Your first script

Let’s start

Now you should have chosen your AutoHotkey version, your editor, and you should have set up both. We’ll do our first script now.

Create a script file

If you have used the AutoHotkey classic or AutoHotkey_L installer, right-click on your desktop or any folder and select New > AutoHotkey Script from the context menu. Open the newly created file in your editor. If you haven’t run an installer, just open your editor and save it as a file with the extension “.ahk”.

In the editor, type the following code:

Save your file now.

Note:

Make sure you chose the correct encoding. If you have installed AutoHotkey classic or AutoHotkey_L ANSI, use, of course, ANSI, otherwise use UTF-8.

In Windows Notepad, this setting is available under File > Save As... > encoding.
In Notepad++, it’s in the menu bar under Encoding.

Execute your script

If you have run an installer, just double-click the file for executing it. Otherwise use the command line to run [Path/To/YourAutoHotkey].exe "[Path/to/your/script].ahk".

For IronAHK, run mono IronAHK.exe [Path/to/our/script].ahk.

You should see a box appear similar to the screenshot below: MsgBox screenshot

What happened?

The first word in your code above, MsgBox, is an AutoHotkey command that instructs AutoHotkey to show that box. The rest of the code is, as you might have guessed, the message to display.

Extending that example

You can customize the MsgBox further: 2nd MsgBox screenshot

Use the following code: