Messages

Fair enough.

However, I do wonder if a command to create / edit a note from an action might be a useful thing?

Just to make that perhaps a bit better expressed: one of my gadgets is a notes program called Cintanote. Something it can do, which often comes in useful, is I can highlight some text somewhere, hit a hotkey, and Cintanotes will create a new note with the selected text as the content. So it's that sort of functionality I'm thinking of here.

Fair enough.

However, I do wonder if a command to create / edit a note from an action might be a useful thing?

Can I make a suggestion?

How about a (hopefully simple) right-click function that could take the currently selected action and copy it to a Note, with the action name as the first line of the note and a the hotkey as the second? Oh, maybe some element that could be used as a search criterion so you could find all your backed-up actions easily?

The updated version of the code -- and I've added in the MiXeD cAsE block because removing unwanted blocks is easier than adding them -- is here:

Code Select Expand

(Start)
HOW TO USE: Copy from Start to End, and then paste into an action.
REFERENCE : See an example of pasting at alomware.com/paste.png
0001 Window: Assign active ""
0002 Wait: For action hotkey to be released ""
0003 Clipboard: Clear all content ""
0004 Keyboard: Copy ""
0005 Action: Abort if no clipboard text ""
0006 String: Assign from clipboard text ""
0007 Alert: Ask for a choice "Case modification type?~iNVERT~lower case~Sentence case~Title Case~AL¬
L CAPS~MiXeD cAsE"
0008 Action: Do next step if "alert$=iNVERT"
0009  String: Case swap ""
0010 Action: Do next step if "alert$=Title Case"
0011  String: Case title ""
0012 Action: Do next step if "alert$=Sentence case"
0013  String: Case sentence ""
0014 Action: Do next step if "alert$=lower case"
0015  String: Case lower ""
0016 Action: Do next step if "alert$=ALL CAPS"
0017  String: Case upper ""
0018 Action: Do next step if "alert$=MiXeD cAsE"
0019  String: Case mixed ""
0020 Clipboard: Assign text "string$"
0021 Keyboard: Paste ""
(End)


Ah. Now that gave me an idea.

Adding

Code Select Expand

Wait: For action hotkey to be released ""
at step 2 fixed it.

If you think I'm going to roll back to 24H2 (I do have a full backup, I could, but argh) you have another think coming.

The refresh trigger list: yes, that's a useful thing to know, I'll try to remember that.

By the way, I just spotted the move to numpad# option for windows and mouse movements (in your Toolbox vs Autohotkey comparison post) and yay! Is that newish, or is it just one of the (many!) things in Toolbox I'd failed to notice / register when I was writing things?

At a tangent: the comparison between Autohotkey and Toolbox is interesting and useful. I'd also add that Toolbox scripts mostly don't need to be completely rewritten when there's a Toolbox version change -- I have an extremely complex Autohotkey script at work that operates as an automation robot: takes data from one source and copies it to another, in the absence of a "proper" backend interface. It was written in Autohotkey v1 and fails so hard in Autohotkey v2 it'd make your head spin.

The test version has a fair chance of replacing the selected text with C, which is what I was seeing previously too (maybe V depending on what was happening at the time.)

So my macro can't press C without the control key down and doesn't release the control key until C's been pressed, whereas -- presumably -- keyboard: copy works differently?

Oh, one observation: it's a capital C that gets typed, when I use keyboard: copy. Should it be ctrl-c rather than ctrl-C? Or shouldn't that matter?

I finally allowed my laptop to update to Windows 11 25H2 today, on the basis that most of the issues with it are either ironed out or good workarounds exist. In fact, I have so many customisations in place that, at least superficially, I can't see a difference between it and 24H2.

But. I have a tiny action that opens Toolbox at the Automation tab (with ctrl-shift-A as the hotkey) instead of my usual default, for when I'm creating new Actions, and although I'd created a placeholder for my text case action, I hadn't written it yet. 

So, update completed, I hit ctrl-shift-a to open Toolbox Automation and it didn't work.

Oh. The Toolbox icon in the notification area had gone away. Weird. Run Toolbox back up and I went to check that the action wasn't using a hotkey that the updated version of Windows had reserved for something new.

Clicked the "set trigger" button and, sure enough, Toolbox is telling me that that combo isn't available anymore. And although I could set other triggers, I found myself wondering if I'd lost any others.

Quite a few, it turned out.

But then, instead of using the "set trigger" button to set a new trigger, I hit the "delete trigger" button and, having done so, found that I could set a new trigger of ctrl-shift-a without an issue -- in other words, there was an issue with the chosen trigger but deleting it and replacing it with the same trigger put it back how it was.

Is this a real bug? Dunno. Is it Windows' fault? Maybe. But I thought I'd post it here in case it bites anyone else...

If you're anything like me -- half-decent typist but have to look at the keyboard more than a touch typist would -- you might get similar issues to one of my greatest bugbears -- hitting Caps Lock, forgetting it's on and typing a load of text with the case inverted.

lIKE THIS.

Last time I did it, I felt fairly sure that there was an action in Toolbox's default library that could deal with this -- and I couldn't find it. But there are script actions that can handle all that stuff, so I wrote one.

One caveat: it won't work if Toolbox isn't running as Admin -- or it won't for me, anyway.

Code Select Expand

(Start)
HOW TO USE: Copy from Start to End, and then paste into an action.
REFERENCE : See an example of pasting at alomware.com/paste.png
0001 Window: Assign active ""
0002 Clipboard: Clear all content ""
0003 ;Keyboard: Copy ""
0004 Macro: Type keys or use mouse "{z200}{ctrldown}{z200}c{z200}{ctrlup}{z200}"
0005 Action: Abort if no clipboard text ""
0006 String: Assign from clipboard text ""
0007 Alert: Ask for a choice "Case modification type?~iNVERT~lower case~Sentence case~Title Case~AL¬
L CAPS~"
0008 Action: Do next step if "alert$=iNVERT"
0009   String: Case swap ""
0010 Action: Do next step if "alert$=Title Case"
0011   String: Case title ""
0012 Action: Do next step if "alert$=Sentence case"
0013   String: Case sentence ""
0014 Action: Do next step if "alert$=lower case"
0015   String: Case lower ""
0016 Action: Do next step if "alert$=ALL CAPS"
0017   String: Case upper ""
0018 Clipboard: Assign text "string$"
0019 ;Keyboard: Paste ""
0020 Macro: Type keys or use mouse "{z200}{ctrldown}{z200}v{z200}{ctrlup}{z200}"
(End)
The sharp-eyed will probably wonder why I used a couple of macro steps to replace the commented-out 

Code Select Expand

Keyboard: Copy 
and 

Code Select Expand

Keyboard: Paste
commands. I think it's an idiosyncracy of my PC -- they don't work reliably for me, so I've used the macro steps to replicate copy and paste with some fifth-of-a-second delays plugged in, which DOES seem to be solid on my kit. By all means experiment: just use the "right click, toggle disabled step" on steps 3, 4, 19 and 20 to swap the Macro approach with the Keyboard approach to see if it'll work better for you that way. The baked in version is definitely easier to read!

The menu in step 7 can also be modified to present the options in the order you prefer: I have the option I use most at the top, but because of the way the rest of the code works, if you change the order of the options, as long as you don't change the text of the entries, it'll work fine.

The super sharp-eyed among you will wonder why I missed out an option for MiXeD cAsE. Simples: I never use it. If you do, by all means amend line 7 to

Code Select Expand

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]0007 Alert: Ask for a choice "Case modification type?~iNVERT~lower case~Sentence case~Title Case~AL¬[/font]
L CAPS~MiXeD cAsE"
and add another action block at line 18 like this:

Code Select Expand

0018 Action: Do next step if "alert$=MiXeD cAsE"
0019  String: Case mixed ""

And obviously assign the action to a memorable hotkey. 

So the usage is: highlight the text you want to modify, activate the hotkey you've chosen and pick the modification of choice from the popup menu. In my setup, because the Invert option is first, that's the default so all I have to do is press the Enter key if that's what I want.

So you know the option is "type these keys?"

I was using the "dos command" option.

Sorry. It works as advertised. It's ME who doesn't.

[cmd]

I like the idea of this, it never occurred to me that I might want the Run box to be somewhere other than the default but now I wonder why it never occurred to me to consider it!

However -- sorry! -- the {delete} thing doesn't work for me. I tried the extra delay option and I also tried putting {z200} before the {delete} in case that'd be actioned, but doesn't work.

If I do Win-R and press Delete, it clears the current selection as expected, so it certainly should work.

I should probably say that I don't particularly need this element to work, I was just playing with it! (Although 9 times out of 10, if I hit Win-R the next thing is going to be cmd so a halfway house where I had a run box with cmd typed and ready for me to hit enter is now in my head!)

GrahamB -- this happens. I ask Paul something, he gives me a solution and before I know it I'm bouncing cheerfully down a rabbithole and ending up with Useful Stuff I never envisaged at the outset. It's all Paul's fault, naturally.

It's a collection of gadgets and abilities that are useful on their own but as a joined set are close to untouchable.

Add to that rapid attention to bugfixes and new ideas from the developer, I decided it was worth paying for and haven't regretted it.

But if you're unconvinced, the free model is still pretty good.

Oh, that's VERY cool.

Mostly, when I click the Toolbox icon in my notification area, it's because I want the Calendar. No worries, that's the default. [Calendar is set to my favourite in Toolbox settings]

But when I'm developing (stop laughing, Paul, I don't always scream for help!) my process is "mess with stuff in the Automation tab, close the Toolbox window, run the action I'm working on, notice what's broken, rinse and repeat." And for some reason, my brain expects me always to be back in the Automation tab, and I'm not. I could change the settings to reopen where I left it, I know, but that's not my preference.

So -- definitely the shortest action I've ever written. Memorable hotkey, what works for me might not be your idea of fun so choose your own. Script is:

Code Select Expand

(Start)
HOW TO USE: Copy from Start to End, and then paste into an action.
REFERENCE : See an example of pasting at alomware.com/paste.png
0001 Toolbox: Show the tab named "Automation"
(End)
It Just Works.

My current automation project is about rewrapping and requoting text-format emails. The detail doesn't much matter, but my query is if I can use an ID to capture the parameter I want to feed to the 

Code Select Expand

String: Word wrap at function.

So I tried to write my action so I could choose a right margin for the text when I invoked it. I collected a response, stored it in an ID I called margin, then after I'd finished getting the text ready to be rewrapped, fed the word wrap function the current string$ with the right margin set to my stored margin variable.

Code Select Expand

String: Word wrap at "margin"
And it didn't work. It dropped an error saying that my margin needed to be greater than zero and stopped.

I tried again, thinking maybe that "margin" might have needed to be "margin$".

Still nothing.

So I looked for an alternative way to hold a number for later use, remembered about 

Code Select Expand

Counter: Assign "string$"[which is far from being its intended use but necessity is the mother of invention and all that]

so used counter$ to hold the collected right margin and All Is Now Well.

The current, working, form of the action is at the end.

So I've clearly misunderstood the use of the IDs for variable storage. Can you set me right, please?

And how should I have tackled this issue?

Code Select Expand

(Start)
HOW TO USE: Copy from Start to End, and then paste into an action.
REFERENCE : See an example of pasting at alomware.com/paste.png
0001 Action: Comment "Remove quote chevrons, rewrap then replace chevrons"
0002 Action: Abort if no clipboard text ""
0003 Alert: Ask for a choice "#Wrap to what width?~20~30~40~50~60~70"
0004 String: Assign "alert$"
0005 Action: Do next step if "string$=blank$"
0006   String: Assign "68"
0007 Counter: Assign "string$"
0008 String: Assign from clipboard text ""
0009 String: Replace text "~>>=~"
0010 String: Replace text "~>=~"
0011 String: Replace text "~~=[para]"
0012 String: Replace text "~=space$"
0013 String: Replace text "[para]=~~"
0014 String: Word wrap at "counter$"
0015 String: Replace text "~=~>space$"
0016 Clipboard: Assign text "string$"
0017 Action: Do this block if "clip$<>"""
0018   Wait: For milliseconds to pass "200"
0019   Keyboard: Paste ""
0020 Action: End of block ""
(End)