Welcome to the presentation of my offline BBCode Editor script based on Autohotkey script language and released under the GPL.

Screenshot:

Screenshot

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Description:

It's a small BBCode Editor that lets you write a forum posting offline including all bbcode formatting options. Other features:

At the moment the script is specialised for the phpbb forum, but it can be adjusted for any other forum. Due to using RegEx inside the script, your version of Autohotkey has to be 1.0.46+ when you want to use the source code (Autohotkey scripts) instead of the compiled .exe.

If you have created a language file on your own, feel free to share it with the community. I'll add it to a future release if you're interested.

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Documentation:

Well, the window should be self-explaining most of the time, but some documentary words about AHK BBCodeWriter.

The Interface:

The button bar

button bar

Starting from left to the right the meaning/function of the buttons

The custom bbcode bar

custom bbcode bar

These ten buttons can be configured by the 'customize' button on the right side. You can change the pasted bbcodes, the shown tooltip in the left field of the statusbar as well as the icon of the button. In addition you can hide every single button, if you for example only need 5 buttons.

In this way you can add bbcode tags to the program, which aren't part of a standard phpbb installation.

Custom BBCode tags won't be interpreted by the programs internal preview. The buttons are just for comfortably adding these bbcode tags within the edit control. If you want your custom bbcodes to be interpreted by the preview function, you have to adjust the file "BBCodePreview.ahk" from the source code. Afterwards you can e.g. recompile the source code to an .exe file again.

The action bar

action bar

The status bar

status bar

The first section works like a tooltip. It shows the function of the button (button bar) the mouse cursor is currently hovering over.
The second section is the 'Tag-Composing Mode' indicator. Everytime you press the CTRL key, a writing will appear to signalise you're currently in Tag-Compose Mode. The green button on the left side indicates that you already put s.th into the ComposeMode stack.
Finally the third section lists the elements of the ComposeMode stack. Further details about the Tag-Composing Mode below.

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Tag-Composing Mode:

Some words about the compose mode. Imagine you want to apply more than one tag at once. Usually you highlight a paragraph and push the right button to format it. After that you hightlight it again and add another formatting option. This is where the Tag-Composing Mode comes in to make things easier.
It let's you assign more than one tag for your paragraph. Simply make use of of the Ctrl key.

So how do I use it? Ok, let's assume you want a word bold and italic formatted. This is how you do it:

Voilà. This also works without highlighting a word. In this case the caret is moved inside the tags afterwards to start writing.
The magic about it is, as long as you hold the Ctrl key, the tags are copied to clipboard. The first button pressed without holding the Ctrl key will paste the collected tags. Give it a try.

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Preview:

The user d-man from Autohotkey Forums discovered a way to speed up displaying of the preview window. Instead of using a browser as preview application he proposes to use MSHTA.exe within your windows\system32 folder. MSHTA loads much faster than any browser window.

In order to use MSHTA.exe simply open Preferences via 'File' Menu and specify C:\Windows\system32\MSHTA.exe as your prefered browser.
You maybe have to configure your firewall to let MSHTA.exe access the internet. Otherwise this will not work when referencing e.g. images within your posting.

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Hotkeys/Shortcuts:

Just as the name says, one of Autohotkey's strengths are hotkeys. Of course I have added some hotkeys for all keyboard addicted writers just like myself to speed up text input. If you're in need of more hotkeys, use the source skripts instead of the compiled .exe, take a look at Hotkeys with Autohotkey and add them to "hotkeys.ahk" beneath the already listed hotkeys.

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Scriptcode:

If you're interested in the script code take a look at the following links. Firefox opens them as text. IE trys to open it with autohotkey.exe if you've got installed Autohotkey and the .ahk file type is registered in your system.

Running them with autohotkey.exe is no good idea. It will just result in an error. I recommend saving the file to your harddisk and open it afterwards with a text editor of your choice. I can't say anything about Opera's behaviour, cause I haven't installed it at the moment.

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Download:

Here you are at last. If you've asked yourself where to download this fine ;) piece of software, I can tell you found the right place.
It's exactly here just one line below.

Some words about installation:

Sourcecode:

Simply extract the zip file to a folder and run "main.ahk". That's it. Autohotkey has to be installed if you want to run the scripts. Otherwise you can only edit them with an editor of your choice.

NSIS Installer:

I created a new NSIS installer. The small bug of the former installer is fixed. If you don't want a start menu entry, simply uncheck the corresponding box during install.

The new installer also creates an entry within your control panel's software list. In this way you can uninstall AHK BBCodeWriter very easily. It also comes with an uninstall.exe. Uninstalling AHK BBCodeWriter doesn't delete the programs folder including all your signatures and saved postings. If you want to get rid of them too, simply delete the remaining folder in your explorer.

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