Qalculate keyboard shortcut with AutoHotkey

README.md

Qalculate Hotkey for inline calculations

Finally Qalculate has been ported to Windows. Now we can do unit-aware calculations inline, in any document, with AutoHotkey, similar to Monster.ahk but with units.

Instructions:

1. Install Qalculate
2. Install AutoHotkey
3. Add qalc.exe to your PATH. I use Rapid Environment Editor for this.
4. Run qalc.ahk

To use it:

1. Select some text, such as 1/(2*pi*10 kohm * 390 pF)
2. Press Win+Q
3. It pastes the output of the calculation, such as 1 / (2 * pi * (10 kiloohms) * (390 picofarads)) = approx. 40.80895977 kHz.

Qalculate's interpretation of your input is also included, so you can verify it understood the input correctly.

To do

• Should have separate keyboard shortcuts for including the original text or not? Like how Monster.ahk has Ctrl+Win+- for replacement, and Ctrl+Win+= for appending = and the result.

application-x-qalculate.ico

qalc.ahk

; This file must be saved with UTF-8-BOM encoding to work correctly.

; Custom icon from http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/preview.php
; Converted from PNG to ICO
Menu, Tray, Icon, application-x-qalculate.ico

#NoEnv ; For security
; Avoids checking empty variables to see if they are environment variables (recommended for all new scripts).

#SingleInstance force

#q::
    Clipboard= ; this line must be after the Win+Q or it won't get executed and the ClipWait has no effect
    Send ^c
    ClipWait, 1 ; put a timeout so it doesn't get stuck if invoked with empty clipboard
    if ErrorLevel ; if timeout
        return
    Myclip := Clipboard
    Myclip := StrReplace(Myclip, "Ω", "ohm") ; Replace ohm sign (U+2126, Ω) with ohm
    Myclip := StrReplace(Myclip, "Ω", "ohm") ; Replace uppercase omega character (U+03A9, Ω) with ohm
    RunWait, cmd.exe /c qalc "%Myclip%" | clip,,hide
    Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, "\R", "") ; Remove newline characters from the result
    SendRaw % Myclip " = " Clipboard
    Sleep, 500 ; must wait to give time to paste before clearing clipboard
    Clipboard=
return ; really should have this, especially if other code follows

Put together a version of this which is compatible with AHK v2, with some tweaks to preserve clipboard content:

#Requires AutoHotkey v2
#SingleInstance force

; Hacky way of hiding consoles from this application
DetectHiddenWindows(true)
Run(A_ComSpec " /k",, "Hide", &pid)
while !(hConsole := WinExist("ahk_pid" pid))
	Sleep(10)
DllCall("AttachConsole", "UInt", pid)

; Define the hotkey Win + Q
#q:: {

    ; Save the current clipboard content
    originalClipboard := ClipboardAll()

    ; Clear the clipboard and send Ctrl+C to copy the current selection
    A_Clipboard := ""
    Send("^c")
    ClipWait(5)

    ; Retrieve the copied text
    inputText := A_Clipboard
    if !inputText {
        MsgBox "No text selected or copied."
        return
    }

    ; Replace Ohm sign and uppercase omega character with "ohm"
    inputText := StrReplace(inputText, "Ω", "ohm")
    inputText := StrReplace(inputText, "Ω", "ohm")

    ; Execute the qalc command and retrieve the result
    result := RunWaitOne("qalc " . "`"" . inputText . "`"")

    ; Paste the result back into the current application
    if result {
        A_Clipboard := Trim(Trim(Trim(result), "`n"), "`r")
        Send "^v"
        Sleep(500)
    } else {
        MsgBox "Failed to get a result from qalc."
    }

    ; Restore the original clipboard content
    A_Clipboard := originalClipboard
}

; Execute command and return result as string, from AHK docs
RunWaitOne(command) {
    shell := ComObject("WScript.Shell")
    exec := shell.Exec(A_ComSpec " /C " command)
    return exec.StdOut.ReadAll()
}