Make Yahoo! Day Planner Widget Work with Google Calendar

[Updated Aug 3]

The Day Planner widget that comes with the Yahoo! Widget Engine (a.k.a. Konfabulator) can work with iCalendar (ICAL) files, but this feature has been hidden in the Windows platform since Mozilla Sunbird stopped using iCalendar files (.ics) for storing calendar data.

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Tabless Web Browsing

Having tabs in web browsers can be very convenient, but they can be annoying also. That point totally mystifies some people.

There are 2 reasons why I wanted to get a tabless web browser. First is that I have a widescreen notebook computer. The vertical space is more precious to me than the horizontal space. Unless you're using an extension like Tab Kit in Firefox, you are stuck with tabs between the top of your screen and the start of web page content.

Second, I sometimes use the web while referring to windows of other programs (incredible, yes?). I can have a lot of windows, browser or otherwise, open at once. Accordingly, I have a vertically oriented taskbar on the left side of the screen. I can stretch out the taskbar quite wide, and all buttons for open windows stack nicely on top of each other. If I open many windows, I get a second column of buttons that is still quite readable. Also, I have Aero previews so I can see what's what very easily. With Taskbar Shuffle, I can rearrange and middle-click to close taskbar buttons.

For tabless web browsing, I could find only 2 3 options: Internet Explorer (not IE-based browsers like Maxthon, Avant, or TheWorld), Safari, and Firefox. (Actually, you can't disable tabs in Safari, but you can Ctrl-click to open in a new background window.) With Safari, I couldn't get downloads to save correctly, so I wanted to see if I could work with IE. With Internet Explorer, you can disable tabs, but it does not look like you can open new windows in the background by default; they insist on stealing focus. In Firefox, set appropriate options for opening in windows instead of tabs and set browser.tabs.opentabsfor.middleclick to false, but new windows insist on stealing focus. The following in my main AutoHotkey script helped with that [UPDATED 6/4/2009]:

GroupAdd, browser, ahk_class IEFrame
GroupAdd, browser, ahk_class MozillaUIWindowClass



#IfWinActive, ahk_group browser

#MaxThreadsPerHotkey 8
; ^LButton:: SetWinDelay, 333 ; Uncomment if there are windowing problems in IE.

WinGet, parent, ID, A
Send {Click M}
WinWaitNotActive, ahk_id %parent%, , 10
If Errorlevel Return
WinGet, child, ID, A
WinActivate, ahk_id %parent%
WinWaitActive, ahk_id %parent%
WinGet, mx, MinMax, ahk_id %child%
If mx = 0 WinMaximize, ahk_id %child%
Return
#MaxThreadsPerHotkey 1
#IfWinActive

I think this way of using web browsers is pretty efficient, but having to use AHK to make it possible is sad. I mentioned some IE-based browsers, and they do have many features, but disabling tabs appears to just not be an option. Please, if you make a web browser, make it possible to easily open links in new background windows.

Ctrl-RightClick to Delete Messages in Outlook

An amendment to previous posts:
#IfWinActive ahk_class rctrl_renwnd32
^RButton::
MouseGetPos, , , , pane
If pane = SUPERGRID1
Send {Click}^d
else
Click right
return
RButton::
MouseGetPos, , , , pane
If pane = SUPERGRID1
Send {Click}!q
else
Click right
return
#IfWinActive

Right-Click to QuickArchive in Outlook

The following AutoHotkey code makes right-clicking a shortcut for QuickArchiving in Outlook, but (helpfully) only if a message is being right-clicked. Otherwise, there is normal right-clicking behavior.

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QuickArchive: More About Gmail-like Archive in Outlook

Expanding upon this earlier post, I started using AutoHotkey so that Shift Right-Clicking a message in Outlook archives it and Ctrl Right-Clicking deletes it. To do so, I changed the toolbar name for the ArchiveSelected macro to "&QuickArchive" (without quotes). An ampersand in a toolbar item name underlines the following character so that the button may be "clicked" via a keyboard shortcut: in this case Alt-Q. Why "Q"? Well, every other letter I tried was already taken by a menu or another toolbar item.

Then, I added the following to my main AHK script:
#IfWinActive ahk_class rctrl_renwnd32
+RButton::
Send {Click}
Send !q
return
^RButton::
Send {Click}
Send ^d
return
#IfWinActive

Some Favorite Time Savers with AutoHotkey

AutoHotkey is awesome.

NB: I use KeyTweak to remap the [Right Alt key to Right Ctrl] and [Right Ctrl to another Left Ctrl]. Although AHK can use RAlt as a command key (when written ">!"), Windows has a hard time with it.

AutoExecute Section:

#NoEnv
#SingleInstance force
#UseHook On
#WinActivateForce
SetBatchLines -1
SendMode Input
SetKeyDelay, 1, 1
Process, priority, , High
GroupAdd, AllWindows, , , , ahk_class Shell_TrayWnd

Right Alt + Right Ctrl for Back/Fwd buttons

>^LCtrl::Send {Browser_Forward}
<^RCtrl::Send {Browser_Back}

Tilde ` key to close active window

>^`::Send {asc 096} ; ` since ` is remapped to WinClose
`::
PostMessage, 0x112, 0xF060,,, A
Sleep 50
IfWinActive, ahk_class Shell_TrayWnd
GroupActivate, AllWindows
return

Capslock key minimizes active window

Capslock::
WinMinimize, A
Sleep 50
IfWinActive, ahk_class Shell_TrayWnd
GroupActivate, AllWindows
return

Left Shift + Right Shift for Capslock

<+RShift:: SetStoreCapslockMode, Off Sendevent {capslock} return

Shift-Capslock toggle restore/maximize active window

+Capslock::
WinGet MX, MinMax, A
If MX
WinRestore A
Else WinMaximize A
return

Ctrl-Click becomes a Middle Click for the taskbar and Firefox tab bar (recommend Taskbar Shuffle for closing windows from Taskbar with middle click)

^LButton:: ; Make ctrl-click a middle click in certain circumstances
MouseGetPos, , , , currentcontrol
If currentcontrol in ToolbarWindow324,MozillaWindowClass6
Click M
else
Send ^{click}
return

Various Clipboard extensions

>^end::Send {Shift Down}{End}{Shift Up}{Backspace} ; Delete to end of line

>^v:: ; paste without extra spaces, line breaks
gosub getplain
gosub pasteplain
return

+>^v:: ; additionally remove formatting
gosub getplain
clipboard := %clipboard%
gosub pasteplain
return
getplain:
ClipSaved := ClipboardAll
StringReplace, clipboard, clipboard, `r`n, %A_Space%, All
clipboard := RegExReplace(clipboard, "` {2,}", "` ")
StringLeft, 1st, clipboard, 1
IfInString, 1st, %A_Space%
StringTrimLeft, clipboard, clipboard, 1
StringRIght, last, clipboard, 1
IfInString, last, %A_Space%
StringTrimRight, clipboard, clipboard, 1
return

pasteplain: ; pastes and then clears clipboard and restores clipboard from clipsaved
Send ^v
gosub restoreclip
return

backupclip: ; backups clipboardall to ClipSaved and then copies (follow with restoreclip)
ClipSaved := ClipboardAll ; Save the entire clipboard to a variable of your choice.
clipboard := ; empty clipboard
Send ^c
ClipWait, 2, 1
IfEqual, ErrorLevel, 0
return
else
{
gosub restoreclip
exit
}

restoreclip: ; restores clipboard to clipsaved
Clipboard := ClipSaved ; Restore the original clipboard. Note the use of Clipboard (not ClipboardAll).
ClipSaved = ; Free the memory in case the clipboard was very large.
return

Edit AHK script

>^h::Edit

Reload AHK script upon save (I use HiEditor)

#IfWinActive, HiEditor - D:\Documents\AutoHotkey.ahk
~^s::
Sleep 500
reload
return
#IfWinActive

To prevent accidental firing using Capslock or tilde, see this solution.

Add Gmail-like "Archive" and "Move to Inbox" Buttons to Outlook

The blog Techdem has instructions for adding a "Done" button to Microsoft Outlook. I've modified the macro code from those instructions and made similar buttons for the toolbars of message windows:

Sub ArchiveSelected()
Set ArchiveFolder = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI"). _
GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Parent.Folders("Archive")
For Each Msg In ActiveExplorer.Selection
Msg.UnRead = False
Msg.ClearTaskFlag
Msg.Move ArchiveFolder
Next Msg
End Sub

Sub ArchiveActive()
Set ArchiveFolder = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI"). _
GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox).Parent.Folders("Archive")
Dim myItem As Object
Set myItem = Application.ActiveInspector.CurrentItem
myItem.UnRead = False
myItem.ClearTaskFlag
myItem.Move ArchiveFolder
End Sub

Sub MoveActiveToInbox()
Dim myItem As Object
Set myInbox = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI"). _
GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)
Set myItem = Application.ActiveInspector.CurrentItem
myItem.Move myInbox
End Sub

Sub MoveSelectedToInbox()
Set myInbox = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI"). _
GetDefaultFolder(olFolderInbox)
For Each Msg In ActiveExplorer.Selection
Msg.Move myInbox
Next Msg
End Sub


Updates: Please see QuickArchive in Outlook for more.