Question

How do I create a AutoHotkey-script which replaces my abbreviated network-username with my full display name including a timestamp?

andzi: should be replaced by Andreas Zita (2011-04-08 09:56):

I want this to be a dynamic hotstring which can be applied to any username.

Answer 1

I think you can generate a ahk script and include it on the fly, because username is a variable. I have tried my own to build a very complex key mappings.

; This include() allows variable expression in the path parameter. 
_include(path) {
    local verf := 3, veri := 3
    slash := instr(path, "\", false, 0)
    if (slash != 0) {
        base := substr(path, slash + 1)
    } else {
        base = %path%
    }
    filecreatedir %a_appdata%\.hotkey
    inst = %a_appdata%\.hotkey\%base%
    filegettime, verf, %path%
    filegettime, veri, %inst%
    if (verf != veri) {
        ifexist, %path%
        {
            filecopy, %path%, %inst%, 1
            if errorlevel {
                msgbox can't include %path%: failed to copy to %inst%. 
            } else {
                reload
            }
        } else {
            filedelete, %inst%
            if errorlevel {
                msgbox failed to clean %inst%. 
            } else {
                reload
            }
        }
    }
}

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; User Extension {
    userhotkey = %HOME%\etc\hotkey
    _include(userhotkey)
    #include *i %a_appdata%\.hotkey\hotkey
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;}

Here, function _include() will generate a temporary file under %APPDATA%, and then #include it.

See: http://svn.bodz.net/core/trunk/etc/hotkey

P.S. This is just an example, in you case, you may generate the user hotkey as:

generate.bat:

@echo off

REM generate the ahk line to translate username to display name and datetime.

echo %USERNAME%:Your Name %DATETIME% >user.ahk

And in the main ahk script, execute generate.bat before #include it.