On-Screen Display for CapsLock State (On or Off) - Enhanced
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Joe Winograd
50+ years in computers
Development•Sales
CIO•Document Imaging
EE — FELLOW 2017
MVE 2015,2016,2018
RENOWNED 2018,2019
CERTIFIED GOLD 2020
Development•Sales
CIO•Document Imaging
EE — FELLOW 2017
MVE 2015,2016,2018
RENOWNED 2018,2019
CERTIFIED GOLD 2020
In a previous video Micro Tutorial here at Experts Exchange, I presented my CapsLockOSD program, which is a utility that constantly shows the state of the CapsLock key (ON or OFF) in the system tray. This video Micro Tutorial presents a modified version of CapsLockOSD with two enhancements: (1) the ability to create a stand-alone executable (an EXE file) that can run on a system without AutoHotkey installed and (2) an option to run automatically whenever Windows starts. If you do not require either of these new features, you may stick with the previous version of the program.
Note: The video does not demonstrate how to compile the AHK source code into an EXE file, so I've included Steps 5 and 6 below to explain that.
Note: The video does not demonstrate how to compile the AHK source code into an EXE file, so I've included Steps 5 and 6 below to explain that.
Video Steps
1. View previous EE video Micro Tutorial
This video assumes knowledge of the previous video. Please view it here:
On-Screen Display for CapsLock State (On or Off)
2. Download the enhanced CapsLockOSD program and the icon files
Download the plain text CapsLockOSD.ahk file attached to this Step.
Download the CapsLockOSD.ico, CapsLockOFF.ico, and CapsLockON.ico icon files attached to this Step.
Put all four files in the same folder.
CapsLockOSD.ahk
CapsLockOSD.ico
CapsLockOFF.ico
CapsLockON.ico
3. Test the previous features
Test all the features of CapsLockOSD as shown in my previous video to confirm that they all work correctly in this enhanced version.
4. Test the new feature that starts CapsLockOSD with Windows
Right-click the CapsLockOSD icon, then left-click Start with Windows.
Right-click the CapsLockOSD icon again and confirm that the Start with Windows menu item is checked.
Restart Windows and confirm that CapsLockOSD is running.
5. Compile the CapsLockOSD program
Read my Experts Exchange article that explains how to compile AutoHotkey source code (an AHK file) into a stand-alone executable (an EXE file):
AutoHotkey - Getting Started
Use the "more compiling options" feature explained in that article so that you will have a custom icon for the EXE file, namely, the CapsLockOSD.ico that you downloaded in Step 2.
6. Test the EXE file
Put the EXE file on a different computer — one without AutoHotkey installed.
Run the EXE file on that other computer.
Test all the features, as you did with the AHK file, to confirm that the EXE file on the computer without AutoHotkey runs the same.
That's it! If you find this video to be helpful, please click the thumbs-up icon below. Thank you for watching!
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