Why I Still Build Small Windows Tools with AutoIt

Big fan of AutoIt. Easy programming of mouse movements and keyboard inputs allows quick automation.

I used to be and think like you, except I used AutoHotkey instead. It kicked off my IT career - writing AHK scripts for the helpdesk I used to work at greatly improved the efficiency of the team, and quickly got me promoted to Tier 2. Eventually I left that organisation and joined an MSP. Suddenly, there were a lot more restrictions. I had multiple servers and isolated environments to look after. We were not allowed to run random .exe's, without going thru multiple levels of approvals. I couldn't install AutoHotkey either, for the same reason - especially since it would have to be on the customer facing environment to be useful.

So I pivoted to the scripting system that was there, and didn't need any approvals, which is of course PowerShell. At first I attempted to make GUIs like I did in AHK, but soon I realised there wasn't much value in it, other than making it look fancy. At least for the scripts I wrote, a CLI/TUI was more than enough. So my time with AHK had mostly ended - although I still use it for basic hotkeys and GUI automation on my own work laptop, I no longer build GUI "tools" as such - they're more like invisible helper scripts that make life a bit easier.

At a personal level, I'd fully switched to Linux, and unfortunately, AHK didn't work on Linux. Well, one could run it under Wine, but it's limited, and I'd rather use something native. And the whole Wayland situation made GUI automation a bit tricky. But somehow, I never felt the need for GUI automation in Linux, at least, not to the level where I missed AHK. I needed a few window rules for some apps, but this was easily set up using KDE's built-in rules. There's also kwin scripts, but I haven't needed to use them yet. And personally, I'm more of a CLI guy now, and I prefer CLI/TUIs as far as possible.

But one of my life goals now is also to make Linux more easier to use for newbies, and this means making friendly GUI tools. Except, there's no AHK in Linux. I've played around with Rust and lightweight GUI toolkits like egui... but it was overkill - I missed the rapid development workflow of AHK. And I don't really need all the fancy safeties of Rust for the kind of tools I have in mind.

Python is of course the most natural alternative to AHK, but I hate the Python ecosystem - too many dependencies, silly whitespace restrictions etc. I just want to create a tiny, standalone, GUI app - and quickly at that - like I could with AHK.

And in my journey to find that sort of rapid GUI development system, I found GAMBAS[1]. GAMBAS is a sort of a fan continuation of VB6, and it's awesome. Before I got into AHK, VB6 was my go-to - I had written dozens of utilities using VB6 back in the Win 9x days, and I missed that sort of GUI RAD development, and the tiny, portable .exes that ran anywhere. GAMBAS continues that spirit. I can now quickly design GUIs and generate standalone binaries. I've made a few simple apps for my mum already, and she's happy. As a bonus, GAMBAS is also cross-platform.

The only thing I'm unhappy about is that GAMBAS depends on GTK/Qt (you can choose between the two) - and I'm not a fan of either, they're too bloated for my liking. So I'm still the lookout for an alternative RAD system, but without the GTK/Qt bloat. I haven't found one yet (one that works natively on Wayland), so for now, I'm sticking with GAMBAS.

[1] https://gambaswiki.org/website/en/main.html