Since we're all about automation, rather than just telling a user how to get started, we can show them, interactively.Options can be provided to assist new and returning users to get started, like installing an editor, creating a script, creating a shortcut to the script or setting it up to start automatically when they log in.Instead, 'onboarding' can be handled much better with a few scripts that are installed with AutoHotkey or included in the zip. and C++ isn't that fun.Īfter thinking about how to replace the AutoHotkey shortcut in the Start menu (given that the there is no single default exe anymore), I realized that there is no need for each AutoHotkey*.exe to have this default behaviour baked in. (Of course, some users thought the help file popping up was some kind of bug, like there weren't words on the screen explaining what was happening.) I chose not to do anything more complex because I wanted to minimize code size. So my idea for v1.1 was to instead direct the user to simple documentation telling them how to get started. Users got into this situation without learning how to locate their 'default' script, or perhaps even understanding that the script is a file they can locate and open in an editor manually. There's a flaw with this process: if the script contains a syntax error, it won't start, and there might be no tray icon to click. Once the script is running, the user can open it for editing via the tray icon. After the file was created, running AutoHotkey from the Start menu would run the script. I'll add more as I remember them.ĪutoHotkey v1.0 was designed so that when a new user ran it, it would create a new script file with some basic hotkeys and instructions, and open it for editing. I also wrote a little about some parts in v2 Beta - installer plans?. I haven't implemented all of my ideas yet, but what I have is 'complete' enough for general use. No swapping exes, just double-click a script and have it run with the appropriate interpreter.Īs I worked on it, I realized that the use of a few scripts has the potential to significantly improve the overall user experience, outside of what happens when the user's script is executed.

V2.0-beta.4 includes an installer and some other scripts which I have written with the goal of allowing AutoHotkey v1 and v2 to be used on one system without any unnecessary inconvenience or giving obvious preference to one version.

Download the new AutoHotkey 2.0.3