Windows
This section of Astroblahhh.Com contains things related to Windows.
The only kind of Windows I have is Windows XP. So, the scripts here were only tested in Windows XP, and any info or instructions I write are written from the perspective of a Windows XP user.
However, much of the stuff here ought to be useful for other kinds of Windows too.
AHK Scripts for Windows
If you want to program native Windows programs, I highly recommend AutoHotkey (Wikipedia article). You might have the mistaken impression it's only for making hotkeys - but it's capable of so much more. You can make your own little programs from scratch complete with a GUI - windows, buttons, taskbar menus, sliders, etc.
| On a Linux-related note - to my delight, I found a while back that if you convert your AHK scripts to EXE files, you can run them in Linux using Wine (Wikipedia article), and in some cases they work surprisingly well.
When I discovered this, I believe I was probably using the Lucid Puppy 5.2 variant of Puppy Linux (Wikipedia article) and the window manager IceWM (Wikipedia article). An AHK script (converted to an EXE) I tried in Wine had its taskbar icon appear in the IceWM taskbar, various menu items worked, and it successfully output data to a text file. |
There's are only two AHK scripts available here for now:
- Show_Date_Time_of_Boot_and_Elapsed_Time_Since_Boot.ahk New, 1/5/2012
A simple script that displays a message box showing the approximate date/time your computer booted and how many hours, minutes and seconds have elapsed since then. The elapsed time doesn't update.
Thanks to "closed" at the AHK forum for the FormatSeconds function, which I slightly modified.
If you want a clock that shows the elapsed time since boot and which updates in real time, you might prefer boottime.zip by AHK forum member "closed", which is available at this AHK forum thread: Elapsed Time Since Boot - Displayer
- Cover_Taskbar_Borders_and_Side_Panel_Borders-Script_for_use_with_a_Windows_classic_theme.ahk
I made this heavily-modified derivative of Skrommel's DimScreen (source code).
Cover_Taskbar_Borders_and_Side_Panel_Borders might be useful to you if you use one of the dark high contrast Windows Classic themes which have irritating white borders everywhere that I don't know how to get rid of.
It won't completely solve the problem, but at least it will cover up the white borders at the top and bottom of the taskbar, and the borders at the left and right of the screen when windows are maximized, or if you have some pop-up side panels set up.
I highly recommend those links. Tons of useful programs there. (Skrommel's page will also help give you an idea of the incredible range of things AHK is capable of.) You can get the AHK source code of Skrommel's programs by clicking the AutoHotkey logo (a box featuring a white H on a green background) in the description of each program. |
Perl Scripts for Windows
If you want to use Perl (Wikipedia article) on Windows, you could install Strawberry Perl (Wikipedia article).
I used to use ActivePerl (and that's still what I have installed on one of my computers), but that's closed-source according to Wikipedia, so I now prefer Strawberry Perl.
Something I haven't yet experimented much with (as of 10/4/2011) is Cygwin (Wikipedia article) - which is not only another way to use Perl in Windows, but a way to use lots of other things found in Linux or Unix. (I don't understand Cygwin very well yet.)
Some Perl scripts I made:
- apollias-zip-backup-script-for-windows-v2_1.txt
Old VersionThis script makes it easy to make zipped backups of whatever files and folders you want. After you get everything set up by following the instructions in the source code, you can run the script just by double-clicking it.
- knt-html-to-ncd.txt - a Perl script which converts KeyNote NF notes to NoteCase 1.9.8's .ncd format. See the source code comments for instructions and details on the imperfections of conversions done by this script. This script should work fine in Windows as well as Linux.
(KeyNote NF is free outliner software for Windows, and NoteCase 1.9.8 is free outliner software for Linux, Windows, MacOS, and maybe other things too).