CODEWITHSUNDEEP
autohotkey
TechLife
TechLife

Reputation: 143

how to bind a hotkey with preserving its default behaviour

language = de
~Alt & Shift::
~Shift & Alt::
    if (language == "de") {
        language = en
    }
    else {
        language = de
    }
    msgbox % language
Return

This is the code Im working on, binding a work to Alt+Shift. But I wanna preserve the default behavior of Alt+Shift which seems to be disabled after this code runs.
Any Ideas?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1085

Answers (1)

phil294
phil294

Reputation: 10852

Use ~Alt & ~Shift:: instead of ~Alt & Shift::.

The tilde ~ prefix makes a hotkey keep its original function. As far as I understand,

~Alt & Shift::msgbox

could be translated into the following:

~Alt::    ; Alt enables the detection of a shift press
hotkey, Shift, shift, ON    ; OVERRIDES the normal shift behavior, not keeping it (~Shift)
hotkey, Shift up, shiftUp, ON
return

shift:
msgBox
return

shiftUp:
hotkey, Shift, shift, OFF
hotkey, Shift up, shiftUp, OFF
return

. Alt is a hotkey and Shift also is one, being activated on Alt pressure. But that very Shift hotkey overwrites any normal shift behaviour.

So, alt & shift is actually two different hotkeys combined to one. Each of them needs to be prefixed with its own options.

My solution works with another concurring AutoHotkey script. But it seems not with the windows built-in hotkey shift+alt aka alt+shift. Even if the ahk hotkey trigger looks like that

~Alt & ~Shift::

, this will STILL override the usual behavior which is Window's language switching mechanism. I do not know the reason behind it, maybe someone else does? I can only think of a (fairly simple) workaround:

~Alt & ~Shift::
send {alt down}{shift}{alt up}
; (your other actions)
return

In this case, you might even want to remove the ~'s in order to prevent confusion.

Upvotes: 2

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