#Shortcat tutorial how to#
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#Shortcat tutorial code#
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#Shortcat tutorial code#

::btw::Ī nice thing to know is that you can have many lines of code for each hotkey, hotstring, label, and a lot of other things we haven't talked about yet. That's fancy talk for 'do pretty much anything'. Hotstrings, as mentioned above, can also launch scripted actions. While the text to replace your typed text goes on the right of the second pair of colons. Esc::Ī hotstring has a pair of colons on each side of the text you want to trigger the text replacement. So it won't be covered in the tutorial, at least, not right now. Note: There are exceptions, but those tend to cause confusion a lot of the time. And the content needs to go below, followed by a return. The key or key combo needs to go on the left of the. A hotkey is created by using a single pair of colons. 'So, how exactly does a person such as myself create a hotkey?' Good question. The difference between the two examples is that the hotkey will be triggered when you press Ctrl+ J while the hotstring will convert your typed 'ftw' into 'Free the whales'. What is a hotstring? Hotstrings are mainly used to expand abbreviations as you type them (auto-replace), they can also be used to launch any scripted action. It is a key or key combination that the person at the keyboard presses to trigger some actions. What is a hotkey? A hotkey is a key that is hot to the touch. Look for AutoHotkey.chm or a file that says AutoHotkey and has a yellow question mark on it.Search within all Program Files folders for AutoHotkey.Go into your harddrive that contains AutoHotkey.

You should then see AutoHotkey Help File.Find the Start menu or Start Orb on your screen, usually in the lower left.There are a few ways to do this, I'll assume you have it installed to the default locations:

#Shortcat tutorial how to#

How to find the help file on your computer In section 5 we'll talk about why it doesn't work as you might expect and what you can do instead. When you are making your code, you might have the urge to put several commands on the same line or inside of each other, don't.

#Shortcat tutorial install#

Go get some reward snacks then return to reading the rest of this tutorial.įor a video instruction, watch Install and Hello World on YouTube.

Hip Hip Hooray! Your first script is done.

Open notepad or (anything you can type in) and press Ctrl and J.

Double-click the file/icon in the desktop to run it.

This will prevent many issues when you start having a lot of stuff in your scripts. It literally stops code from going any further, to the lines below. Send is the command, anything after the comma (,) will be typed.

The second line: Send, My First Script is how you send keystrokes.

Anything to the left of :: are the keys you need to press. Until then, here's an explanation of the above code: Here is a very basic script containing a hotkey which types text using the Send command when the hotkey is pressed: ^j:: For a list of all built-in commands, function and variables, see section 5. So now that you have created a script, we need to add stuff into the file.

A window should have popped up, probably Notepad.

Find the newly created file on your desktop and right-click it.

Click 'AutoHotkey Script' inside the 'New' menu.

AutoHotkey is not magic, we all wish it was, but it is not. Once you have AutoHotkey installed, you will probably want it to do stuff.

Once done, great! Continue on to section b.įor a video instruction, watch Install and Hello World on YouTube.

Keep going until you see an Install button. It has support for non-English letters and numbers (characters). In short, you would probably want to choose UNICODE.

During installation of AutoHotkey, you will be asked to choose from UNICODE or ANSI.

For this guide we will use the Installer since it is easiest to set up. But that depends on the version you want. After downloading it, you may possibly need to install it.

#Shortcat tutorial download#

Since you're viewing this documentation locally, you've probably already installed AutoHotkey and can skip to section b.īefore learning to use AutoHotkey (AHK), you will need to download it. If you get confused, try reading the section again. You can copy and paste most examples on this page. For optimal learning power, it is advised that you read the text and try the code. Throughout this tutorial you will see a lot of text and a lot of code.

How to find the help file on your computerīefore we begin our journey, let me give some advice.

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