How to make the key combination "win" + "." send the instruction to media_next?

Question

How do I make the key combination Win + . send the instruction to media_next?

I have tried writing in several different ways but I always get a script error.

My objective is to press the keys Win and . and have the music players skip to the next track.

Please tell me the exact sentence as I'm completely new to scripting and one character missing, for example, will be a huge obstacle for me...

Not so important: should I be writing these instructions in autohotkey.ahk or in shortcuts.ahk?

Thank you very much!

Answer 1

This should work (I tested it with VLC and XMPlay):

#.::Media_Next

It sends the media-next key to just the active window, so if you want to use the hotkey while watching a full-screen movie or something, it would do the trick. If you are watching a video in the corner of the screen while working on other things, then you’ll need to send the key globally:

#.::Send {Media_Next}

Of course your media-player must be able to detect and respond to the actual media keys. Some are written to do so by default, some you can set to do so in their key-mapping configuration, others do so automatically when they have the appropriate file-type associations.

As Sonamor pointed out, you can target the hotkey to specific windows in case you have multiple media-players running that all respond to the media-keys (though in my experience, the first one that runs tends to register the key and thus block others from receiving it; so you could just shut them all down and run the one you want).

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In response to the more detailed question…

I keep trying and I always get error. This is what I've tried the last time:

LWin + ,::{Media_Next}

I've also tried:

Win + .::Media_Next

There’s several things wrong with those lines:

• The + denotes the ⇧ Shift key, so the hotkey only work when ⇧ Shift is held down
• The ; is the ; key, so it only works when the ; key is held down
• You can’t use {Media_Next} as the operation, you can use either:
  • Send {Media_Next} to send the media-next key in general or
  • Media_Next to send the media-next key to just the active window
• Win is not valid, you need to use # as a modifier
• LWin is only valid to use ⊞ Win the hotkey. As a modifier, you must use <#.

So in your case, you probably want this:

<#.::Send {Media_Next}

*I only have one "win" key on my keyboard.

Then why make it specific to the left Windows key? If there’s only one, then it makes no difference which you specify. In fact, it is safer to just use the generic version in case for some reason, the manufacturer decided to use the scancode for the other key. You may as well just use this:

#.::Send {Media_Next}

Answer 2

You can add the following line to your autohotkey.ahk file, save, and then right-click on the AutoHotKey icon in your tray select, Reload This Script:

#.::Send {Media_Next}

Answer 3

You can also use the AutoIt3 Window Spy and make the hotkey work only for VLC Media Player

#IfWinActive, VLCWINDOW
#.::Media_Next