AutoHotkey diacrictics mappings not working correctly with Vim - vim

Question

I've been using some mappings in Vim to avoid having to switch keyboard layouts to type in diacritics in my language (Croatian). However, now I wanted to move these mappings "up" so that they're available globally. I tried using AutoHotkey for this. Here are the mappings I wrote
#CommentFlag //
!;::Send {U+010D} // č
!'::Send {U+0107} // ć
!]::Send {U+0111} // đ
![::Send {U+0161} // š
!\::Send {U+017E} // ž
These work great in every application I've tried (browsers, notepad, MS Word), but don't work in Vim, which is pretty annoying as I do most of my typing there. More specifically, only 'š' and 'ž' work as expected, while both Alt-; and Alt-' give me a 'c' (instead of 'č' and 'ć'), and Alt-] gives a 'd' (instead of a 'đ').
I'm using AutoHotkey_L (though I had the same results with the "regular" AHK), Vim 7.3 (trying this in gVim; it doesn't work in the terminal version either (in a slightly different way) but I don't really care about that) on Win8.
I can give more info on the Vim version, but it's basically one of those windows binaries from vim.org. Things I guess might be important is that it has +multi_byte, and I've been using Unicode in it with no problems whatsoever.
Update:
As per Ingo's suggestion below, I've tried using IfWinNotActive to not have the mappings present in Vim and continue to use my old ones there. Here's one example I've tried
SetTitleMatchMode 2
IfWinNotActive GVIM
{
#CommentFlag //
!;::Send {U+010D} // č
!'::Send {U+0107} // ć
!]::Send {U+0111} // đ
![::Send {U+0161} // š
!\::Send {U+017E} // ž
}
I've also tried many other variations with the Vim window class (using ahk_class), with #IfWindowNotActive etc., but to no avail... The mappings are still there in Vim. Btw, the window title always contains the string "GVIM", and AHK sees that as I've confirmed with WinGetTitle.

Answer 1

I don't have a solution, but a workaround: When I faced with the same issue, I decided to emulate Vim's digraphs globally (also using AutoHotkey), and just except Vim (and applications like Remote Desktop) from that feature (so that the full range can still be used there; my script only supports a subset). You can find my implementation here.

Answer 2

You can also edit a keyboard layout itself, using Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator.
For example, the English one that you use: choose combination of some character and some function key (Ctrl or Right-Alt, with or without Shift − e.g. for Caps).
Here’s how it looks:

Answer 3

I find the Apple International US layout very good for this purpose, having all the accents available using dead keys, so I've implemented it with Microsoft Keyboard Layout creator like stansult suggested.
Then I came up with the problem of having only one "Alt" key usable, so I ended up remapping my Windows and Alt keys using ScanCodemap. This is a viable solution if you don't use the Windows key that often. One caveat of this method is, that you'll have to use Win+Tab instead of Alt+Tab from now on to switch between windows, it takes a couple of days to get used to that.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
; 0x003a001d: Caps Lock (0x3a) -> Left Ctrl (0x1d)
; 0x0038e038: Left Alt (0xe05c) -> Right Alt (0x38)
; 0xe05b0038: Left Windows (0xe05b) -> Left Alt (0x38)
; 0xe05c0038: Right Windows (0xe05c) -> Left Alt (0x38)
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout]
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,05,00,00,00,1d,00,3a,00,38,e0,38,00,38,00,5b,e0,38,00,5c,e0,00,00,00,00