Say for some reason, you really wanted to know the hex code for every color in an image. And you really wanted to use AutoHotkey. This is the program for you.
Continue reading “AHK: How to Extract Every Hex Code from an Image”
AHK: How BGR Color Works
Sadly, in AutoHotkey scripts you can’t just demand “LIME” or “GENTLY BURNT ORANGE”. The computer will spit out an error message if you try. It requires a color ID in hexadecimal BGR (Blue, Green, Red) format.
If you’re wondering what the hell that is, you’re not alone.
The simple answer? It’s an 8 digit code assigned to each color. Look them up on Google if you want to preserve your mental health.
Keep reading if you’re less partial to your sanity.
The Complicated Answer
I just relearned how to count, damn it. That’s how complicated this is.
You see, Color ID’s are made up of a fixed prefix and numbers that represent a combination of blue, green and red.
The amount of those colors can be anywhere between 0 and 255. Here starts the problem of counting. How do you tell the computer to use the max green value (255) if you can only use a 2 digit number?
You use a different counting system by adding letters A-F. That’s how.
It’s Base-16 because you’re counting by combining 16 characters: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, a, b, c, d, e, f.
If you’re only manipulating one color while the others are at 0, all you really need to know is that lower values are darker than higher ones.
When you start combining colors, the same normal color rules apply. To make yellow, you jack up the red and green values, so the BGR will read 0x00ffff. Blue and red makes purple, so 0xff00ff.
The oddest thing to get used to is white being the max value of blue, green and red combined, 0xffffff. Just remember that the higher the value, the more they cancel each other out until they reach nothing. White.
AHK: How to Automate Mouse Movements
Automating mouse drags is… Not as useful as I expected. But wildly helpful if you need to draw the same thing on a computer repeatedly. Keep in mind, it only works with straight lines. Quite wonderfully, you can control that line entirely down to the pixel.
AHK: How to Lose Friends & Alienate People with Code
Automating keystrokes is a fun way to spend an afternoon. It’s also an entertaining to wrap your head around the idea of loops and variables. If you’re wanting extra practice, give these a try.
Note: You’ll need AutoHotkey installed for this. If you don’t know what that is, click here.
Important Commands to Note:
run, Name of Program.exe
SendInput Keystrokes to Send
Sleep, Delay in Milliseconds
Loop, # of times to run loop
{
Commands to run
}
All Work and No Play
Take a look at this code.
run, notepad.exe
Loop, 100
{
SendInput All Work And No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy.
}
return
Keep in mind that everything inside the loop will happen 100 times, so with just 6 lines of code, you can make the computer type this sentence over and over again. In action, it kind of makes your computer seem possessed.
Continue reading “AHK: How to Lose Friends & Alienate People with Code”
AHK Update: Targeted File Deleter Program
Welcome to the combo post of How to Delete Every Other File in a Folder and How to Make a GUI. For lack of a better name, I’m calling it a targeted file deleter program. It can automate the process of deleting every other file if the file name ends in sequential numbers.
For those who couldn’t care less about how it functions, just follow these two steps.
STEP 1: Fire up a new AutoHotkey* file.
*Download it here if you haven’t already.
STEP 2: Paste this text inside. And run the file.
Gui, -Caption
Gui, Color, Black
Gui, Font, cWhite s12
Gui, Add, Text, , The Targeted File Deleter
Gui, Add, Text, , Note: File names must be sequential (for ex. IMG_1.jpg) and cannot have leading zeros (IMG_001.jpg).
Gui, Add, Text, , What is the folder you want to delete files from? (Ex. C:\Users\Desktop\)
Gui, Add, Edit, vFilePath w500 cblack
Gui, Add, Text, , How does the file name start? (Do not include numbers)
Gui, Add, Edit, vFileNameStart w500 cblack
Gui, Add, Text, , What number does the file name start at?
Gui, Add, Edit, vFileNumberStart w500 cblack
Gui, Add, Text, , By what increment do you want to delete files?
Gui, Add, Edit, vIncrement w500 cblack
Gui, Add, Text, , What is the file extension? (Ex. .jpg, .pdf, .doc)
Gui, Add, Edit, vExtension w500 cblack
Gui, Add, Text, , How many files have you got total?
Gui, Add, Edit, vLoopCount w500 cblack
Gui, Add, Button, x570 y370, OK
Gui, Add, Button, x570 y410, Cancel
Gui, Show, , The Mass File Deleter
returnButtonOK:
Gui, Submit
Loop
{
if A_Index < %LoopCount%
FileDelete, %FilePath%%FileNameStart%%FileNumberStart%%Extension%
FileNumberStart+=%Increment%
}
returnButtonCancel:
ExitApp
Continue reading “AHK Update: Targeted File Deleter Program”
AHK: How to Use IF/ELSE in a GUI
Back to a Simple Box…
Important Commands to Note:
Gui, Add, Checkbox, Variable4UserInput*, TextToDisplay
       * Stored variable is 1 if checked, 0 if unchecked
This is a continuation of How to Make a User Interface except this is the part where the variables actually make something happen. Start off with a simple GUI, like this:
AHK: How to Make a User Interface
I loathe ComputerSpeak.
Missed commas. Misspelled commands. A { instead of a ( because those bastards look exactly alike. Opening the script guarantees that I will make at least one of these errors while updating the code to do something slightly different.
So in order to combat this, I’m making my script a muzzle.
Call it a GUI (Graphical User Interface), call it a window, call it a box-it’s all the same to me. Essentially I’m turning this jumble of script on the right to this nice, soothing thing on the left.
In the interest of keeping it simple, let’s make the simplest GUI possible and build up from there.
AHK: How To Delete Every Other File in a Folder
STEP 1: Make a new AutoHotkey file. Not sure how to do that? Click here.
STEP 2: Right click your new AutoHotKey Script → Edit Script.
STEP 3: Copy and paste this text into the body.
Var = 8071
Loop, 100
{
FileDelete, C:\Users\Desktop\Sentient Webcam\IMG_%Var%.jpg
      Var+=2
}
return
STEP 4: Go to the folder with all the files in it, and copy the file path so the computer knows where to look. Paste that in place of the red text in the script.
Continue reading “AHK: How To Delete Every Other File in a Folder”
AHK: How to Make a $hit Ton of Files in 60 Seconds
For future reference, I’m posting the code at the top. Details follow below.
STEP 1: Make a new AutoHotkey file. Don’t know what that is? Don’t worry. It’s real easy. Click here.
STEP 2: Go into your C Drive. Make a folder called Folders1_200.
STEP 3: Right click your new AutoHotKey Script → Edit Script.
Continue reading “AHK: How to Make a $hit Ton of Files in 60 Seconds”
AHK: How To Make a Hotkey
A hotkey (AKA keyboard shortcut) is a combination of keys that tell your computer to do something.
You’ve probably seen these before:
CTRL + CÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Copy
CTRL + X Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Cut
ALT + F4 Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Close the active window
Today we’re going to make one of our own. I want to be able to tap a key that opens the internet at a specific page. Because I am lazy, I’m writing this in Notepad. Entirely doable with AutoHotkey. If you don’t know what that is, read this.
STEP 1: Download AUTOHOTKEY.
Sidenote: I’m warning you now, Autohotkey is a gate-way drug. It’s mellow. It’s accessible. And it can definitely put you on the path to using things that horrify you now. Maybe even the command prompt.
STEP 2: Right click the desktop → New → AutoHotKey Script.
STEP 3: Name it something obvious.
STEP 4: Right click your new AutoHotKey Script → Edit Script.
If all is well, you should see this.
STEP 5: Don’t panic. You don’t need to know anything about any of the text that comes inside of it.
STEP 6: Underneath that text, use this formula to tell the computer what you want. I’m going to have it open Firefox and route to BBC News.
HotKey1 & HotKey2 ::
run, NameOfProgram.exe
return
In our case, that translates to:
*Yes, ! means ALT in computerspeak. In this context. More on this later.
STEP 7: Close Notepad → Right click the script you just created → Run Script
STEP 8: Press Alt and n to see it work.
gifGuide2Code 