Counterpoint: I’ve bounced off of AutoHotkey multiple times so far and would therefore not describe its docs as good. Or rather, I always install it to solve a moderately difficult problem, then get stumped because the tool has way too many functionalities with weird edge cases.
AutoHotkey might work fine if one first installs it and gets used to it, and only then encounters that moderately difficult problem; but my experience with it has always been disappointing.
Interesting, I wrote that comment a year ago and autohotkey is still embedded into the genes of how I use my computer. My capslock is remapped to control, I can write a small four letter string to pull up a notepad file with my daily journal, another string for my sleep long, another four my collection of fictional quotes I like, and fun ones like typing ‘nowk’ to expand to the current date without having to check it (2022-12-05) or typing −0 to auto expand to — em dash are things that my computer feels very empty without now
Maybe my expectations for usability are just too high, or the tool is easy enough for professional programmers? (Which I am not, though I have some minor programming experience.) Or maybe you’re used to the tool, flaws and all, so now you benefit from the upside without suffering from the learning curve? Or maybe I would’ve fared better if I’d consulted that specific quick start tutorial rather than searching in the docs when I had questions?
Anyway, a few days ago, I finally took the plunge, again. It took me ~80 min to write this almost trivial key recording script to help an author of video game guides who up to this point had typed their huge walkthroughs by hand (example, one of those solutions is >700 characters long). The majority of that scripting time was spent raging at the documentation and syntax and lack of error messages, for a script I expected to be very simple.
The resulting script worked and the recipient was very happy about it, so spending the time was worth it, but I found the scripting experience itself just unpleasant. On the other hand, maybe now the worst is behind me, and writing further scripts would be smooth sailing?
Counterpoint: I’ve bounced off of AutoHotkey multiple times so far and would therefore not describe its docs as good. Or rather, I always install it to solve a moderately difficult problem, then get stumped because the tool has way too many functionalities with weird edge cases.
AutoHotkey might work fine if one first installs it and gets used to it, and only then encounters that moderately difficult problem; but my experience with it has always been disappointing.
Interesting, I wrote that comment a year ago and autohotkey is still embedded into the genes of how I use my computer. My capslock is remapped to control, I can write a small four letter string to pull up a notepad file with my daily journal, another string for my sleep long, another four my collection of fictional quotes I like, and fun ones like typing ‘nowk’ to expand to the current date without having to check it (2022-12-05) or typing −0 to auto expand to — em dash are things that my computer feels very empty without now
Maybe my expectations for usability are just too high, or the tool is easy enough for professional programmers? (Which I am not, though I have some minor programming experience.) Or maybe you’re used to the tool, flaws and all, so now you benefit from the upside without suffering from the learning curve? Or maybe I would’ve fared better if I’d consulted that specific quick start tutorial rather than searching in the docs when I had questions?
Anyway, a few days ago, I finally took the plunge, again. It took me ~80 min to write this almost trivial key recording script to help an author of video game guides who up to this point had typed their huge walkthroughs by hand (example, one of those solutions is >700 characters long). The majority of that scripting time was spent raging at the documentation and syntax and lack of error messages, for a script I expected to be very simple.
The resulting script worked and the recipient was very happy about it, so spending the time was worth it, but I found the scripting experience itself just unpleasant. On the other hand, maybe now the worst is behind me, and writing further scripts would be smooth sailing?