How to quickly assign keyboard shortcuts to launch your favorite applications using autohotkey

Question

In Windows (XP, 7, 8) how do you quickly assign keyboard shortcuts to launch your favorite applications using autohotkey when the application is active.

In PhraseExpander, you can add your favorite applications into your library for fast access, by simply pressing Ctrl + Shift + A when the application is active (as shown here).

http://www.phraseexpander.com/blog/assign-shorts-applications/

I was wandering if that could be done using autohotkey as well.

Edited:

Normally to add a script that when Ctrl+Alt+N is pressed, Notepad will be launched. You would need to have the following script.

^!n:: Run Notepad

What I want is that when the application is active, pressing Ctrl + Shift + A should take the path where the application is installed and create a script like above.

So when Command Prompt is active, pressing Ctrl + Shift + A should create a script like the following.

^!t:: Run C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe

where C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe is the path where cmd is installed/located

and Ctrl + Shift + T is the keyboard shortcut.

Answer 1

Yes, you can. The following example will launch explorer when Win+0 is pressed (# denotes the Window key in AHK):

#0::Run C:\Windows\System32\explorer.exe

If the application does not launch because it is already running, you could create a batch file containing:

start program.exe

And tell the AHK script to launch that batch file.

Answer 2

This isn't something you can do easily.

You could do something like: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12851677/dynamically-create-autohotkey-hotkey-to-function-subroutine

Or you could modify your file at runtime and reload it.

#SingleInstance Force
#NoEnv  ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
SendMode Input  ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%  ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.

^!n::
    WinGet, pn, ProcessName, A
    path := GetProcessPath(pn)
    tooltip, press a new hotkey
    Input, new_hotkey, L1
    tooltip,

    code = ^!%new_hotkey%`:`:Run, %path%`n
    FileAppend, %code%, %A_ScriptFullPath%

    Reload
    Sleep 1000 ; If successful, the reload will close this instance during the Sleep, so the line below will never be reached.
    MsgBox, 4,, The script could not be reloaded. Would you like to open it for editing?
    IfMsgBox, Yes, Edit
    return


GetProcessPath(exe) {
    ;;http://www.autohotkey.com/board/topic/32965-getting-file-path-of-a-running-process/
    for process in ComObjGet("winmgmts:").ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Process where name ='" exe "'")
        return process.ExecutablePath
}

return

Hotkeys:
^!f::Run, C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe