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Reciprocally, it's just amazing how much better AutoHotKey is at scripting the computer is than everything else is. The language was clearly never the reason why AHK persisted.
There's works like AutoPy (https://github.com/autopilot-rs/autopy) and AutoPilot-rs (https://github.com/autopilot-rs/autopilot-rs), but they offer like 1/100th the capabilities AHK does.
Personally I think this kind of computer-control is the perfect environment for teaching computing. Rather than writing apps or webapps, I feel like the idea of just writing code to do what you the user would do anyways, but better, is a fantastic introduction to computing & programming. In my ideal world, we'd have an EVE Online server that specifically re-enables the game-client's python interpretter (and periodically does total wipes), so folks can learn to program by scripting not just their desktop, but a complex & interesting game, via it's rich api.
Reciprocally, it's just amazing how much better AutoHotKey is at scripting the computer is than everything else is. The language was clearly never the reason why AHK persisted.
There's works like AutoPy (https://github.com/autopilot-rs/autopy) and AutoPilot-rs (https://github.com/autopilot-rs/autopilot-rs), but they offer like 1/100th the capabilities AHK does.
Personally I think this kind of computer-control is the perfect environment for teaching computing. Rather than writing apps or webapps, I feel like the idea of just writing code to do what you the user would do anyways, but better, is a fantastic introduction to computing & programming. In my ideal world, we'd have an EVE Online server that specifically re-enables the game-client's python interpretter (and periodically does total wipes), so folks can learn to program by scripting not just their desktop, but a complex & interesting game, via it's rich api.
I feel similarly about hammerspoon [1] on macOS. Not a GUI tool, but Lua is a very easy language to learn.
[1] https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon
AutoIt is also great especially for quickly prototyping GUIs.
I recently built a proof-of-concept for a modernized method of interacting with RTS cameras[0], which unfortunately could not be achieved with frameworks like SDL due to their abstraction obscuring some of the native OS functions needed to create my idea.
Using AutoIt lets me basically just treat it as a minimal-boilerplate sandbox to make DllCalls. This also means that I could directly listen as well as post raw device messages. For example, I implemented an inertia-based cursor script that basically lets you use your homerow vim keys like it's a trackball[1], which I now use everyday whenever I'm not with my ThinkPad.
[0] https://github.com/EsportToys/NaturalEdgePan
https://github.com/Flow-Launcher/Flow.Launcher
The Fluent Search creator is pretty active and available on Discord.
It was only when I started writing my own sxhkd-inspired hotkey daemon[1] for Windows that I really started to appreciate just how _good_ AHK is. Even just for hotkey binding, AHK does some incredibly clever stuff very transparently to provide for such an excellent end-user experience. For example, using system hooks automatically when the user tries to bind a hotkey combination that is reserved by the system (usually win+something) is implemented so well. Really excellent software and I miss it when I'm using Linux or macOS.
[1]: https://github.com/LGUG2Z/whkd
There is even a dwm-style extremely comprehensive tiling window manager called bug.n [1], which I downloaded it way back in windows 8 days. Made a lot of changes myself and plan to open source it as a fork. Its too good. And combined with the rest of my AHK scripts, my windows setup turns out to be even more customised than many Linux systems I use.
See my post of my windows setup fooling r/unixporn [2] for how it could look.
[1] https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n