AutoHotkey is a free, open source macro-creation and automation software utility that allows users to automate repetitive tasks. It is driven by a custom scripting language that has special provision for defining keyboard shortcuts, otherwise known as hotkeys.
AutoHotkey is developed with Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2022, which is a free download from Microsoft.
- Get the source code.
- Open AutoHotkeyx.sln in Visual Studio.
- Select the appropriate Build and Platform.
- Build.
The project is configured in a way that allows building with Visual Studio 2012 or later, but only the 2022 toolset is regularly tested. Some newer C++ language features are used and therefore a later version of the compiler might be required.
AutoHotkey v2 can also be built and debugged in VS Code.
Requirements:
- C/C++ for Visual Studio Code. VS Code might prompt you to install this if you open a .cpp file.
- Build Tools for Visual Studio 2022 with the "Desktop development with C++" workload, or similar (some older or newer versions and different products should work).
AutoHotkeyx.vcxproj contains several combinations of build configurations. The main configurations are:
- Debug: AutoHotkey.exe in debug mode.
- Release: AutoHotkey.exe for general use.
- Self-contained: AutoHotkeySC.bin, used for compiled scripts.
Secondary configurations are:
- (mbcs): ANSI (multi-byte character set). Configurations without this suffix are Unicode.
- .dll: Builds an experimental dll for use hosting the interpreter, such as to enable the use of v1 libraries in a v2 script. See README-LIB.md.
AutoHotkeyx.vcxproj includes the following Platforms:
- Win32: for Windows 32-bit.
- x64: for Windows x64.
AutoHotkey supports Windows XP with or without service packs and Windows 2000 via an asm patch (win2kcompat.asm). Support may be removed if maintaining it becomes non-trivial. Older versions are not supported.