How to control and manage many many hotkeys and commands

[Stamimail]

You can create many many hotkeys/hotstrings and many many commands, till you find yourself not remembering what hotkey you assigned to do something
or can forget what the available commands you've created, and when exactly you can use it.

What do you do to remember the list of hotkeys/hotstrings and list of commands - to have them when you need them?

Is this discussed before? Any ideas?

Spoiler

How to be more productive than just having list of commands/hotkeys/hotstrings
(The list here it's just an image I found on the Internet to illustrate.)

[jeeswg]

- I put a comment after each hotkey label. You can get the text of all lines that contain :: to view the hotkeys. For each comment I tend to put an indication of where the hotkey is used e.g. 'anywhere', 'Notepad'.
- An alternative solution is to give each hotkey a named subroutine instead of a hotkey, and define hotkeys using the Hotkey command, a subroutine for each hotkey, at the start of the script.
- On the AutoHotkey main window, there is 'Hotkeys and their methods', to get a raw list of hotkeys, unfortunately, it doesn't inform you when there are multiple hotkey labels that use the same hotkey, or what the #If criteria is for each one.

[swagfag]

Is this a question pertaining to AutoHotkey or organization in general? You learn to manage many many shortcuts by using many many shortcuts. There's no other way around it. Although looking at your list, I think it might prove useful to consolidate some actions like insert char for example to use a dead key input sequence. This is off course a trade-off between speed and mental load, whether it's worth it is up to you to decide.

[Stamimail]

Is this a question pertaining to AutoHotkey or organization in general?

Both, but I guess that with the power of AutoHotkey you can organize things in a way that you couldn't without it.

You learn to manage many many shortcuts by using many many shortcuts. There's no other way around it.

That's exactly what's the topic about, to change this. Be more creative.

Although looking at your list

It's not mine. It's just an image I found on the Internet to illustrate.

[Stamimail]

1. "Tell me what you want to do" feature of MS Word
2. Omni Search of AHK Studio also gives great ideas.

side note:
It will be better to be able to search commands by a Hotkey string too, like:
@F1
will give:
Command Help | Menu | F1

Unfortunately, it seems it will take some time for beginners to learn how to implement such of things.

[Radik]

maybe:
Depending on a program... Use multiple scrips and switches between them;
1) delete all the original modifiers from shortcuts in order to memorize em faster. and simplify by letters p=paste q or x = quit, etc...
for example
x::!x ; quit
f::^f :find
p::^c ; paste
Then return modifiers after u get used to it or change them them way is more comfortable. Or keep it simple?

[Lu3d]

Stamimail,

I hear you on keeping track of hotkeys. I was running a bi-weekly streaming session with multiple instructors, cameras, assignments, media, etc. and found a friend in AutoHotkey to help manage everything.
However, my hotkey list was approaching 60 before I was done. I couldn't keep track of them, so I scripted a tool for keeping track of them.

It ended up being a life-saver for me, especially when I left for a few weeks and came back with a blank mind.

Try it out if you like:
https://github.com/luddd/AHK_Hotkey_HelpText

It is implemented like this:

Code: Select all

; Hotkey script
MsgBox This is the main thread
Gosub, HelpText

!#^+t:: ;;Show test;;
MsgBox test
return

!#^+h:: ;;Show hi;;
MsgBox hi
return

#Include HelpTextFunctions.ahk ; make sure its in the same directory or lib

You can also run it solo and include multiple scripts.

Is this the kind of thing you are looking for?

Luddd

[FanaticGuru]

The script "Hotkey Help" below will provide a list of all hotkeys.
https://autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=96

If you put a nice ; comment on the line of each hotkey definition in your scripts, it will create a nice dialog with additional functionality.

Even without the nice comments, it will create a list of hotkeys in each script running.

It also does hotstrings.

It is an independent script that does not have to be included in other scripts. It detects other running scripts and extracts the information without any modification or addition to the other scripts.

FG