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jb
Well, thanks, but I think there are some, like Majkinetor and Icfu and Hacker who have mastered AHK. Anyway, to answer your question, I first have to state that I used only AHK extensively, and AutoIt3 to some extent. I have never seen Automate or the like. I used Macro Express a lot, before I knew AHK. I actually agree with
ZoSTeR, AHK syntax is just bad for a programmers mind. My choice is AHK because of stability and speed, but most of all, hotkeys and hotstrings, no other product has this excellent support for hotkeys and hotstrings IMHO. But for automated testing I rather recommend AutoIt3 or if you are familiar with Python or C++ or dotNET:
Ranorex. For web based application automating i recommend
Sahi. I personally havent tried either of them yet though.
As for AHK: I use it for my personal needs and also at my workplace for automated testing
My personal script mainly consists of many little functions that enhance my windows experience and complete functionalities of programs. You can see examples for that in the
wiki.
At my work I use AHK for automated software testing, because AHK supports bitmap search, which is indispensable for me, as the app tested resides only on remote desktop, this means, no controls are available for automating, only screenshots of work phases. AHK works just wonderfully here.
Checking the feature list of AutoMate6, AHK also supports them with some extensions maybe, like Database connectivity with the excellent
Cheetah wrapper etc. Maybe remote administration is the strength of AutoMate, but that can be achieved to some degree with AHK too:
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9938
As you can see, I'm an AutoHotkey fan
You can find incredible scripts in the forum, start with this topic:
Catalogue of All Scripts
So for me the real strength of AHK is speed and incredible stability, and that you can do nearly everything with it, the only real limitation is the awkward syntax.