A Gadget for Customizing Your Own Hotkeys

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honestabram
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A Gadget for Customizing Your Own Hotkeys

Post by honestabram »

Having recently updated from 3.5 to 8.5 I'm really really really starting to enjoy using Aspire. Good job, fellows. I'm probably going to purchase 9.0 this evening.

However, I am constantly frustrated that there is not a shortcut key for the Line/Polyline tool or the Offset tool. Shoot, I can think of ten others I'd love to have a hotkey for. Help people! I am swamped with a foreboding workload right now, and I'm tired of drawing all day everyday. I'd like to get off my butt and build something soon.

Give us the hotkeys we demand!!!!!!!!

I just downloaded AutoHotKey. My Java skills never got very advanced, so this AHk business is something else entirely for me. People, I'm supposed to be relaxing at home right now.

At the very least, it'd be nice to hear from the vectric development team as to why they have avoided a shortcut key expansion.

Good day to you, Sir!

-Luke Ferrell

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Adrian
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Re: A Gadget for Customizing Your Own Hotkeys

Post by Adrian »

I've asked for that very thing a few times over the years. I don't remember ever getting an answer but if they had implemented it it would have been a bit awkward with the new quick key feature as people would probably be already using the keys for something else!

I use AutoIt3 to automate many parts of the Aspire interface and, where possible, gadgets that are linked to the gadget shortcut key facility.

Not sure if you know but one useful technique in Aspire/VCarve 9 is the spacebar. That will repeat whatever the last used vector tool was and is a big time saver I find. Plus there are the many new quick key combinations.

honestabram
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Re: A Gadget for Customizing Your Own Hotkeys

Post by honestabram »

Oh wow, Adrian I haven't purchased the new update yet, because I'm so swamped. Not a bad problem to have. I wasn't aware of the quick key feature. I'll look into that. Also, very interested in the software you mentioned. I really want to make aspire tailored to the types of projects I work on, but I'm having trouble getting very far. Thanks for the input.
-Luke Ferrell
Vine and Branches Fine Woodwork

honestabram
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Re: A Gadget for Customizing Your Own Hotkeys

Post by honestabram »

Hey Adrian,
I downloaded that software. Would you be willing to send me a sample script you've written to assign a keyboard shortcut? I would be eternally grateful.
-Luke

pknvectric
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Re: A Gadget for Customizing Your Own Hotkeys

Post by pknvectric »

Almost 2 years later and Vectric still hasn't addressed this issue?

I need to customize almost everything I do... I spend entirely too much time spinning my trackwheel/ball moving from one side of the screen to the other.

My Vectric productivity would skyrocket if I could create custom shortcut keys.

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Adrian
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Re: A Gadget for Customizing Your Own Hotkeys

Post by Adrian »

There has been a lot of additions to the software in terms of shortcuts etc since this thread was started. Quick keys and the space bar to open the last form are big time savers.

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adze_cnc
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Re: A Gadget for Customizing Your Own Hotkeys

Post by adze_cnc »

This reminds me of an excerpt from a 1989 article by Bruce Tognazzini:
We've done a cool $50 million of R & D on the Apple Human Interface. We discovered, among other things, two pertinent facts:
  1. Test subjects consistently report that keyboarding is faster than mousing.
  2. The stopwatch consistently proves mousing is faster than keyboarding.
This contradiction between user-experience and reality apparently forms the basis for many user/developers' belief that the keyboard is faster.

People new to the mouse find the process of acquiring it every time they want to do anything other than type to be incredibly time-wasting. And therein lies the very advantage of the mouse: it is boring to find it because the two-second search does not require high-level cognitive engagement.

It takes two seconds to decide upon which special-function key to press. Deciding among abstract symbols is a high-level cognitive function. Not only is this decision not boring, the user actually experiences amnesia! Real amnesia! The time-slice spent making the decision simply ceases to exist.

While the keyboard users in this case feels as though they have gained two seconds over the mouse users, the opposite is really the case. Because while the keyboard users have been engaged in a process so fascinating that they have experienced amnesia, the mouse users have been so disengaged that they have been able to continue thinking about the task they are trying to accomplish. They have not had to set their task aside to think about or remember abstract symbols.
And that was 30 years ago when mousing was new to personal computers and people really weren't used to using it at speed.

Now, I expect Adrian is using AutoIt3 to rapidly execute multiple actions and not just one so there would be a speed gain in that.

Steven

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Adrian
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Re: A Gadget for Customizing Your Own Hotkeys

Post by Adrian »

adze_cnc wrote: Now, I expect Adrian is using AutoIt3 to rapidly execute multiple actions and not just one so there would be a speed gain in that.
Yes I do. A typical macro I use will do several operations that I then repeat on multiple files. Wherever possible I write gadgets to do the operations instead but not all functions are exposed via the LUA interface.

These days there aren't that many functions that I think would benefit from single hotkeys as all the ones that are used regularly (IMO) are already covered. Gadget shortcut keys, quick keys and the space bar change filled the gaps for me personally.

pknvectric
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Re: A Gadget for Customizing Your Own Hotkeys

Post by pknvectric »

I suppose I can take the time how to learn AutoIt3 but I try to avoid spending time learning new apps when I suspect the native app (Aspire in the case) will make my work / effort obsolete in the near future.

Adrian - is there a place where you've uploaded some of your Aspire scripts which would help accelerate a new user's learning curve?

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Adrian
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Re: A Gadget for Customizing Your Own Hotkeys

Post by Adrian »

Some of the gadgets I've written are on the Vectric Gadgets site (gadgets.vectric.com) but the AutoIt3 scripts I use are not going to be of any use to anyone else as they are specific to operations I'm doing for my businesses and are hard coded to my screen layouts, file locations etc.

Generally all they do is to repeat several operations on multiple files so they're just simple macro recordings that load a file, do a few mouse clicks and keystrokes, save it and move onto the next. The more I get into gadgets the less I'm using AutoIt these days as I can program the gadgets to do it in a more stable way that doesn't take over the whole PC.

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