Michael Koehler

Marcus Platt recently reminded me that the Mac version of Nozbe has a hot key feature allowing you to quickly add a task to Nozbe from any app. That seemed handy and I wondered why it was missing from the Windows version. Not seeing a reason, I decided to make a Windows equivalent.

On Windows, if you want a hot key to do something, the place to start is AutoHotkey. If a computer can do it, you can trigger it with AutoHotkey.

I settled on Win-N as the keystroke to trigger a new task (N for New and N for Nozbe). Now all I needed was the AutoHotkey script to tell Nozbe to create a new task:


;
; Quick add task to Nozbe desktop app
;
#n::
if WinExist("ahk_exe Nozbe.exe")
{
WinActivate, ahk_exe Nozbe.exe
Sleep, 250
Send, {Esc}{Space}
}
else
{
Run, "c:\Program Files (x86)\Nozbe\Nozbe.exe"
Sleep, 2000
Send, {Space}
}
return


If you want to use this but are not familiar with AutoHotkey, its not too hard.

1. Install AutoHotkey
2. In the system tray find the AutoHotkey app (a green square with a white H on it), and right click. Select Edit This Script.
3. The current Autohotkey script will open in Notepad. Just copy and paste my script at the bottom of the file. Save and close the file.
4. Back in the System Tray right click the AutoHotkey icon again and select Reload This Script.

That’s it. Win-N should activate Nozbe (starting it if it is not running) and press the space key to tell Nozbe to prompt for a new task. Very handy.