I usually use Sublime Text for all my coding and writing duties, taking advantage of it’s full screen view, syntax highlighting, auto-complete features and other cool features.

Ommwriter, which was previously only available for the Mac and has thousands of fans, has none of these so why would I want to use a minimalist application like this?

Unlike the word processing applications you’re used to, such as Word, Writer or even Google Docs, there’s no myriad of features; you’re basically presented with a blank screen. The idea is that it allows you to concentrate on your writing.

After reading that a Windows version of Ommwriter was available, I downloaded the free version, known as Dāna I, installed it and thought I’d give it a try and see what all the fuss was about and what attracted so many Mac users to it.

I’m more into using the keyboard wherever I can and whilst I miss Sublime’s features such as spellcheck, auto-complete and being able to move blocks of text or code using the keyboard shortcuts and not having to resort to using the mouse, there’s something about the combination of the music and the pseudo-typewriter keyboard sounds (both of which can be changed or switched off) that somehow just works.

So, why not just fire up Sublime, load up some relaxing music in VLC Media Player and write?

To tell you the truth, I’m not sure; there’s somehow something different about Ommwriter. I’ve experimented with other distraction-free applications such as Q10 and WriteMonkey before but they never really did anything for me or offered me anything that Sublime didn’t.

There is also a “paid for” version, Dāna II which contains additional audio and visual options which you can purchase from the very low minimum price of $4.11.

From my point of view, for blogging, it’d be great if Markdown support was included and there are other features I’d like to see added, but that’s isn’t really what Ommwriter is about.

If you want a lightweight, distraction-free application for writing, whether your a journalist, copywriter, author or writing prose or an essay, I recommend that you give Ommwriter a try. If you do, let me know what you think of it in the comments below.

In the September 2010 edition (issue 206), there was an item in the expert_advice section from Mark Weston, a reader who said he was in search of the “perfect code editor”. The response from one of .Net’s contributors was that the “the editors mentioned are the best out there at the moment” and that “Dreamweaver provided the closest thing in terms of functionality” sought by the reader for the Windows platform.

As web developers and general code monkeys, we hand-code all our websites and therefore spend a lot of time editing code and manipulating data and prefer to use a lightweight text editor for this purpose rather than a WYSIWYG editor or Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

Now, we appreciate that choice of software is a very personal thing and something that suits us may not appeal to someone else, but felt compelled to put (the digital equivalent) of pen to paper and fire off an email to .Net magazine with our recommendation for some software that could solve Mark’s dilemma; an editor that provides proper auto-completion, snippet management and the ability to add your own keyboard shortcuts.

We received our copy of the November 2010 edition (issue 208) on Saturday morning and were most pleased to see that our email, which is reproduced in full below, was ‘Mail of the month’.

With regards to the letter from Mark Weston and Usman Sheikh’s response in issue 206, I’ll admit to having a bit of a text editor fetish and have tried all of the Windows ones listed and more. Out of the others I’ve tried, there’s been:

• Context
• E text editor – a textmate clone
• Intype – looked and felt good; but the devs promised much and have (so far) delivered little.

I’ve finally settled on Sublime Text which allows you to change or add just about everything; syntax highlighting, key bindings, menus, snippets, macros etc. Although it doesn’t have FTP support built-in out of the box, one of the guys on the forum has written a plugin that uses WinSCP. Another I find useful is one that integrates WinMerge. One thing that’s different in Sublime to other text editors is that the customising is done in XML-based config files rather than through a GUI.

The API is quite extensive so if it doesn’t do what you want, it’s just a case of getting out that book on Python that you’re promised yourself you’d look at one day and getting down to it!

Other cool features include a mini-map that’s like ‘seeing your code from 10,000 feet’, two full-screen modes (one of which is like Darkroom/Writeroom/Q10, but of course you still get to use the full functionality of the editor), a unique multi-select function and side by side multi-pane editing. There’s also a Zen Coding plugin available.

There’s a portable version too; I run mine from my Dropbox folder so I get the same settings/config on all my machines.

My advice? Go check it out!

If you’re not familiar with Darkroom, Writeroom or Q10, which are mentioned above, they are full-screen writing environments which are designed to make the user more productive by removing all distractions. Sublime Text has two full-screen modes, which we regularly use, one of which is similar to that provided by these editors, and, as we explained above, we still get to use all the snippets and other cool functionality provided by Sublime Text.

What’s next for Sublime Text? Well, since our email was sent to .Net magazine, it’s been announced that the next major development is Sublime Text X, currently a preview of what’s to come in the next major version, when Sublime Text will become cross-platform and will work on OS X and Linux as well as Windows. At the time of writing, this is currently only available to registered users.

With no sign of Textmate 2.0 being released anytime soon, it’ll be interesting to see if the new version of Sublime becomes the “go to” editor for Mac users.

Want to give Sublime Text a try? The head over to the downloads page and grab yourself a trial copy and let us know what you think in the comments below. Alternatively, if you know of a text editor that you think we might like better than Sublime, then please let us know.

Overview

Do you ever wish you could automate those repetitive tasks that you do each day? Well, with AutoHotkey you can.

AutoHotkey is a free, open-source utility for Windows that allows you to automate tasks or commands. Macros can either be written by hand or you can use the macro recorder that’s included as part of the installation to do this for you. Any key, button or combination of same can become a hotkey.

You can also convert any script into an executable file that can be run on computers that don’t have AutoHotkey installed (useful if you want to re-map the keys on a colleague’s keyboard for example, not that we would condone this sort of behaviour, of course!).

It can also be used to create applications with user-interfaces such as the text substitution application, Texter created by one of the guys over at Lifehacker.

The following may seem a little geeky at first, but bear with us, it doesn’t have to be that way!

Installation and Setup

The first stage is to download and install AutoHotkey. Whilst you can create as many AutoHotkey scripts (which have an .ahk file extension) as you like and have any number running at the same time, we’d suggest that you start by modifying AutoHotkey.ahk which is created when you install AutoHotkey using your favourite text editor.

Our text editor of choice is Sublime Text, which we use for all our coding (indeed, this very post was written using it in conjunction with the It’s All Text extension for Firefox), but Notepad will suffice. We would not recommend using Open Office Writer, Microsoft Word or any other word processor for this purpose as the script files need to be in a plain text format.

General Notes

In order to see any changes you make to your script, you will need to reload AutoHotkey by right-clicking on it’s icon in the task tray and selecting the ‘Reload this script’ option.

Whilst you can run any .ahk file by double-clicking it, by adding a shortcut to the file in the Windows startup folder, the script will run automatically when your machine starts. In Windows 7, the startup folder is usually c:Users[username]AppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuProgramsStartup and is c:Documents and Settings[username]Start MenuProgramsStartup in Vista.

Using AutoHotkey

A couple of things before we start; lines that start with a semicolon (;) or blocks of text surrounded by /* */ are comments and aren’t executed.

Shortcut keys will typically utilise the Control, Shift, Alt and Windows keys which are defined below.

For example, to execute a command using Ctrl-Shift-v your .ahk script will contain ^+v.

You can also use keys, like Tab, Enter, Up, Down, Left, Right, and Backspace by wrapping them in curly brackets. eg {Enter} or {BS}

Script and Snippet Samples

You can create commands to run your favourite applications, so, in the following example, Win-z will launch a website in your default browser:

#z::Run www.google.co.uk

In the next example. we’ll launch Notepad using Shift-Ctrl-n

+^n::Run notepad

Another application of AutoHotkey is to use it for text substitution, which is useful for those phrases and words that you type all the time, such as email and forum signatures. The trigger for each text snippet can be anything you choose.

The following examples should be self explanatory but essentially, in the first example you would type btw and AutoHotkey would expand it to by the way and in the second, sig would expand to auto-type a forum or email signature.

::btw::by the way

::sig::Kind Regards, John Smith{Enter}{Enter}Company Name{Enter}http://www.mywebwebsite.com | http://twitter.com/mywebsite{Enter}

Here are some examples from my main AutoHotkey script:

Clipboard Stripper

This will strip formatting from the clipboard. Either use your normal Ctrl-V to paste the full version or use Win-V to paste the plain text version.

#v::
clipboard = %clipboard%
SendPlay ^v
return

Dedicated minimize key

Personally I never use the CapsLock key so I’ve turned it into dedicated minimize key for the application that has focus.

Capslock::WinMinimize,A

Keep on top

Need to keep an application on top of all others regardless of whether it has focus? Some applications provide this functionality, but most do not. Here’s how to add this functionality to any application:

;always on top  Win + t to toggle
#t:: Winset, Alwaysontop, , A

Hidden files

By default, Windows hides certain types of files. Although you can change the settings within the depths of Windows Explorer, it’s much quicker this way:

; Win + H toggles hidden files on and off
#h::
RegRead, HiddenFiles_Status, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, SoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced, Hidden
If HiddenFiles_Status = 2
	RegWrite, REG_DWORD, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, SoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced, Hidden, 1
Else
	RegWrite, REG_DWORD, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, SoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced, Hidden, 2
WinGetClass, eh_Class,A
If (eh_Class = "#32770" OR A_OSVersion = "WIN_VISTA")
	send, {F5}
Else PostMessage, 0x111, 28931,,, A
Return
#IfWinActive

File Extensions

In later versions of Windows, the file extensions for known file types are hidden by default. Whilst you can change the settings in the Control Panel, here’s a quicker way:

; Win + y toggles file extensions on and off
#y::
RegRead, HiddenFiles_Status, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, SoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced, HideFileExt
If HiddenFiles_Status = 1
	RegWrite, REG_DWORD, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, SoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced, HideFileExt, 0
Else
	RegWrite, REG_DWORD, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, SoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced, HideFileExt, 1
WinGetClass, eh_Class,A
If (eh_Class = "#32770" OR A_OSVersion = "WIN_VISTA")
	send, {F5}
Else PostMessage, 0x111, 28931,,, A
Return

Add a Timestamp

Here’s how to quickly add today’s date to a document or file:

; t0 to insert today's date in the format dd-MM-yyyy
::t0::
EnvAdd, CurrentDateTime, +0, days
FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,%CurrentDateTime%, dd-MM-yyyy
SendInput %CurrentDateTime%
return

We use a great free personal notes manager called Cintanotes to manage our To-Do lists and use different variations of the following snippets to quickly tag items according to their due dates:

; d0 to insert today's date in the format yyyy-MM-dd
::d0::
EnvAdd, CurrentDateTime, +0, days
FormatTime, CurrentDateTime,%CurrentDateTime%, yyyy-MM-dd
SendInput %CurrentDateTime%
return

; tomorrow
::d1::
EnvAdd, CurrentDateTime1, +1, days
FormatTime, CurrentDateTime1,%CurrentDateTime1%, yyyy-MM-dd
SendInput %CurrentDateTime1%
return

; in 7 days
::d7::
EnvAdd, CurrentDateTime7, +7, days
FormatTime, CurrentDateTime7,%CurrentDateTime7%, yyyy-MM-dd
SendInput %CurrentDateTime7%
return

Adjust the volume on your PC

The following code snippet will allow you to turn up or down the volume of your PC’s soundcard in 5% increments:

; Ctrl+NumpadSub (-) decrease volume, Ctrl+NumpadAd (+) increase volume
$^NumpadSub::Send {Volume_Down 5}
$^NumpadAdd::Send {Volume_Up 5}

Windows Snipping Tool

In Windows Vista we saw the introduction of the Snipping Tool which is a great utility for taking screenshots. Unfortunately, not only did Microsoft hide this away, but they didn’t provide a means of easily running it. This is easily fixed by adding the following code to your AutoHotkey script which will load the Snipping Tool when you use the PrintScreen button:

PrintScreen::Run, "C:WindowsSystem32SnippingTool.exe"

If you’re using 64-bit version, then you’ll need to use this instead

PrintScreen::Run, "C:WindowsSysnativeSnippingTool.exe"

Of course, if you use SnagIt or any of the plethora of other screen capture applications out there, you can also apply this script to them.

In Conclusion

This is just a flavour of what you can do with AutoHotkey. If this post has whet your appetite, then head on over to their website to find out more or join their friendly forums if you need help.

If you have a favourite snippet or script then why not share it in the comments below.

The new version sees the introduction of a number of major new features including a new default theme, new APIs for developers and the merger of the multi-user version into the main project.

We’re off to download and install the latest version to try out the new features so we’ll leave you to watch the video below to find out more.

If you’ve tried it out, then let us know in the comments below.

We enjoy tinkering with the code and functionality that lurks beneath the surface of our site and trying out new things, so although this is our official website, we still see it as a work in progress and the layout, design, functionality and content may is likely to vary over the forthcoming weeks and months.

If you’ve visited our website before, you’ll have noticed that we now have our very own blog where we’ll be keeping you up-to-date with what’s happening at Pinnacle Web Design and also hopefully including other web-related news, software and application reviews along with some coding and SEO tutorials.

How do we keep up-to-date we hear you say?

Well, the easiest way is to subscribe to our RSS feed or, if you prefer to receive emails, then you can choose that option also. We probably hate spam more than you do so you can rest assured that we won’t be selling your details to any third parties or anything unsavoury like that. You can review our privacy policy if you’re unsure of anything.

Did we mention that you can also follow us on Twitter? We just make it too easy for you, we really do!