Time to Make It Easier for Everyone to Download the AutoHotkey Example Scripts

Dropbox reopened the ComputorEdge AutoHotkey download page, but the situation has forced me to reevaluate my approach to offering example scripts. (I know…it’s about time!) Whenever someone views either the Dropbox page or the new download site at ComputorEdge.com, it must be a little confusing. While there is a page devoted to describing the various AHK files (“Free AutoHotkey Scripts and Apps for Learning Script Writing and Generating Ideas“), until now it did not offer direct downloads. That forced people to jump back and forth between the description page and the download page.

I’m now in the process of adding direct download links to the main AutoHotkey script description page. (It’s already one of ComputorEdge.com‘s most visited pages.) For everyone’s convenience the script description page will become the primary portal for all my offerings. (Eventually, I’ll update all of the e-books with the new links—although the current Dropbox links continue to work.) Once I’ve completed the work, there will be no more jumping back and forth. (Most of the download links are already available, but I have more work to do.)

The page lists over 50 AutoHotkey scripts and a couple of other apps. The size of the page makes it a little cumbersome for finding specific scripts. Therefore, I’m in the process of adding a script index which quickly jumps to specific file descriptions.

The Dropbox problem turned out to be a blessing. While I continued adding new scripts to the download page, I failed to regularly update the descriptions. (My last update was a year ago.) As I checked the files one-by-one, I found a number of scripts which even confused me. Since the main ComputorEdge Magazine editorial site came down last summer, many AutoHotkey description articles (not included in any of my books) can only be found in PDF files in the ComputorEdge Archives. I’m in the process of extracting those articles into new PDFs and adding them to the direct downloads on the script’s page.

I’m also planning to offer the option to only download the AHK file. This will make it easy for people who are reluctant to download ZIP or EXE files. Since AHK files (e.g. filename.ahk) contain pure text, there is no malware risk—although if you want a compiled EXE file, you will need to do it yourself. (There’s not much risk in any case since I compiled most of the files myself.)

Naturally, this work interrupts the flow of my Beginning Hotkey series, but I think the people teaching themselves AutoHotkey will like the final result. As I continue this work, I’ll offer any AutoHotkey tips and recently rediscovered insights in this blog.

For example, I had completely forgotten about SmartGUI Creator by Rajat. This app generates AutoHotkey GUI code from a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) workspace window. I extracted my original PDF article about SmartGUI and added it as a download.