Fun with AutoHotKey

I’m rather fond of the e text-editor. Coming from TextMate, e presents a familar environment for Windows users. The one beef I had though was the inability to configure keyboard shortcuts. Specifically, I felt Ctrl+G should be “Find Next”, like it is in so many other programs, instead of “Go to Line”.

I tried a few other editors, but they all annoyed me to no end. Habits, familiarity, and all that. So rather than wait for e to add it’s own configurable keyboard shortcuts or muck around the in source code (brief aside: the availability of the source code actually makes me pretty happy — it means I can compile an alternative to vim / emacs on *nix that I actually like), I decided to use AutoHotKey.

In short, AutoHotKey lets you write scripts that remap keyboard shortcuts as you see fit. Some (minor) programming ability required and the documentation is a little convoluted, but it still beats all the alternatives. My e remapping below the fold.

[sourcecode language=’css’]

#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.

; Start e

; Obviously, replace this path with your own

Run “C:\Program Files (x86)\e\e.exe”

; Remap hotkeys for e text editor

; Ctrl-g > find next

; Ctrl-l > Go to line

; Ctrl-p > Symbol search

; We lose project pane shortcut, but I never use this anyway

$^g::

SetTitleMatchMode, RegEx

IfWinActive, .*\s-\se$

{

Send ^f

return

}

Send ^g

return

$^l::

SetTitleMatchMode, RegEx

IfWinActive, .*\s-\se$

{

Send ^g

return

}

Send ^l

return

$^p::

SetTitleMatchMode, RegEx

IfWinActive, .*\s-\se$

{

Send ^l

return

}

Send ^p

return

[/sourcecode]

Install AutoHotKey, save the above as something.ahk, and use that as your executable instead of the default e one, and you’re good to go!

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