AHK: Manage multiple scripts - automation

Question

I got many scripts. I want to be able to manage them all in 1 in script.
What I want is that the main script will activate a certain script, then when the secondary script is done, it returns a value to the main script. After that, the main script calls another secondary script, etc...
Is there a proper way to do this?
More precise question:
Is it possible to activate a AHK script from another script AHK?
At the moment, to detect that at a secondary script is complete, the way I currently use is that right before the end of the secondary script, I press a combinaison of keys that the main script will detect. And once detected, it will increase a main script variable by one and this will trigger the activation of the next script. Is there a better way to achieve this?

Answer 1

The main script could call the other scripts using RunWait. The scripts could then communicate back before terminating themselves.
The best option for communication would be to use OnMessage.
The following is a working example from the documentation:
; Example: Send a string of any length from one script to another. This is a working example.
; To use it, save and run both of the following scripts then press Win+Space to show an
; InputBox that will prompt you to type in a string.
; Save the following script as "Receiver.ahk" then launch it:
#SingleInstance
OnMessage(0x4a, "Receive_WM_COPYDATA") ; 0x4a is WM_COPYDATA
return
Receive_WM_COPYDATA(wParam, lParam)
{
StringAddress := NumGet(lParam + 2*A_PtrSize) ; Retrieves the CopyDataStruct's lpData member.
CopyOfData := StrGet(StringAddress) ; Copy the string out of the structure.
; Show it with ToolTip vs. MsgBox so we can return in a timely fashion:
ToolTip %A_ScriptName%`nReceived the following string:`n%CopyOfData%
return true ; Returning 1 (true) is the traditional way to acknowledge this message.
}
; Save the following script as "Sender.ahk" then launch it. After that, press the Win+Space hotkey.
TargetScriptTitle = Receiver.ahk ahk_class AutoHotkey
#space:: ; Win+Space hotkey. Press it to show an InputBox for entry of a message string.
InputBox, StringToSend, Send text via WM_COPYDATA, Enter some text to Send:
if ErrorLevel ; User pressed the Cancel button.
return
result := Send_WM_COPYDATA(StringToSend, TargetScriptTitle)
if result = FAIL
MsgBox SendMessage failed. Does the following WinTitle exist?:`n%TargetScriptTitle%
else if result = 0
MsgBox Message sent but the target window responded with 0, which may mean it ignored it.
return
Send_WM_COPYDATA(ByRef StringToSend, ByRef TargetScriptTitle) ; ByRef saves a little memory in this case.
; This function sends the specified string to the specified window and returns the reply.
; The reply is 1 if the target window processed the message, or 0 if it ignored it.
{
VarSetCapacity(CopyDataStruct, 3*A_PtrSize, 0) ; Set up the structure's memory area.
; First set the structure's cbData member to the size of the string, including its zero terminator:
SizeInBytes := (StrLen(StringToSend) + 1) * (A_IsUnicode ? 2 : 1)
NumPut(SizeInBytes, CopyDataStruct, A_PtrSize) ; OS requires that this be done.
NumPut(&StringToSend, CopyDataStruct, 2*A_PtrSize) ; Set lpData to point to the string itself.
Prev_DetectHiddenWindows := A_DetectHiddenWindows
Prev_TitleMatchMode := A_TitleMatchMode
DetectHiddenWindows On
SetTitleMatchMode 2
SendMessage, 0x4a, 0, &CopyDataStruct,, %TargetScriptTitle% ; 0x4a is WM_COPYDATA. Must use Send not Post.
DetectHiddenWindows %Prev_DetectHiddenWindows% ; Restore original setting for the caller.
SetTitleMatchMode %Prev_TitleMatchMode% ; Same.
return ErrorLevel ; Return SendMessage's reply back to our caller.
}

Answer 2

Well, I'm not sure why you'd want to make one script run another one... but here are a few other methods:
Include a script in another one
but, you know you can include a script inside another one, right? That is, you can use another scripts functions in your main script.
Make sure a particular script is loaded
"I got many scripts" too. Sometimes I need to make sure that a particular one is included before I can use it, so I put this at the top:
;make sure core.ahk is loaded since it is required
#include c:\ahk\core.ahk
And you don't have to worry about it getting included more than once (unless you need it) because:
#Include ensures that FileName is included only once, even if multiple inclusions are encountered for it. By contrast, #IncludeAgain allows
multiple inclusions of the same file, while being the same as #Include
in all other respects.
Now, when I include file.ahk in main.ahk, I am assured of no problems using the functions from core.ahk that file.ahk requires. And even if I include core.ahk again in main.ahk it is no worry (unless it contains subroutines instead of just functions - in which case they get run at the point where they were included, so it's best not to put subroutines in your ahk libraries).
Use good ole' RUN on Scripts
Aside from that, you know you can always use the run command to launch an ahk script. You don't have to do all that fancy WM_SENDMESSAGE stuff.
Communicate betweenst scripts using a hidden GUI
Another way for two scripts to communicate between each other is for script #1 to keep open a hidden GUI window that has an edit box and a submit button. This window will never be shown. Now, Script #2 hunts for that message box, uses send to put a string in the edit box, and then control-click to push the submit button. Now script #1 has just received input from script #2. And you don't even have to hunt for the window if you put the windows hwnd value in both scripts (so they already know it ahead of time). This works like a charm.
Tell if a script has completed
If you use ahk's run command, there is an parameter that will give you back the PID of that process (PID = Process ID). You can use this PID to check to see if the script is running, and you can use it to terminate the process.
Also, if you use runwait - the script using that command will pause and wait for the runn-ed process to complete and close before continuing.

Answer 3

theoretically you could also use a file object between the scripts as a sort of stdin/stdout method as when opening a file with the file object you can set it as shared.
You could also set an environment variable and pass the name of the variable to the script ,given that you have setup argument handling in the target script, which then sets the environment variable value on closing. using RunWait and this you could find out what the return result of the script is after it runs.
Lastly, look into using a function as that is probably the "best practice" for what you are trying to do. Since a function can do anything a script can do and you can pass it an array to operate on or with using ByRef on the array param. This would mean that you don't have to write in a bunch of parameters when writing the function and the variables would release memory once the function is complete, automatically. You can even write your functions in a separate file and use #Include to use them in your script.