Patterns in the help forum...

[tidbit]

(A continuation of this old thread: https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/5004 ... hl=pattern)
... and IRC

for the last 2-3 weeks I've noticed MANY (like, 10+) questions asked in pairs within a day or 2 from different users. Most of these issues I have never seen before or rarely pop up, so it reminded me of the old thread. which is mildly insightful for trends and stuff.

to kick it off
A few from this month:
1. People using Python style code within ahk, using indents instead of {}'s.
2. Needing fixie() or similar to fix rendering issues in activex
3. block the [x] button on a window
4. have a variable act as a pointer to another variable
5. and the ever-popular "autofire" and "toggle" questions we get multiple times daily.

[joedf]

people only care of the "cheating" abilities... not the actual Scripting

[tidbit]

"Help me" "I need script" topic titles with no info at all. currently 4 on the front AFH page

[tidbit]

people thinking the second parameter in getkeystate() (often "P") is another key. GetKeyState("key1","key2")
seen a couple on forum, couple on irc this week.

[Windows10]

Windows 10

[nnnik]

I'm amazed it wasn't in the title.
The AHKCommandX doesn't work with ProgramY on WindowsVersionZ

[tidbit]

people using regexreplace() to replace a simple static string with no rules.
replace "a" with "b"
"text" with ""
remove "(" and ")" but not the stuff between
etc.
(those are just examples)

for like a month+ now, regex has risen in popularity and strReplace/stringreplace has fallen off the earth.
once someone learns about regex they tend to overuse it, forgetting the basics.

[SnowFlake]

also the % and := questions

[John]

@Tidbit, I've personally gotten used to using regex for those cases since "strreplace()" the function didn't exist for quite a while and due laziness just went for the other closest one liner.
Most of the things mentioned in this topic are pretty okayish and just a case of not looking (properly/at all) or just being completely new to programming and generally confused about life. Imo those are tolerable althoug hannoying after they've appeared 10k times in the span of 5 hours.

The only part that really pisses me off in "ask for help" is people who just post a (lacking) description of a script they want with 0 effort on their part and when someone actually bothers to help them then they quite often just act like a unsatisfied boss when it doesn't do exactly what they want.

Btw, had around ~2k posts (99.9999999% were ask for help answers) on the old forum but due to migration issues made a new one.

[tidbit]

"Most of the things mentioned in this topic are pretty okayish"
the stuff in this topic isn't really about bad/annoying things that keep popping up. It's just anything that seems to be a common question/issue that for some reason shows up several times in a short period of time. Like a hive-mind kind of thing. A bunch of random people all of a sudden have the same issue (maybe a new game was released? software update? coincidence? etc).

[John]

Yup, sorry about that. Seems like my trusty letter-scrambler-brain managed to turn this thread into something semi-nefarious

[tidbit]

#if... and if... confusion

atleast 3 times on irc in 2 days, and a couple times on forum this week.

[tidbit]

overlaying (parenting) stuff on the desktop. 3 this week.

[tidbit]

Obfuscating scripts

[RickC]

I've noticed new joiners asking for a script to be created for them. No 'I'm new to AHK and want to learn', no 'can anyone point me in the right direction'... just 'please write me a script to do x, y, z', usually related to 'spamming a key'. It makes me feel like responding to all the requests 'Sorry, wrong forum, try DonationCoder'.

I'm a mod on another forum and, luckily, we don't have the exact same problem. However, we do have a similar problem of new users not using the search function to check whether their query/request has been asked/answered before. Perhaps a 'How to get the best answers' sticky topic that new posters could be directed to?

[tidbit]

We used to have something like that: https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/4709 ... tep-guide/
it was also named: "PLEASE READ IF YOU'RE NEW: How to Get Answers Effectively"
it also used to be pinned but later unpinned because it had no effect. Very little amount of people read stickies, ALL CAPS or excessive !'s doesn't help either.

[RickC]

We used to have something like that: https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/4709 ... tep-guide/
it was also named: "PLEASE READ IF YOU'RE NEW: How to Get Answers Effectively"
it also used to be pinned but later unpinned because it had no effect. Very little amount of people read stickies, ALL CAPS or excessive !'s doesn't help either.

So THAT'S where it was. I knew that I had seen a 'How to Get Answers Effectively' post many, many moons ago...

Whilst I do understand that new posters neither usually nor pro-actively look at 'stickies', is there any harm in pushing this message repetitively whenever they first post? (... or, better still, when they register?)

Like the 'Use the force, Luke' admonition, how about 'Please confirm that you have read and understood the 'How to Get Answers Effectively' or a 'Asked and answered... please use Search for examples' responses?

Perhaps other posters (who just reply to requests of this nature with an answer) would also, over time, begin to understand that a process regarding posts by new users/posters exists (outside of AHK scripting?)

[tidbit]

doing all that is beyond me. I don't like phpbb (our forum engine) and don't know how to create such things. there might be an addon, but I don't deal with those either
perhaps start a topic in https://autohotkey.com/boards/viewforum.php?f=3 for opinions and ideas.

[xZomBie]

@RickC The new joiners might do what most people do when they see the Terms and Condition page, tl;dr; click "I agree"
It's hard to teach someone to do something when they don't want to learn.

[tidbit]

People not knowing GUIs have position/size options (x y w h/r). 2 on irc, 1 on forum, sofar this week.