New guy - looking for specific guidance on au3 with ahk

[phillipdhall]

I'm pretty new to scripting. I made my very first "login" script on my linux machine using bash to open all my needed applications and terminals with qdbus. I had all my awesome hotkeys set up using Xmodmap, Xbindkeys, xsendevent, etc. Then the company took away my nice linux box and put Win 7 in front of me. Rude.

I started with ahk. I got a lot of things working, but found what I'm calling "reliability issues." I'm sure there are ways to fix all the problems I have with time exploring the code, but I am getting frustrated experimenting with SendEvent vs. SendInput, etc. and still having text show up in the wrong order, or finding that "RButton & LButton::Send blah" breaks my RButton.

So I'm trying AutoIT. I personally like the syntax better (it just makes more sense to me - personal preference). However I'm having trouble finding ways to do some of the things AHK did very well - au3 won't seem to overide windows default ^#f for example. Mouse button hotkeys seem cumbersome.

Can the two programs play nicely together? (IE autohotkey call autoit functions?) Or will that make my headache worse?

What are your experiences? I've read plenty of threads comparing the two programs; most don't go well. I'm looking for specific functionality and reliability doing these things:

1) automate login - muliple remote systems, a dozen browser tabs, etc.

2) scripted hotkeys, mouse modifiers, and most importantly key replacement per window (I.E. while NX client terminal active, replace ^c with ^+c)

3) if possible, make these hotkeys active in VMWare/VirtualBox, NX client, and Citrix applications seamlessly?

Life would be so much easier if the my company could just decide on a platform... <sigh>

Thanks,

Phil

Edited July 23, 2011 by phillipdhall

[Kenna]

I'm pretty new to scripting. I made my very first "login" script on my linux machine using bash to open all my needed applications and terminals with qdbus. I had all my awesome hotkeys set up using Xmodmap, Xbindkeys, xsendevent, etc. Then the company took away my nice linux box and put Win 7 in front of me. Rude.

I started with ahk. I got a lot of things working, but found what I'm calling "reliability issues." I'm sure there are ways to fix all the problems I have with time exploring the code, but I am getting frustrated experimenting with SendEvent vs. SendInput, etc. and still having text show up in the wrong order, or finding that "RButton & LButton::Send blah" breaks my RButton.

So I'm trying AutoIT. I personally like the syntax better (it just makes more sense to me - personal preference). However I'm having trouble finding ways to do some of the things AHK did very well - au3 won't seem to overide windows default ^#f for example. Mouse button hotkeys seem cumbersome.

Can the two programs play nicely together? (IE autohotkey call autoit functions?) Or will that make my headache worse?

What are your experiences? I've read plenty of threads comparing the two programs; most don't go well. I'm looking for specific functionality and reliability doing these things:

1) automate login - muliple remote systems, a dozen browser tabs, etc.

2) scripted hotkeys, mouse modifiers, and most importantly key replacement per window (I.E. while NX client terminal active, replace ^c with ^+c)

3) if possible, make these hotkeys active in VMWare/VirtualBox, NX client, and Citrix applications seamlessly?

Life would be so much easier if the my company could just decide on a platform... <sigh>

Thanks,

Phil

Hmm I'm not all that familiar with AHK but I've done a lot of what you're asking in autoit. Are you using HotKeySet? If so you may want to also look into _isPressed() as well.

Most of these seem pretty specific and AutoIt will over-ride MOST system hooks so you should be able to do key replacement. You're running as Windows 7 so 80% of the time you'll need #requireadmin to get the hotkeys to work.

I'm not sure what exactly you're referring to with the automated login. You can replicate sending keystrokes with Send() and Mouseclicks with MouseClick() if that's what you're looking for.

As for VMWare I've never checked to see if the hooks will override VMWares if you're running it ontop of windows and IN the Active VM. Never user NX nor Citrix however.

Edit: Clarifying something

Edited July 23, 2011 by Kenna

[phillipdhall]

Thank you for a thoughtful and helpful and FAST response!

Most of these seem pretty specific and AutoIt will over-ride MOST system hooks so you should be able to do key replacement. You're running as Windows 7 so 80% of the time you'll need #requireadmin to get the hotkeys to work.

That's not good news. The company will be stripping my admin priveledges after I've had enough time to set up the machine. If I understand correctly, that means I'm limited which hotkeys I can use without admin rights?

Thank you again!