Version 3.1.1
Q: Is HotKey free?
A: HotKey is 'beggarware'. You can read more about this on the General Information page. HotKey is licensed under the GNU General Public License. You can read our license page for details.
Q: How do I quit HotKey?
A: There are several ways. In order of 'preference' they are:
in the bottom left of the screen), and
select "Exit HotKey" from the menu that appears.Q: How do I uninstall HotKey?
A: If you chose to install Start Menu shortcuts, you can select the "Uninstall HotKey" option from the HotKey Start Menu folder. Alternatively, you can navigate to the HotKey installation folder and open the unins000.exe file. This will completely uninstall HotKey and all of its components from your computer.
Q: I keep getting an "AutoIT Error" message
similar to the following every time I start HotKey:
Line 0
(File "C:\Program Files\HotKey\HotKey2.1.0.exe"): What's going
on?
HotKeySet($array[1], $array[2])
Error: Unknown function name.
A: Most likely, you made a spelling or syntax error in you keys.cfg file when you were specifying your custom hotkeys. First, look through the file an try to find the error. If all else fails, just delete the keys.cfg file; the next time HotKey runs, it will automatically generate the default keys.cfg file again.
Q: How can I view the source code for HotKey?
A: Start HotKey, click on the tray icon, and select "Show Source Code" from the menu that appears.
Q: I changed my keys.cfg file while HotKey was running. How do update the key bindings without restarting HotKey?
A: There are two ways. The first is to use ToggleOnOff to toggle the keys off and then back on. The other way is to click on the HotKey icon in your system tray, and select "Update keys (reload from keys.cfg)" from the menu that pops up.
Q: How can I revert to the default hotkeys?
A: Click on the HotKey tray icon, and select "Reset Key Bindings" from the menu that appears. This will completely and irretrievably erase your settings, so if you intend to go back to them, make a backup of your keys.cfg file!
Q: The file and folder creation functions are not working, and neither is the CommandHere function. What's wrong?
A: This is probably because you do not have your folders set up to display the full path in the address bar. See the note in on the functions page about enabling full path display.
Q: I want to use a certain key as a hotkey, but I am not sure how to represent it in the keys.cfg file. Where do I look?
A: Here.
Q: I set a hotkey, and now keyboard shortcuts in one of my other programs are not working! What do I do?
A: When you set a hotkey, HotKey captures the keypress and does not pass it on to the active application--with one exception: The Lock keys (NumLock, CapsLock, and ScrollLock) still toggle their respective state. You have two options to get around this: (1) change the hotkey settings in keys.cfg so that your hotkeys do not overlap with the ones from the application you are using, or (2) toggle the hotkeys off when using applications where HotKey will interfere with built-in keyboard shortcuts (make sure that the ToggleOnOff hotkey is not an application shortcut itself -- this key is not disabled when hotkeys are toggled off [so you can toggle them back on again!]). If you can't seem to solve the problem, you can always just quit HotKey while using the application that is giving you trouble.
Q: I am trying to run a program with RunProg that either takes command line arguments or generates an output file and I'm getting all sorts of crazy error messages. What's going on?
A: Look here.
Q: When I use the extra clipboard functions in Adobe Photoshop, they sometimes stop working correctly if the program has been open a while. Is this a bug?
A: Yes, in a way, but not in HotKey. Photoshop uses an internal clipboard, and sometimes (especially if it has been open for a long time) fails to check if the system's clipboard contents have been updated by an outside program. Thus, Photoshop may fail to recognize when HotKey has swapped data on the clipboard, and therefore fail to update its internal Photoshop clipboard. This can be solved (or at least minimized) by updating a registry setting, as described here.
Q: When I use the extra clipboards to copy and paste, they are sometimes slow and the window seems to "flicker". What's going on?
A:When writing the ExtraCopy and ExtraPaste functions, we had to had to balance speed and functionality with resource management and reliability. This lead to a couple decisions. First, in order to use as little RAM as possible and enable longterm persistence of data, the extra clipboard contents are saved in files. This introduces a very short delay (usually imperceptable unless the clipboard contains a large amount of data). Second, because some programs (e.g. Photoshop, see previous question) use internal clipboards that only update their contents to match the system clipboard when the user switches to another window, the ExtraCopy/Paste functions automate a rapid switching of windows. Specifically, the window focus switches "instantly" to HotKey (which is actually a hidden window) and and back to the window where the copy/paste operation occurs. As this window loses and regains focus, one may observe a momentary "flicker." While this is non-ideal, and is not necessary for most applications, we chose to implement the functions this way to ensure mamimum compatibility with all copy/paste operations. None of this affects the main Windows clipboard, only the extra HotKey ones. For most operations, it should not be noticable.
Q: My question is not answered here. Where can I get support?
A: Look here.