The Definitive Live Autohotkeys script!

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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rozling
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The Definitive Live Autohotkeys script!

Post by rozling » Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:06 am

Right so of course it's nowhere near ultimate but one day with your help it could be :)

I'd like to get the ball rolling on a 'base' Autohotkeys script which incorporates some of the the commonly requested stuff on the forum, e.g. disabling the space bar, browser access via hotkeys etc. I'm hoping people will check out some of the ideas I couldn't implement and build on them.

Thanks/mad props to DJSynchro for providing the inspirado to mess around with Autohotkeys. Enjoy!

To make this script work you need to:
- go to this page, download and install the free app (Windows only - sorry).
- go here (latest version) and download the script.
- run the script, right click on the 'H' icon in your taskbar and hit edit - this will show you the rest of what you need to know.

I've only tested this on WinXP at 1024x768 resolution, running Live fullscreen with the 'metal' skin.

Script updated 7th Feb '07
Last edited by rozling on Wed Aug 22, 2007 10:30 am, edited 10 times in total.

DeadlyKungFu
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Post by DeadlyKungFu » Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:44 am

Mongo no understand.

What language and where can I learn it? How do I run it?


Who's gonna try the mystery mushroom first?

supster
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Post by supster » Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:59 am

rozling,

do you know if this is possible (reposting this from Tips and Tricks):

the problem is - when manipulating the loop brackets in Clip View - any click elsewhere on the interface and the braces lose focus. hence you lose arrow / modifier key control over the clip braces

so live control over multiple loop braces becomes a chore while you are mixing two or more clips together. every move away from the braces or between clips involves a reach for the mouse pointer

IS there any way to get around this feature gap in the meantime. AutoHotkeys scripting?

very important feature, really opens a lot of possibilities if we can get this working ..thanks. anybody.


.
--
NEW SPECS: Athlon 4200+ dual; A8N-SLI m/b; Win XP Home SP2; 1 GB RAM; 2x 7200 RPM HDD: 1 internal, 1 Firewire 800 (Firewire is project data drive); M-Audio Triggerfinger

josh 'vonster' von; tracks and sets
http://www.joshvon.com

hoffman2k
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Post by hoffman2k » Thu Jul 20, 2006 6:37 am

On a side note:

People who want to do this on mac don't need a script.

Juts go to system preferences < keyboard & mouse < key combo's

You can edit everything that is available in the Live menubar.

hambone1
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Post by hambone1 » Thu Jul 20, 2006 7:15 am

System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts in 10.4.7.

I tried remapping various Live views (Browser 1, Sends, etc), but couldn't get it to work. The new keyboard shortcut triggers the menu, but that's all.

Then I realized it was a lot easier to map Live's menu items to an LX2 with midiStroke. One little button gets you access to any Live menu item, or even a string of menu items.

Meef Chaloin
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Post by Meef Chaloin » Thu Jul 20, 2006 10:29 am

this looks cool!
Gonna try it tonight.

rozling
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Location: Dublin, Ireland

Post by rozling » Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:18 am

To make this script work you need to go to this page, download the free app (Windows only - sorry). Then copy my code here and paste it into Notepad (not wordpad). Save it with the extension .ahk and once you've installed the app it'll run as a script.

Sorry I could have done it clearer but was a bit headmelted by the end of the night!
supster wrote:rozling,

do you know if this is possible (reposting this from Tips and Tricks):

the problem is - when manipulating the loop brackets in Clip View - any click elsewhere on the interface and the braces lose focus. hence you lose arrow / modifier key control over the clip braces

so live control over multiple loop braces becomes a chore while you are mixing two or more clips together. every move away from the braces or between clips involves a reach for the mouse pointer

IS there any way to get around this feature gap in the meantime. AutoHotkeys scripting?

very important feature, really opens a lot of possibilities if we can get this working ..thanks. anybody.


.
Hey supster - I've seen the discussions about this & it was stuff like this that convinced me of the need of a collaborative script. My current thinking on that one would be to search for the clip brace graphics. Once the script knows where they are a click on it is easy - problem is it looks like a session view clip play button! I'll try a few things and let you know.

Meef Chaloin
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Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 10:09 pm

Post by Meef Chaloin » Fri Jul 21, 2006 9:10 am

how do you go about writing these? I wouldnt mind playing about some new ideas for it.

rozling
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Joined: Mon May 30, 2005 9:48 am
Location: Dublin, Ireland

Post by rozling » Fri Jul 21, 2006 11:53 am

It's a matter of figuring out (as specifically as possible) what you want to do, imagining a couple of ways it might be done, and then getting into the help file/forum to find out how it's actually done.

Autohotkeys is very easy for remapping keys - if you want to start from scratch you could just open a new text file (don't forget to save it as .ahk when you're saving it) and type in "a::b". Once you save and load your script, the 'a' key will be mapped to 'b' instead.

You can use all the modifiers like Ctrl, Alt, Shift etc (but you have to type special characters for them i.e. '^', '!' and '+').

For example, I'm used to the standard WinXP shortcuts and am used to hitting Ctrl+f for find - in Live that would toggle 'follow'. Hence in the script above I include the remapping "^f::^+f " - in english this would be "Ctrl+f will be remapped to Ctrl+Shift+f". You can then add in a command so that that applies only in the Live window.

It kinda requires a bit of lateral thinking, and it can help to look at what others have done with it. Stuff AHK can do (from the help file):
"-Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write macros by hand or use the macro recorder.
-Create hotkeys for keyboard, joystick, and mouse. Virtually any key, button, or combination can become a hotkey.
-Expand abbreviations as you type them. For example, typing "btw" can automatically produce "by the way".
-Create custom data entry forms, user interfaces, and menu bars. See GUI for details.
-Remap keys and buttons on your keyboard, joystick, and mouse.
-Respond to signals from hand-held remote controls via the WinLIRC client script.
-Convert any script into an EXE file that can be run on computers that don't have AutoHotkey installed.

... in addition to the typical Control, Alt, and Shift modifiers, you can use the Windows key and the Capslock key as modifiers. In fact, you can make any key or mouse button act as a modifier. For these and other capabilities, see Advanced Hotkeys.

Other Features
-Change the volume, mute, and other settings of any soundcard.
-Make any window transparent, always-on-top, or alter its shape.
-Use a joystick or keyboard as a mouse.
-Monitor your system. For example, close unwanted windows the moment they appear.
-Retrieve and change the clipboard's contents, including file names copied from an Explorer window.
-Disable or override Windows' own shortcut keys such as Win+E and Win+R.
-Alleviate RSI with substitutes for Alt-Tab (using keys, mouse wheel, or buttons).
-Customize the tray icon menu with your own icon, tooltip, menu items, and submenus.
-Display dialog boxes, tooltips, balloon tips, and popup menus to interact with the user.
-Automate game actions by detecting images and pixel colors.
-Read, write, and parse text files more easily than in other languages.
-Perform operation(s) upon a set of files that match a wildcard pattern.
-Work with the registry and INI files.
To that I would add, off the top of my head:
-can grab data from the web and rearrange it into spreadsheets, databases etc.
-can perform 'operating system' functions like cut, copy, paste, working on shortcuts (I DJ using shortcuts to my mp3s so I can organise them in different ways), backups, finding folder sizes (how much space is free in the decoding cache?) This type of stuff can all be done in the background.
-Can generate a custom GUI for displaying info/user input i.e. the decoding cache I just mentioned or even just the time (I remember seeing a feature request for that).

Note the fact that you can use joystick input? I personally intend to butcher a Playstation 2 pad for use in my DJ controller project (still in 'design' stages) - this would mean that I/we could directly map buttons/xy controllers to stuff in Live that isn't even midi/key mappable.

Meef Chaloin
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Post by Meef Chaloin » Sat Jul 22, 2006 4:53 pm

yeah a joystick would be great!
Sounds quite complicated but i will look in to it further, the little app could really change everything for me.

Is it possible to add this script to it - http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32841
?

I've tried adding it on the end but it doesnt seem to work.

rozling
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Location: Dublin, Ireland

Post by rozling » Sat Jul 22, 2006 6:41 pm

I'm sure it's possible - there's a bunch of stuff in that script I don't quite get yet so I'll need to spend some further time with it.

Supster - I have spent a few hours on the clip brace thing - it's proving tough making it work reliably and I've hit a wall but have asked for help on the AHK forum, maybe I'll find some answers there...

sweetjesus
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Post by sweetjesus » Sat Jul 22, 2006 6:58 pm

heres a script i made which includes djsyncro's script.

if you guys want, ive versioned mine one increment above dj syncros and commented my ammendments, lets keep track of the changes and compile it into one big script.

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... ght=script

rozling
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Location: Dublin, Ireland

Post by rozling » Sat Jul 22, 2006 8:06 pm

Nice one :) that's exactly the kind of collaboration I was hoping for.

I've just pm'd ilia and it's ok to append their mousewheel zoom script too as suggested above. I think it'll be Monday before I'll get a chance to spend more time on the script - anyone with a bit of time on their hands feel free to make upgrades:) .

A thought that occurs to me is that we're likely to start seeing overlapping functions - obviously some people will want to use, e.g., the mousewheel/zoom keys/tempo keys in different ways. Maybe the way around this would be a GUI which lets people select the way they want the script to behave. I think this would save us from having different versions floating around. Ideas?

For the moment probably best to just include as many functions as possible, and if there are conflicts just choose one and comment out the alternatives until they can be GUI selectable - at least that way all scripts would still be centralised (though I can see it getting visually messy pretty quick).

I'm posting my latest version which is a bit tidied up - I'll put it up as a proper link soon. Any suggestions for a quick/easy way to upload & link small files?

supster
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Post by supster » Sat Jul 22, 2006 8:35 pm

rozling wrote:I'm sure it's possible - there's a bunch of stuff in that script I don't quite get yet so I'll need to spend some further time with it.

Supster - I have spent a few hours on the clip brace thing - it's proving tough making it work reliably and I've hit a wall but have asked for help on the AHK forum, maybe I'll find some answers there...

thanks so much! yes i had a feeling it would not be easy to do.

its would be so awesome if it could work ... its key to an entire style of mixing, without it is a big handicap

.
--
NEW SPECS: Athlon 4200+ dual; A8N-SLI m/b; Win XP Home SP2; 1 GB RAM; 2x 7200 RPM HDD: 1 internal, 1 Firewire 800 (Firewire is project data drive); M-Audio Triggerfinger

josh 'vonster' von; tracks and sets
http://www.joshvon.com

Josh Von
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Post by Josh Von » Tue Nov 21, 2006 8:38 am

figured Id bring back this topic while i was at it..any luck with the loop brace command? :)

---

anyone who knows autohotkeys well .. how can i pull this off:

I need to enter in a value for a loop on a clip, on the fly.

On the keyboard you do it this way, example 2 bar loop:

- Click in first position for the Length field in Clipview

- Type first value (eg. number '2' for two bar loop)

- Numpad Delete (to move over to next value)

- Type in second value (eg. '0')

- Numpad Delete (to next value)

- Type in third value (eg. '0')


Having trouble getting AutoHotkeys to send the command to move that value box over to the right before typing the next values (the 0's)

For instance its entering '200' in the first box, not moving to the right and entering the values in sequence the way it should be

.

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