Creating a Windows shortcut file

[PhilHibbs]

Here's how to create a Windows shortcut, including some handy constants for building up a hotkey. Thanks to Foggy Bottoms for the starting point, I just enumerated the metakey codes through experimentation.

Amended: use constant
Amended: pick up USERPROFILE

use constant SHIFT => 0x0100;
use constant CTRL  => 0x0200;
use constant ALT   => 0x0400;

my $LINK=new Win32::Shortcut();
$LINK->Set('c:\targetfile',
           '',                  # arguements
           'c:\',               # directory tto execute in
           'Perl Shortcut',     # description
           1,                   # window state (1 is normal)
           SHIFT+CTRL+ord('S'), # shorcut key
           '',                  # icon file eg win32.dll
           0);                  # icon number in file
my $shortfile = $ENV{USERPROFILE}.'\Start Menu\Programs\Acces
+sories\shortcut.lnk';
$LINK->Save($shortfile);
# run Explorer targetting the file just created
# system("Explorer /e,/select,$shortfile");
$LINK->Close();

[Brutha]

Thank you Phill for writing it down.

For those of you, who love named parameters, you could write:

$LINK->{'Path'}            =   'C:\PERL\BIN\WPERL.EXE';  # ActiveState
$LINK->{'Arguments'}       = $path_of_perl_script;
$LINK->{'WorkingDirectory'}= "$ENV{HOME}"; # if exists
$LINK->{'Description'}     = "Perl Shortcut";
$LINK->{'ShowCmd'}         = SW_SHOWNORMAL;
$LINK->{'IconLocation'}    = 'Camel.ico';   # insert your path
...
if (-e $shortfile) { ... } # created ?

etc.

And it came to pass that in time the Great God Om spake unto Brutha, the Chosen One: "Psst!"
(Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)