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Hotkeyless AutoHotkey

The AutoHotkey (AHK) environment is a powerful tool to enhance your productivity and speed up your workflow. There are so many possibilities and use cases that sometimes... you might run out of hotkeys. Or you might want to combine AHK-scripts or trigger them from different sources or even from other computers in your local network.

Until now, you had only two possible solutions:

  • Exotic key combinations, like... CTRL + ALT + F13. This solution is fast, but not very scalable. You might not remember, which hotkeys are still available and sometimes encounter bad side effects with your favorite software
  • Single AHK-scripts, which you run directly from AHK or the explorer window. This solution is scalable, but how can you live with the delay of the AHK-process starting up?

Hotkeyless AutoHotkey combines the best of both worlds. It's an easy way to expand your AHK-capabilities, both fast and scalable. But don't take my word for it, here are some numbers:

Approach Delay Fast Scalable
Key combinations ~ 10 ms ✔ 🞭
Single AHK scripts ~ 800 ms 🞭 ✔
Hotkeyless AutoHotkey ~ 100 ms ✔ ✔

You can make your own performance tests. Just have a look at the performance-tests-folder!

Also, Hotkeyless AutoHotkey enables the execution of AutoHotkey code from other computers in the same local network. And we also provide a Stream Deck plugin, that enables calling AHK code by simply pressing a button (and without cluttering up your shortcut list).

Functionality

Hotkeyless AHK launches a lightweight web server. Per default, it listens to the endpoint localhost:42800/send/* for http requests and redirects them to the HotkeylessAHK.ahk script. Simply put, if you call localhost:42800/send/HelloWorld, the HelloWorld()-function inside the AHK-file is executed:

HelloWorld() {
    MsgBox, Hello World
}

Also, you can include your AHK-scripts and define custom functionality in a nice and clean way - without loosing too much performance. You can use your web browser, shortcuts or the Elgato Stream Deck with the HotkeylessAHK plugin. This plugin automatically crawls existing functions and lets you call them easily.

Stream Deck example

Installation

HotkeylessAHK

Note: Requires Windows 10 or newer

  1. Install AutoHotkey. Well... if you're reading this, you probably already have.
  2. Install node. You can download it from https://nodejs.org/. Make sure that node is in the PATH-variable and available from the console. You can test this by executing node -v
  3. Clone or download this repository. You can also just head over to releases
  4. Open a console window and enter the files folder. Then, execute npm i to install all web server dependencies.
  5. Start Hotkeyless AutoHotkey by executing the HotkeylessAHK.ahk-file.
  6. Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:42800/send/HelloWorld. This should open a message dialog, triggered by the HotkeylessAHK.ahk-file.
  7. Now, you're ready to go.

Troubleshooting: If anything does not work, disable console window hiding by deleting lines 3 and 4 in the SetupServer()-method in the files/lib.ahk-file and restart the process. This might give you more information.

DllCall("AllocConsole")
WinHide % "ahk_id " DllCall("GetConsoleWindow", "ptr")

Elgato Stream Deck Plugin

  1. Clone or download this repository or a release of it. You probably already have done this during the installation of HotkeylessAHK explained above.
  2. Make sure you are using a Elgato Stream Deck and have the Stream Deck Software installed.
  3. Identify the Stream Deck Software plugin folder. On windows, it should be located here: %appdata%\Elgato\StreamDeck\Plugins\. Find more information in the developer documentation.
  4. Copy everything inside of the stream-deck-plugin folder into the plugin folder of the Stream Deck Software. It should look like this: %appdata%\Elgato\StreamDeck\Plugins\de.sebinside.hotkeylessahk.sdPlugin.
  5. Restart the Stream Deck Software. The new plugin should appear in your plugin list.

Usage

Once installed, the usage of Hotkeyless AutoHotkey is easy: Write your methods inside the HotkeylessAHK.ahk-file (or include other scripts) and call them with your web browser, the curl-console command, a stream deck, ...

The endpoint is always the same: http://localhost:42800/send/YourFunctionNameGoesHere.

To terminate the running tool, call http://localhost:42800/send/kill.

If you're using the Elgato Stream Deck plugin, you will not have to deal with the internals.

More

This is yet another small tool to enhance the power of AHK. Some more links, you might find interesting:

If there are more questions, you can contact me on Twitter or via mail.