AutoHotkey menu

Add Submenus to the Auto-Startup Menu to Increase Options (AutoHotkey Startup Control)

Jack Dunning Auto-startup, AutoHotkey, Loops, Menu, System Tray, Windows shortcuts , ,

Submenus Allow AutoHotkey Users to Add Features to Apps Without Needing More Screen Space

Last time in “Adding Startup Folder Shortcuts to a System Tray Menu,” I inserted the Startup folder shortcuts into a System Tray right-click menu. This gave me a method for quickly accessing an auto-load script even when it doesn’t display an icon in the System Tray.

A click of the menu item either opens the script (.ahk) in Notepad or opens the target folder for a compiled executable (.exe) file. While the original menu does the basic job of keeping track of the auto-startup scripts, it only executes one action—opening a script or folder. To expand the capabilities of the Startup Control, we need to add submenus.

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AutoHotkey Tip of the Week: Adding Icons to Menus the Easy Way(?)

Jack Dunning AutoHotkey, Icons, Intermediate Level, Menus, Parsing Data, Switch/Case Command, Windows scripting, Windows shortcuts, Windows Utilities , , , ,

Inserting Icons into Your AutoHotkey Menus Makes Options Standout and Easy to Navigate, But You May Need to Prioritize the Methods for Adding Icons

I’ve employed icons in my QuickLink.ahk script for many years, but the process I used for adding them to menu items always felt awkward and messy—too much special-purpose code.

I want the script to standalone without needing much tailoring. Most changes should occur in Windows File Explorer by creating folders or editing shortcuts. Then the QuickLinks.ahk script should read all the Menu items from that folder/file structure—including menu icons. However, my implementation of icons gets a bit sloppy. For my own QuickLinks, I added numerous special lines of code to deal with the inconsistencies in how Windows deals with folder and file icons. I’ve never felt comfortable with how it worked.

My recent work implementing the Switch/Case statements has prompted me to return to my original goal of producing a script needing little or no adapting. That means not only constructing the AutoHotkey menu directly from the folder/file structure shown in Windows File Explorer, but the menu icons themselves should load from those folders and shortcut files without requiring additional unique lines of AutoHotkey code in the script.

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AutoHotkey Tip of the Week: Add Dynamic Submenus to Static Menus Using Menu, DeleteAll

Jack Dunning AutoHotkey, Dates and Time, Menus , , , , ,

How to Add an Updating Dynamic Submenu to a Static AutoHotkey Menu—Understanding the Difference Between Menu, DeleteAll Command and Menu, Delete Command

When I first wrote the HotstringMenu.ahk script, I planned it as a substitution for ambiguous or multiple option Hotstring text replacements. After typing one of the activation strings, a menu of alternative replacements pops-up. Since the Hotstring menus include many varied item lists, it made sense to create each only when needed. However, when I decided to combine a number of these menus into a group under one main menu, preloading the numerous static submenus seemed more practical. That left me with one problem. Some menus, such as current time and date insertion, need updating each time they pop up.

HotstringTimeDateMenu
The TimeDate submenu updates each time the top-level menu displays.

Once created, AutoHotkey menus sit idle as static tools waiting for the Menu, Show command—at least until deleted. While each subroutine called by a clicked menu item can produce variable results, the contents of the menu itself remain fixed. (Menu items do not accept variables as item names.) That means scripts which use the MenuItemName variable as dynamic output won’t update—unless the script deletes the menu items, then recreates them. If used as a submenu, the DateMenus.ahk script for inserting various current time and/or date formats into documents needs such an active menu. Continue reading →