AutoHotkey_L New Features

Auto Hotkey

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Control Flow
Break LoopLabel	Break out of a loop or any number of nested loops.
Continue LoopLabel	Continue a loop, even from within any number of nested loops.
For x,y in z	Loop through the contents of an object.
Loop Until	Loop until a condition is true. Applicable to any type of Loop.
Try...Catch	Provides structured exception handling.
Throw	Throws an exception.
Commands
FileEncoding	Sets the default encoding for FileRead, FileReadLine, Loop Read, FileAppend, and FileOpen. See also: Text Encodings
Gui	See GUI Enhancements below.
IniRead/Write/Delete	Read, write or delete entire sections, or retrieve a list of all section names.
Menu, Icon	Sets or removes a menu item's icon.
Run	Improvements were made to the way parameters are parsed.
SendInput {U+nnnn}	Sends a Unicode character. Unicode characters may be used directly in Unicode builds.
SendLevel	Controls which artificial keyboard and mouse events are ignored by hotkeys and hotstrings.
SetFormat, IntegerFast, h\|H	Set lower-case or upper-case hexadecimal format.
Transform, HTML	Perform code page or HTML transformations.
WinGet, ..., ProcessPath	Retrieves the full path and name of the process that owns a given window.
Directives
#If expression	Similar to #IfWinActive, but for arbitrary expressions.
#IfTimeout	Sets the maximum time that may be spent evaluating a single #If expression.
#MenuMaskKey	Changes which key is used to mask Win or Alt keyup events.
#Include <Lib>	Includes a script file from a function library folder.
#InputLevel	Controls which artificial keyboard and mouse events are ignored by hotkeys and hotstrings.
#Warn	Enables or disables warnings for selected conditions that may be indicative of developer errors.
Functions
ComObj... -- ComObjActive ComObjEnwrap/Unwrap ComObjParameter ComObjType	Retrieves a registered COM object. Wraps/unwraps a COM object. Wraps a value and type to pass as a parameter. Retrieves a COM object's type information.
ComObjArray	Creates a SAFEARRAY for use with COM.
ComObjConnect	Connects a COM object's event sources to functions with a given prefix.
ComObjCreate	Creates a COM object.
ComObjError	Enables or disables notification of COM errors.
ComObjFlags	Retrieves or changes flags which control a COM wrapper object's behaviour.
ComObjGet	Returns a reference to an object provided by a COM component.
ComObjQuery	Queries a COM object for an interface or service.
ComObjType	Retrieves type information from a COM object.
ComObjValue	Retrieves the value or pointer stored in a COM wrapper object.
Exception	Creates an exception object for Throw (also provides limited access to the call stack).
FileOpen	Provides object-oriented file I/O.
Func	Retrieves a reference to a function.
GetKeyName/VK/SC	Retrieves the name or text, virtual key code or scan code of a key.
InStr	Searches for a given occurrence of a string, from the left or the right.
IsByRef	Determines whether a ByRef parameter was supplied with a variable.
IsObject	Determines whether a value is an object.
StrPut	Copies a string to a memory address, optional converting it between code pages.
StrGet	Reads a string from a memory address, optional converting it between code pages.
Trim	Trims certain characters from the beginning and/or end of a string.
RegEx (?CNum:Func)	Calls a function during evaluation of a regex pattern.
Function Libraries	New "local library" and `#Include <LibName>`.
Variadic Functions	Functions may accept a variable number of parameters via an array.
Static Initializers	Static variables can now be initialized using any expression.
Objects
General	Behaviour and usage of objects in general.
Object	Associative arrays which can be extended with other functionality.
Enumerator	Allows items in a collection to be enumerated.
File	Provides an interface to access a file. FileOpen returns an object of this type.
Func	Represents a user-defined or built-in function which can be called by the script.
ComObject	See ComObj functions above.
Variables
A_IsUnicode	In Unicode builds, this variable contains 1 (true). In ANSI builds it is not defined, so is effectively false.
A_FileEncoding	Contains the default encoding for various commands; see FileEncoding.
A_OSVersion	Contains WIN_7 on Windows 7, else one of the values documented here.
A_PriorKey	The name of the last key which was pressed prior to the most recent key-press or key-release ... (More)
A_PtrSize	Contains the size of a pointer, in bytes. This is either 4 (32-bit) or 8 (64-bit).
A_ScriptHwnd	The unique ID (HWND/handle) of the script's hidden main window.
Datatypes
Ptr	Equivalent to Int in 32-bit builds and Int64 in 64-bit builds. Supported by DllCall, NumPut and NumGet.
AStr, WStr	Supported only by DllCall; see Script Compatibility.
Unicode
Compatibility	How to deal with Unicode in DllCall, etc.
Script Files	Using Unicode in script files.
SendInput	Using Unicode with SendInput.
Other
ahk_exe	Windows can be identified by the name or path of the process (EXE file) which owns them.
Debugging	Interactive debugging features (line by line execution etc.).
Error Handling	Try/catch/throw and increased usefulness for A_LastError.
GUI Enhancements	Various enhancements to the Gui command and related.
Icon Support	Resource identifiers and improved support for various icon sizes.
Other Changes	Changes affecting script compatibility.
Version History	History of AutoHotkey_L revisions.
Version History	History of AutoHotkey_H revisions.

Error Handling

Many commands support using try/catch instead of ErrorLevel for error handling. For example:

try
{
    FileCopy, file1.txt, C:\folder
    FileDelete, C:\folder\old.txt
}
catch
    MsgBox An error occured!

Additionally, the following commands now set A_LastError to assist with debugging: FileAppend, FileRead, FileReadLine, FileDelete, FileCopy, FileMove, FileGetAttrib/Time/Size/Version, FileSetAttrib/Time, FileCreateDir, RegRead, RegWrite, RegDelete.

Function Libraries

In addition to the user library in %A_MyDocuments%\AutoHotkey\Lib and standard library in the AutoHotkey directory, functions may be auto-included from the "local library" which resides in %A_ScriptDir%\Lib. For more information, see Libraries of Functions.

#Include <LibName> explicitly includes a library file which may be located in any one of the function libraries.

GUI Enhancements

A number of enhancements have been made to the Gui command and related:

A name or HWND can be used instead of a number between 1 and 99 when referring to a GUI.
Gui, New creates a new anonymous GUI.
Any number of named or anonymous GUIs can be created.
New GUI options: +HwndOutputVar, +ParentGUI
A GUI's owner can be any arbitrary window: +Owner%HWND%.
Gui, Font can control anti-aliasing of text.
ActiveX controls such as the Internet Explorer WebBrowser control are supported.
GuiControlGet, OutputVar, Name gets the name of the variable associated with a GUI control.
Keyboard accelerators such as Ctrl+O are supported automatically when used in Gui menus.
Font quality can be controlled by the Font sub-command.

Static Variables

Static variables can now be initialized using any expression. For example:

Sleep 500
MsgBox % Time() "ms since the script started."
Time() {
    static Tick := A_TickCount
    return A_TickCount - Tick
}

Text Encodings

FileRead, FileReadLine, Loop Read and FileAppend support the majority of Windows-supported text encodings, not just the system default ANSI code page. FileEncoding can be used to set the default encoding, which can be overridden for FileRead and FileAppend as follows:

OutPutVar := FileRead("*Pnnn Filename")
FileAppend Text, Filename, Encoding

While nnn must be a numeric code page identifier, Encoding follows the same format as FileEncoding.

See also: Script Compatibility

Variadic Functions and Function-Calls

Variadic functions can receive a variable number of parameters via an array, while variadic function-calls can be used to pass a variable number of parameters to a function.

Improvements to Icon Support

Unusual Sizes

Icon resources of any size supported by the operating system may be extracted from executable files. When multiple sized icon resources exist within an icon group, the most appropriate size is used. Prior to revision 17, an arbitrary icon resource was selected by the system, scaled to the system large icon size, then scaled back to the requested size.

Resource Identifiers

Negative icon numbers may be used to identify a group icon resource within an executable file. For example, the following sets the tray icon to the default icon used by ahk files:

Menu, Tray, Icon, %A_AhkPath%, -160

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