How to activate a background process using AutoHotkey?

Question

mailmaster.exe is running as a background process (not shown on the taskbar), I tried activating it (bring it to the foreground) using Alt+M with the following script but didn't succeed:

!m::WinActivate ahk_exe mailmaster.exe

However, if mailmaster.exe is only minimized (still shown on the taskbar), I could bring it up with Alt+M.

How to activate it if it's running as a background process (not shown on the taskbar) as well?

Answer 1

Since mailmaster.exe is a singleton app, the following code will do the job:

#IfWinNotActive ahk_exe mailmaster.exe
  !m::Run mailmaster
#IfWinNotActive

If the background app is not a singleton app, we could use the awesome TrayIcon library to simulate a left click on the app's tray icon to show it up:

#IfWinNotActive ahk_exe mailmaster.exe
  !m::TrayIcon_Button("mailmaster.exe")
#IfWinNotActive