Tab controls

Create Instant Windows Gadgets Using AutoHotkey Graphical User Pop-ups (GUIs)

Jack Dunning AutoHotkey, AutoHotkey courses, AutoHotkey GUIs, Checkbox controls, DropDownList Control, Graphic Images, GUI (Graphical User Interface) Pop-ups, ListView Control, Menu Bars, Progress Bar, Tab controls, Windows Gadgets, Windows scripting , ,

One of the Easiest and Quickest Means for Building a Short, Useful PC App Takes Advantage of AutoHotkey GUI Controls—A Review for the Novice Scriptwriter

Many of my sample scripts available at the Free ComputorEdge AutoHotkey Scripts page use the built-in Graphical User Interface (GUI) tools available in the Windows operating system. Taking advantage of these Windows mechanisms demonstrate only one of the many reasons why the free AutoHotkey scripting language affords so much power. With a few lines of code, you can build Windows gizmos for an innumerable variety of applications. The GUI pop-up acts as the primary core for many AutoHotkey scripts. Easy-to-use and only requiring a minimum amount of programming, the GUI makes possible Windows gadgets for almost any use.

While almost all of my books discuss how to use GUIs in a number of different ways, the book AutoHotkey Applications: Ideas and Tips for Writing Practical AutoHotkey Scripts spends a great deal of time discussing various AutoHotkey Graphical User Interface (GUI) pop-ups with example scripts.

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AutoHotkey Tip of the Week: Cramming a Multitude of Controls into a GUI

Jack Dunning AutoHotkey, AutoHotkey GUIs, GUI (Graphical User Interface) Pop-ups, Loops, Tab controls, Web Pages, Windows scripting , ,

AutoHotkey GUI (Graphical User Interface) Controls Gives Us Powerful Tools for Building Apps, But Sometimes We Need to Get Creative to Solve the Space Problem

WebPageLinks

My book AutoHotkey Applications: Ideas and Tips for Writing Practical AutoHotkey Scripts introduces the various GUI (Graphical User Interface) Controls available in the Windows operating system. I offer practical examples of how you can use single controls in a script. Yet each GUI control comes with its own particular limitations. Sometimes it takes a combination of techniques to get the full benefit from a unique control feature.

For example, you may find it a challenge to pack a multitude of items into a single GUI without expanding it beyond the screen. Many controls such as an Edit and ListView control allow you to limit the size of the control—then add scrollbars when the volume exceeds the confines of the space. Not so for AutoHotkey GUI Link controls.

In my last blog, “Cull Web Links from a Web Page and Activate Each in a Pop-up GUI“, I built a GUI pop-up window listing the external links scraped from a Web page (WebLinkFindURL.ahk script). In some cases, the number of links far exceeded the space allowed on my computer screen. Since the GUI Link control does not support scrollbars, I added Tab controls to expand the available GUI space without overwhelming the screen. Continue reading →