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Key Combinations not working consistently
Problem reported by Greg Facer - 10/22/2026 at 1:29 PM
Not A Problem
Hello all. I'm experimenting again with autohotkey to automate / simplify some (new) actions within Atrex and I'm experiencing inconsistencies that I though it was worth mentioning. Not sure if it's an easy fix some day or not.

I'll only use the one area I'm working on now as an example. I'm on the quote creation/editing screen, and wanting to pull up the right click menu via this macro. The menu only works in the line items tab (when the stock code input screen isn't in front), which I understand is where the context is.
 Alt+L will get me too the line items tab, but that does *not* work from anywhere in the Quote Creation window.

If I have the mouse overtop the date and click, then after that, Alt+L will not pull up the line items tab. It would be nice if the underline key combos worked within the entire window. 

The other issue I have had with Autohotkey is that text within confirmation dialogs (or error dialogs too I think too) isn't readable. Since sometimes there are multiple confirm dialogs in a row, it would be great to use the text to react more precisely to a known question that is needed confirming. 

for example, from a quote creation edit screen, a creation of a new quote will ask to confirm all items, whereas a edit of a quote will ask to confirm all items and then ask if you want to reprint the quote before moving (or not, based on the second confirmation answer) to the print destination screen.

I will just work around but thought it was worth mentioning the issues. Maybe some of these become more important with people potentially using AI agents but that's not me.

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Terry Swiers Replied
Yesterday at 3:09 PM
Employee Post
It's been several years since I've used AutoHotKeys as I abandoned it because it was too limited in what it could access.  Pretty much what you are running into.

What you can try is that once you are on the line item tab, you can send Shift-F10 to bring the popup menu up. That method should also enable the hotkeys so you can see what hotkeys are available.  You can then push the corresponding keystroke to the hotkey.

If I have the mouse overtop the date and click, then after that, Alt+L will not pull up the line items tab. It would be nice if the underline key combos worked within the entire window. 
We have very little control over the hotkey processing, basically either setting the hotkeys or leaving them to be auto-generated.  From there, these are handled either by the user interface components or by Windows itself for versions unless we hardcode each window for specific keystrokes, which we try not to do as it makes the user interface inconsistent with standard hotkey processing.

The other issue I have had with Autohotkey is that text within confirmation dialogs (or error dialogs too I think too) isn't readable. Since sometimes there are multiple confirm dialogs in a row, it would be great to use the text to react more precisely to a known question that is needed confirming. 
The confirmation dialogs are native Windows task dialogs.  Given that it's not showing "text", I'm going to assume that it's drawing a window canvas rather than it being a standard windows control.  What you might be able to do is push in Ctrl-C to copy the contents of the current window to the clipboard, and then retrieve the information from the clipboard and look at that.  Never tried it, but that might be a workaround. 
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Greg Facer Replied
Yesterday at 4:36 PM
I understand, it's a bit of a kludge but it's been a robust kludge for us over the years. 

The Control C to clipboard does at least have data and even labels for the sections of the dialog to work with, I'll chose whatever ends up more robust and I appreciate the tip!

The Shift F10 tip is helpful too.

And rather than starting a new thread, one other little keystroke suggestion made by an employee of mine when discussing pain points we might address moving versions. 

He, unlike myself, likes to use only his right hand to enter pricing and quantity information. So, he ends up using the mouse to move from Q to price (rather than tab) finds it frustrating that it doesn't select the existing price when you click there. He was a little resistant to using tab as I suggested (which does select the existing price so a new price can be typed in to override). 

Allowing the arrow keys to navigate the fields is another minor suggestion as they don't otherwise do anything there and using them is intuitive. That type of minor remapping AHK does handle well do so I'll indulge him if I can.
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Terry Swiers Replied
Yesterday at 5:00 PM
Employee Post
He, unlike myself, likes to use only his right hand to enter pricing and quantity information. So, he ends up using the mouse to move from Q to price (rather than tab) finds it frustrating that it doesn't select the existing price when you click there.
Double click into the field.  That will select the text in the field.

Allowing the arrow keys to navigate the fields is another minor suggestion as they don't otherwise do anything there and using them is intuitive.
I'll add this to the the suggestion list. But as this is not windows standard behavior, and would break spin-edit and dropdown listboxes, it's unlikely to be implemented.
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Greg Facer Replied
Yesterday at 6:21 PM
If it's normal, and breaks things, then it's not important enough to actually add to a suggestion list.
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