identity management, a person’s identity-related information is integrated throughout a specific system. This information can be authentication privileges, authorization levels, and roles within the system. These tasks are time-consuming and you can save a lot of time if you automate these pieces.

3. File Monitoring

In our day-to-day job we open so many files, make a lot of changes, and we move a file from one place to another place several times. We perform a lot of file-related tasks in our daily job. You can automate this task using Voleer, an advanced automation system. The program will help you to monitor all kinds of file-related tasks. You can monitor directories, files, and also logs to identify any kind of modification.

All you have to do is to choose the process you want to automate. Even you don’t need to write a single line of code for that. You also have the option to customize workflows and add notifications based on your needs, using any of the 500 pre-defined steps.

4. Service Restart

Multiple times we need to restart a large number of services throughout the day such as Linux services, Windows, antivirus software, spooler processes, IIS And Apache service, and various backup services. Restarting these services is again a tedious job for employees. IT experts can make their life easier by automating these services.

You can use the tool Voleer to restart these services. It also allows you to stop and shut down the services completely. You can also automate service restart with the help of some script or task scheduler.

5. Change Service Account and Password

This is similar to the password reset. Changing the service account and password in any organization is not a difficult task for anyone but doing this simple task over and over can be a dull job for anyone. Again Voleer can help you in automating these IT processes. Voleer automatically changes the service account across multiple hosts without any involvement of the IT department.

Automating these tasks would have no interference in performing some action. You can easily modify accounts, passwords settings of print services, application services, backup systems, and many more windows services.

6. Event Log Monitoring

To run any IT sector smoothly it’s important to monitor the problems that arise within the system and notify about the issue to the whole IT team.

You can save a lot of time and get rid of doing this tedious task by automating these processes. You can build multi-step corrective action tasks with expediency and efficiency. This simply means that all the services will restart automatically if any issues arise or the application general protection fault is written to the Windows event log. The IT department will have to do nothing in this case and they can focus on some other important work.

7. Freeing Up Disc Space on the Server

In your day to day life, you might have come across a situation where you need to remove some data manually from a disc space. If we talk about any organization or IT sector there is plenty of information stored on the server that does not only consume the space on the server but also becomes frustrating when we need to remove it manually. Freeing up the space-time to time is important otherwise one day it can become a nightmare for someone.

Freeing up space is also one of the most frustrating and dull jobs for someone who is taking care of the information stored on the server. A crowded server consumes a lot of valuable time when we need to remove the data. Also, it causes a variety of other issues as well (such as slowing down the server and interruption in performing other operations). IT departments can save a lot of time if they automate this process.

8. SQL Query

If you deal with the database stuff and writing the SQL query is your daily job then this one is also a tedious and boring work in case if you need to write a similar kind of query multiple times. At this moment you just wish to automate some queries which are quite often used.

There are a few ways to automate this task. You can write some script or a program to automate this task. Use some programming or scripting languages such as Java, Python, or Perl to write the script. The SQL queries can be parameterized and those parameters can be read from an Excel or XML file. Voleer tool can also be used to perform this automation process.

To be clear: i dont write fully autimated bots that run 24/7 or stunbreak macros etc, i just do minor things like autoclickers, autowalk, autocasting certain things and automating some tedious menues. I do this because i am a lazy cunt and i like the challange i see in “beating” parts of the game by coding simple scripts like this.

As stated above, i have never been punished for any of this, nor have i been warned etc.. But recently i heard lots of talk about how ahk is super easy to detect. Some just saying its detectable, others claiming “devs can just pull up the plain text of the macros that are running”.

allthough i do relatively harmless stuff, i feel like atleast one of my scripts should have violated SOME rule or ToS of SOME game at SOME point if it was this easy to detect.

Does anyone have (confirmed) insight on this? Again, im not trying to get away with serious cheating or something, just curious about this.

Re: How detectable is AHK?

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Welcome to the AutoHotkey community forums.

Concealing the application from third party programs is NOT one of the goals of the AutoHotkey interpreter. Thus, it is likely that nothing has ever been done (nor will ever be done) in the source code of the interpreter to try and prevent an anti-cheat mechanism from detecting AutoHotkey. It is (arguably) as easy to detect AutoHotkey running as any other windows application (such as notepad, firefox, chrome, etc).

Re: How detectable is AHK?

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To be clear: i dont write fully autimated bots that run 24/7 or stunbreak macros etc, i just do minor things like autoclickers, autowalk, autocasting certain things and automating some tedious menues. I do this because i am a lazy cunt and i like the challange i see in “beating” parts of the game by coding simple scripts like this.

As stated above, i have never been punished for any of this, nor have i been warned etc.. But recently i heard lots of talk about how ahk is super easy to detect. Some just saying its detectable, others claiming “devs can just pull up the plain text of the macros that are running”.

allthough i do relatively harmless stuff, i feel like atleast one of my scripts should have violated SOME rule or ToS of SOME game at SOME point if it was this easy to detect.

Does anyone have (confirmed) insight on this? Again, im not trying to get away with serious cheating or something, just curious about this.

Re: How detectable is AHK?

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I really don’t think a serious company would take action on a account based on wether an AutoHotkey instance is simply running in the system. That would be extremelly unfair and completely prone to cause legit users to get flagged as macro abusers. From the perspective of an anti-cheat engine AutoHotkey is just another windows tool that may (or may not) be used to create macros. There are thousands of other tools that can also create windows macros (and which could theretically be used to violate a games TOS), and also, AutoHotkey can be used for an enormous variety of legit tasks in a system. Thus, i assume most serious game developer companies would not be willing flag an account just because AutoHotkey is running in the system. That being said, i find it much more likely that such engines are looking for specific actions (such as automated keystrokes or automated clicking in their game clients). If this is the case, the matter of “how detectable” is completely impossible to predict (it will depend on what exactly the anti-cheat engine is looking for, ranging from a pattern of clicks to a time interval between clicks, in example, or even something else).

To be safe: if you are in doubt of wether an AutoHotkey script would violate an EULA or TOS, just don’t use the script.

It’s a shame that everyone can’t bask in the joy of a function-filled keyboard or multibutton mouse. Consider the convenience of launching applications and controlling a system’s volume with the press of a button, rather than awkwardly fumbling your way through menus and prompts within a desktop operating system. And most modern software for these mice and keyboards lets you remap essential parts of your daily routine to buttons a finger’s length away.

Fortunately, you can transform a generic mouse or keyboard into a hotkey-friendly superdevice. Doing so is easy and free, meaning that you’re only about 20 minutes away from kicking your productivity into high-gear.

Hotkeys

The two basic ways to build one-button automation into your standard keyboard are with hotkeys and with macros. A hotkey is a button that triggers a single action such as opening a folder, executing an application, or stopping a song that’s playing. A macro (like the ones in Microsoft Excel) is a chain of programmed actions that occur each time you hit a specific button (or launch the macro via an associated program).

This hotkey launches an app.

We’ll start with the hotkeys. The freeware application WinHotKey is a great first step toward the world of one-button automation, because it builds a ton of customizations into a program that’s pretty simple to use–at least, in comparison to the relatively script-heavy hotkey applications we’ll soon be discussing. Once you’ve installed the application and navigated past its opening tutorial screens, you’ll see a list of hotkeys that have already been configured for your system. Keep them by doing nothing, or delete them by highlighting them and clicking Remove Hotkey.

Once you’re ready to start automating, click the New Hotkey button. First enter a helpful description in the provided field. When you’re finished, note that the app gives you some options for what you want the actual keystrokes of the hotkey to be: It won’t let you overwrite an existing hotkey in the program, but you can temporarily overwrite any of Windows’ default hotkeys–including good old Ctrl-C (copy)–to perform any of the following tasks, if you wish: launching an application, a document, or a folder; dumping a text string wherever your cursor is; or performing various actions on your desktop’s active window.

With that in mind, we strongly recommend that you assign a combination of keystrokes to serve as your new hotkeys. Once you’ve done so, select your action via the ‘I want WinHotKey to…’ menu, and you’re done! By default, WinHotKey loads when Windows starts up, so your customized hotkeys will always be part of your operating system going forward.

Macros

Now that you’ve played around with hotkeys a bit, it’s time to check out their bigger, bolder cousins: macros. The appropriately named freeware application AutoHotkey is our prime target for this task. But we warn you: It’s not a walk in the park.

When you install the application, it will ask you whether you want to load a default hotkey script; affirm that you do. What you see next will, at first, look like complete gibberish. That’s because AutoHotkey is script-based: There’s no user interface to assign macro actions, so you have to type them all in yourself using the appropriate code. It’s complicated–so let’s walk through a simple example just to get started.

The first line that doesn’t start with a semicolon (;)–which indicates a comment–is the following: ‘#z::Run In this case, hotkey labels precede the two colons (::), which signify “pressing the keys to the left triggers the command to the right”; for a list of which labels mean what, go here. In our example, the pound sign (#) represents the Windows key. Thus, whenever you hit the Windows key and Z simultaneously, your system will launch the AutoHotkey Website.

To chain multiple actions to one trigger–be it to run an application (like “Run Notepad”) or a file (like “Run c:file.doc”) or even a mailing link (like “Run mailto:[email protected]”)–simply list them on separate lines with the word “return” serving as the last line in the macro chunk.Then fire up the AutoHotkey application (you’ll see it running in your Windows taskbar), and your one-button macro chain should work without hassle.

That’s obviously a very skeletal outline of how to text-edit macros, and it repesents the tip of AutoHotkey’s iceberg. Check out the app’s official tutorial, as well as Rick Broida’s recent Hassle-Free PC article on AutoHotkey, to learn more about controlling PC functions with one push of a button.

The Mouse

As you might expect, building automated actions into a generic, two-button mouse is trickier because you have only two buttons (and maybe a scroll wheel) to work with. But by using your mouse-drawing abilities, you can transform the act of drawing lines and shapes on your screen into a series of virtual hotkeys.

First, install the freeware application StrokeIt. Fire up the app, and a little mouse cursor will appeared in your system’s taskbar (in the lower-right corner of Windows). Now, hold down your right mouse button anywhere on your screen and move the mouse around a little. In response, the mouse becomes in effect a giant digital pen, which StrokeIt analyzes and matches against predefined gestures.

Configure gestures in StrokeIt.

For example, drawing a C on any window will close it; highlighting text and drawing a line from south to north will copy that text onto your clipboard; crudely drawing an E will open a Windows Explorer window; and so on. Even better, StrokeIt lets you assign different gestures to different programs (the app comes with a number of these program-specific doodles already activated).

Learning Mode lets you teach StrokeIt new gestures.

If you want to create your own mouse gestures for a specific action, simply highlight the Global Actions tree, click on the Edit menu, and select Learn Gestures. Start drawing with your right mouse key, and StrokeIt will tell you whether that gesture is already within its database somewhere. If not, save your doodle by clicking the New Gesture button. After that, you can assign your gesture to any existing action within the application. Or if you’re ambitious, you can go customize new apps and new actions to perform.

Hotkeys, macros, and gestures are such powerful PC tools that the limits of your imagination are likely to restrain you more than your know-how is. So play around with the various applications we’ve mentioned, and customize them for your own use. After a little work up-front, the automations you create will serve you well for years to come–and save you a ton of time, long-term. Have your own favorite macros and hotkeys? Share them in the comments!

AutoHotkey is one of the best tools ever created to automate almost anything on your Windows machine with a single shortcut. While there are a lot of shortcuts in Windows to help ease your workload, they are not highly customizable and you cannot create new shortcuts as required. AutoHotkey allows you to create more complex actions and macros with the hot key combinations of your choice. Here is how you can install AutoHotkey and use it to automate things in your Windows system.

What is AutoHotkey

AutoHotkey is a free, lightweight and open source application which can be used in tons of ways like binding keys, customizing your computer, data manipulation with regular expressions, complex macros, compiling scripts, etc. Since AutoHotkey is mainly intended for power users, it uses scripts written in a specific syntax to perform all those magical actions. Simply put, AutoHotkey can run any action with a single keystroke. It is more than just a regular key binding application.

Note: due to the deep interactions between AutoHotkey and your operating system, some antivirus software may flag it for virus. You can safely disregard those warnings as they are nothing more than false positives.

Installation and Usage

Before getting started, don’t get intimidated by the words “Power User” and “Scripts” as AutoHotkey is really easy to work with once you get used to it. You can download it from its official website and install it like any other software. Once installed, launch the application from the Start menu.

Once you’ve launched the application, AutoHotkey will display a window asking whether would you like to see a sample script. Simply click on the “Yes” button to see the sample script.

This action will open the sample script in Windows Notepad application. As you can see, AutoHotkey has already created a couple of shortcuts which are mapped to open AutoHotkey’s website and a new Notepad window when pressed.

To test it out, navigate to the “Documents” folder and execute the file “AutoHotkey.ahk” by double clicking on it. Now press the shortcut Win + Z to open the AutoHotkey website in your default browser and Ctrl + Alt + N to open a new Notepad window.

Now let us create a basic script to get you started. Open your Notepad application and copy and paste the below code into it. Now save it as “shortcuts.ahk,” paying attention to the extension.

If you break down the script, the first line is nothing but a comment. The second-line tells AutoHotkey that whenever you press Ctrl (^) + Shift (+) + S to run the application “calc.exe” (calculator). And the third line is nothing but you telling AutoHotkey that the statement has ended.

Now right click on the saved file and select the option “Run Script” to execute the script. Press Ctrl + Shift + S and you will have your Calculator application opened.

With AutoHotkey, you can also create custom messages which appear whenever the user presses a certain combination. For instance, copy the below script and run it.

From now on, whenever you press “Ctrl + NumberPad 0,” the pre-configured custom message will be displayed. Of course, you can make it even more complex like a message being displayed whenever you open or close a certain application, etc.

Besides running programs and displaying custom messages, you can also remap your keyboard keys. This way, you can put to use your least used keys like insert, scroll lock, etc., on your keyboard. For instance, the simple script below will remap the “Tilde” key on your keyboard to act as “BackSpace.” This is particularly helpful for those who write a lot.

If you ever want to suspend the shortcuts temporarily, simple right click on the taskbar icon and select the option “Suspend Hotkeys.” If you want to completely exit the script, just select the “Exit” option.

That’s all there is to do, and the things we discussed here are just a bit of what AutoHotkey can do. If you can learn the AutoHotkey syntax, you can do a lot more interesting things tailored for your specific needs. You can also create even more complex scripts that can really automate a lot of your daily routines saving you a lot of time in the process.

Hopefully that helps, and do comment below sharing your thoughts and experiences on using AutoHotkey.

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For those who don’t know how macro software automates tasks, or whether or not they even have macro software, the simple answer is that you read this article and then you have a complete understanding of how macro software automating tasks.

Checking on the same sites, remembering passwords, submitting to search engineers, as well as testing web sites over and over again are the repetitive tasks for every web browser everyday. And filling forms, running programs at a certain time, playing games, as well as scheduling tasks every day are tedious repetition. Your task can be any one of those repetitive tasks. If one or more of these tasks are occurring every day, automating these repetitive tasks will help you to save your precious time and to improve productivity.

There are two main ways to automate repetitive tasks – record keystroke and mouse activities or edit script manually with macro software. Both of the ways can be saved as a macro and later it would be replayed by using any of these methods – hotkey, scheduler and trigger. Apparently, undertaking these tasks by recording keystroke and mouse activities is a simple way. However, the way can not complete those complex tasks unless the tasks are completed just by using keystroke and mouse activities, such as clicking buttons on a window. So for those complex tasks, there is a much easier and quicker way – edit script manually.

To begin using this way, you must understand what script editor is in macro software. Macro script editor is a tool for editing macro actions. Although a macro can be created by recording, however, the recording only captures the mouse and the keyboard activities. Therefore, for getting other complex actions, such as waiting for a window focused, you can use script editor built in macro software to edit these actions and automate to execute them later.

By using this way, you can automate any series of tasks on your computer, ranging from simply individual tasks, to complex business tasks and much more. At the same time, you can use macro software to easily create the tasks: checking email, moving or backing up files, sending email, and more complex automations, involving conditional IF/ELSE statements, loops, variables and other advanced options.

An easy-to-use point and click software for Windows Server or Windows 10 task automation. No coding skills are required to create task automation bots.

Save time and start automating tasks for free! Automation Workshop comes with more than a 100+ different Actions and Triggers to automate any process in Windows. Software bots work 24/7 and do not take vacations, so why are you still doing repetitive tasks manually?

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See how easy it is to automate a task in Windows in a quick demo! Automation Workshop is a no-code app to optimize your workflows · Explore more demo videos

Automate repetitive tasks

If you use a computer daily, you perform the same tasks repeatedly. Automating some of these tasks can save you time. Make your day more productive!

Actions are ready-to-use building blocks for your tasks. Each action performs one operation, such as email sending, file copying, or directory synchronizing.

You can launch a Task manually or use a Trigger that will start the Task on Schedule or when a new file is added to a folder or your server. See more ways to start a Task.

There is no need to learn new skills. Automation Workshop has an easy-to-use graphical user interface to automate actions in Windows.

Visual automation tools

There is no need to use the complex VBScript or PowerShell scripts. You don’t have to learn the Python programming language to start automating immediately.

The Task Wizard is a GUI tool that guides you through all the steps necessary for creating automated tasks. Its power lies in its simplicity.

To substitute template values, we have created the Variable Wizard. It allows passing filenames, email addresses, date/time, system information, and other variables through the Task automagically.

The Task Finder allows you to quickly search or filter your Tasks by their properties, or you can use it for an overview of all Tasks and Triggers.

Boring stuff. On auto-pilot!

Automate the tedious, manual, and boring stuff in your business. Our customers have cut time spent on manual tasks by at least 50%.

Humans tend to make mistakes when doing boring and repetitive work. Task automation software doesn’t get tired and doesn’t demand better working conditions.

Automation enables businesses to cut costs for manual labor. Software robots tend to do their work a lot faster than humans, while also reducing error rates and downtimes.

Do you need to do a lot of tasks in a very little time? Automation is a one-time investment that will reduce costs each day—24/7/365.

See real results…

Real users are utilizing Automation Workshop to automate tasks in Windows PCs and Windows Servers. It is the best Windows automation software and has been in the market since 2008. It is evolving rapidly to keep up with the constantly changing IT landscape.

Automation drives business transformation

Get insights from PwC and Gartner on how to improve employee productivity in your business with Automation Workshop.

Results are based on market research and predictions.

Auditing tools. At hand

Enjoying the benefits of automation may not be enough. Automation Workshop comes with the best tools in the software industry.

By collecting all the important information about your automated jobs and processes, the Operations Manager ensures that crucial data are always at your fingertips.

The Log Manager provides you with a complete log-collecting and archiving solution. Some parts of the system allow you to enable additional tracing for debugging purposes.

Queue Manager allows you to monitor queued, running, and finished Tasks. Tasks can run in parallel or sequentially. Smart delays can be fine-tuned.

Save time. Instantly!

Built-in Triggers react to various events to automate repetitive tasks on computers. Automation Workshop acts instantly to schedule, file, and other system changes.

The Task Scheduler enables you to launch Tasks at predefined times or specific intervals. Various Wait Actions allow you to wait for a specific time or file.

Launch a Task instantly when a file is added to a folder, network, or FTP server. Monitor your cloud storage for new files. Advanced settings allow you to monitor file changes, deletion, size, etc.

We support the IT industry standard security protocols—SSL, TLS, SSH for FTP, S3, and email sending. Military grade AES-256 encryption and more.

Software bots. At will

Save your time by allowing software robots to do all the work. Automation Workshop is Windows task automation software that does not require programming knowledge.

Software bots or jobs run unattended 24/7. They do the work even when no one is at the computer. There is no limit on how many bots you can create!

Automation Workshop enables you to automate a local PC or Amazon S3 storage service. Other cloud providers are supported as long as they support a secure FTP protocol.

Building automated tasks previously required some knowledge of scripting or programming. However, Automation Workshop is a no-code automation tool.

Chris Hoffman is Editor-in-Chief of How-To Geek. He’s written about technology for over a decade and was a PCWorld columnist for two years. Chris has written for The New York Times and Reader’s Digest, been interviewed as a technology expert on TV stations like Miami’s NBC 6, and had his work covered by news outlets like the BBC. Since 2011, Chris has written over 2,000 articles that have been read nearly one billion times—and that’s just here at How-To Geek. Read more.

Computers are supposed to automate repetitive tasks – if you find yourself submitting forms over and over or repeatedly navigating a website by hand, try iMacros. It’s easy-to-use – all you have to do is perform an action once.

iMacros is ideal for anyone that does repetitive tasks in their web browser, whether you’re an average user repeatedly submitting tedious forms or a web developer performing regression testing across a complex website.

Getting Started

The iMacros extension is available for Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer.

After installing it, you’ll find an iMacros icon on your browser toolbar. This icon opens the iMacros sidebar.

Recording a Macro

The Record button allows you to record browser actions. iMacros keeps track of them and can play them back later. You can record practically anything you can do in your browser, from opening tabs to performing actions on websits. iMacros can also be a powerful form filler capable of filling out and submitting forms across multiple web pages.

We’ll create a really basic macro to show you how it works. First, we click the Record button.

iMacros starts recording. As we can see, the macro will activate the first tab and load the How-To Geek website, since that’s the website we had open when we started recording.

Next, we’ll use the search box on the How-To Geek website to perform a search.

iMacros saves our macro after we click Stop. We can click the Play button to play back the macro and iMacros will visit How-To Geek, select the form field, enter our search query, and submit the form. While you can achieve this result simply by bookmarking the search page here on How-To Geek, some websites aren’t as convenient. On websites that force you to submit a form field – or multiple form fields – to reach a destination page, you can use a macro to save time.

This was an extremely short, basic macro. You can add as many actions as you want to the macro – after submitting the form, it could open several new tabs, navigate to websites, and perform other actions.

Macro Bookmarks

You can even save a macro as a bookmark. After renaming the saved macro with the Rename option, right-click it and select Add to bookmark. You’ll be able to launch your macro from your bookmarks with a single click.

Better yet, the macro will synchronize between your computers using your browser’s bookmark sync feature if you select the Make Bookmarklet option.

A Few Tricks

iMacros offers a few other features you can use while recording a macro. For example, you can save a page to disk or take a screenshot of it using either of the buttons on the Record pane.

To schedule a macro and have it run automatically, save the macro as a bookmark and install an extension like My Weekly Browsing Schedule for Firefox. , which allows you to automatically launch bookmarks. You can have the macro run automatically – for example, taking a screenshot of a web page every hour.

You can schedule other actions, too – for example, press Record and send an email in Gmail to create an email-sending macro. Combine the macro with a scheduling add-on and you’ll be able to schedule and automatically send emails.

Demos

You can run one of the included demo macros to get a feel for iMacros. Just select a macro and click the Play button. For example, the Demo-Open6Tabs macro opens six different browser tabs and loads a web page in each of them.

If you want to see how a macro works, you can right-click it and select Edit Macro to view its source. While you can write and edit macros by hand, you don’t have to – the Record button will do the tedious macro-writing for you.

iMacros offers a lot of flexibility – anything you can do in your browser, you can automate. Do you use iMacros for anything clever? Leave a comment and let us know.

AutoHotkey (AHK) is a great way to increase your productivity.

AHK, quite simply, cuts down the number of keys you might have to press to make the computer perform a specific task, and also reduces the amount of time taken for that task to be performed.

AHK can be employed, to launch any of your favorite programs quickly, to switch between windows using a custom hot key, and many other related tasks are made fast and easier to be performed.

So, up till now it should become obvious that AutoHotkey are pretty awesome, to explain and educate you further, we have compiled a list of “10 Handy AutoHotkey Scripts to Make Your Life Easier”.

1. Repurpose Function Keys: Most of the people do not use function keys that often, so their purpose of being there on your keyboard seems useless. But you can surely make them useful again by providing them a specific task to perform. For example, suppose you don’t want to use the combinations for cut, copy and paste, instead you want to use single keys for them. A great shortcut can be to assign F2 for cut, F3 for copy and F4 for paste, by using the following AHK script:

1. Disable Lock Keys: Just as the function keys, the three lock keys, Num Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock, are also useless for most people. Num Lock might be used if you have to deal with numbers, else Caps Lock and Scroll Lock might never be used in your line of work. So it might be a good idea to disable them both, so you never have to worry the next time you hit them by accident, this can be done by using this script:

1. Launch or Switch Browsers: Like many people, launching the web browser on your computer might be the first thing when you boot it up. And you might also feel the need of switching browsers if you are multi-tasking. Let’s take a look at the AHK scripts of both these functions:

1. Open Webpages in No Time: If you have favorite webpages which you always want to open quickly, right after your computer boots up, then you can create your own custom shortcut keys for them. Since my favorite webpage is JSZ App, this neat little AHK script will serve the mentioned purpose:

1. Switch between Apps: With AutoHotkey you can also create a single useful button which will switch to the last window, meaning that it would help you switch between apps. Here’s the script:

1. Adjust Volume: Adjusting volume is always a tedious task even if done by hovering over the mouse arrow to the taskbar. But with AutoHotkey now you can control the volume of your computer with the following script:

1. Empty Recycle Bin: Want to empty your overly filled recycle bin? Empty it with a single button using this script:

1. A Window Always on Top: Sometimes you feel that there must always be a window on top while you work on something else. Suppose you are making a spreadsheet and want to access the calculator frequently, here is the handy script to do so:

1. Toggle Window Size: It’s always great to have a key that maximizes the current window to full screen size and press again to do the opposite. Here is a cool script to do this:

1. Disable AutoHotkey Temporarily: AutoHotkey shortcuts sometimes interfere with a few programs. In such cases disabling AutoHotkey’s is definitely possible, here is a script to suspend all your AutoHotkey scripts:

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Since this question gets asked a lot on the boards, with many many good suggestions and tips scattered everywhere, I decided to try to compile most of it in one place. I am looking forward to adding suggestions to this post so let me know what works and what doesn’t! I will edit this post with notes on specific games as I see them here or from personal experience. I use AHK with most of the games that I play, anything from keybinds to full MMO grind bots. Lets compile some of our good info here.

Easy Steps:
First basic steps to get AHK working with the average game.

1) Make sure the script is running with Admin privilege(Right-Click on script, Run As Administrator)
-Explanation: Some games run at admin level and AHK does not typically run with this privilege set.

2) Switch the game settings from ‘Full Screen’ mode to ‘Windowed’ or (I prefer) ‘Borderless Windowed’ mode.
-Explanation: DirectX draws the screen in a manner different from Windows, this can cause things like colors
being reported wrong, mouse jumping to the ‘wrong’ coords, and it can just plain prevent the game from
registering the input at all.

3) A lot of times Keypresses need to be held down longer than normal for the game to fully register it.
-Explanation: Usually caused by DirectX(DirectInput). It ‘polls’ the keyboard every 15ms(varies slightly) and
records the keys that are down, then 15ms later it takes another ‘snapshot’ and compares the two. This
is how games allow you to hold two(or more) keys at the same time, but very fast(sub 10-15ms) inputs
can fall between snapshots and the game never sees the keypress. If your script is very twitchy and seems

to skip over some keypresses then this is likely the problem.

-Example: (Holds key down for 10ms)

4) Some games do not allow their keybinds to be ‘hijacked’.

-Explanation: Many games, especially DirectX driven, use driver level keyboard interaction and cannot be

changed via AHK. You need to choose keybindings that the game is NOT using, some people have had

success by changing the in-game keybinds so that those keys are ‘free’ for AHK to use.

Intermediate Steps:
If you are at this point and the script still doesn’t work it is likely that you are dealing with some sort of cheat
prevention software. Don’t give up hope, there are a couple fairly simple things that can still be done.

1) Compile the script to .exe form and rename the program to something non-threatening to the game.
-Explanation: Look here in the docs for how to compile, it is very well written and I will not be re-creating
the wheel here. This method is a fairly simple workaround for most ‘hackshield’ type softwares.
-Examples: Rename to something generic or the same as something legit(setup.exe, skype.exe) possibly

just random garbage(alksjdu.exe).

2) Set up a second user account and run scripts as that user. Here is a link to the post with full explanation.

-Explanation: Games run as one user do not have access to the processes run by a second user. In

this scenario, some cheat prevention softwares lack the access level to prevent the keystrokes sent

by the second ‘user'(our AHK script)

Expert Steps: (None of these are verified or easy to use)

These are mostly theory at this point. These will be very difficult and will require in-depth knowledge to implement.

(if you try any of these ideas with success let me know, i will update this)

1) Download and setup a VM(Virtual Machine), install and run the game INSIDE the VM. Run AHK on

the OUTSIDE OS. This should prevent the game from interacting directly with AHK or ‘seeing’ it while

still allowing AHK to move the mouse and click.

2) Simulating DirectInput. This is difficult and not supported natively in AHK in any way. Look here for a
thread describing a couple ways to simulate DirectInput. This is theoretical and untested. Requires

knowledge of DLL interaction.

Following these steps should get scripts working in the majority of games. I have found a few that I cannot
make work so far but they are few and far between. If you have some tips to add to this please let me know!

AHK Does Not Work In These Games(As far as I know, will be updated with solutions):

Wolfenstein: The New Order

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Solutions for Specific Games:(this is where I will add game specific tips)

League of Legends

-Riot implemented anti-cheat measures as of 5.2

-Keyboard input is no longer recognized by AHK while in-game(this counts for all screen modes)

Side note: Commands on timers that are begun outside of LoL will still fire, there could be a way in through this but I haven’t had time to experiment.

-Some mouse commands seem to function

-The script for stopping screen edge-move effect still functions

-Mouse commands translate into ingame commands

-Xbutton1 and Xbutton2 will fire ingame commands when used with a sleep break between the up\down strokes

-Links to great tools and examples

RAWM v2.0 by Wickster – Up to 3 Account Auto-Login Tool (Outdated as of patch 4.15 due to new launcher)

League Macros by Punkkapoika – Macro sets for some popular champs (OUTDATED)

League Auto-Picker by Sanctus – Auto champ select and lane call out tool

League MultiPress Chat Tool by Ruevil2 – Combines common chat phrases into a multitap button. (OUTDATED)

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Project management software like Trello can let you distribute everyday tasks amongst your employees and allow you to plan, getting more work done. Your productivity will go through the roof if your employees know what they are doing and just get started.

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If you have a big project coming up, you can split it into smaller elements and assign tasks to your employees, eliminating the need for a weekly meeting on progress. You can track the progress of your project and be sure that your employees are working to their full potential.

Marketing

Business and marketing go hand in hand. There is no business without marketing, and business – and digital marketing has revolutionized the game. Digital marketing is easier, cheaper, and more effective, but an aspect often gets forgotten that makes digital marketing so good: the data.

The creative aspect is often seen as almost fun, creating content for social media, etc., but the data drives sales. You can determine where the customers are coming from, what they have engaged with, and what convinced them into a sale with the customer data.

But understanding this data isn’t easy. Luckily there are a lot of online tools that can help you out there. Tools can gather all the data across your sites and social media, and your affiliate links and present all the information in a simple report. Others can schedule and automate content posting to social media, and others will keep track of your affiliate partnerships and report on which are the most successful.

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