The Amazing Shortcut Keypad • Hacker News Board

Re: The Amazing Shortcut Keypad

#41

Post by desireco42 » Wed, May 03, 2017, 4:12 AM UTC

robinhartley94 wrote: post #16

Hey! Robin here - the creator of TASK: The Amazing Shortcut Keypad. Great to see so many comments and some interesting engagement :D A lot of you are identifying other ways to achieve this sort of automation either with AutoHotKey or custom scripts and if that works for you then good on ya, no point in changing :) However, the keypad was designed to give you quick, easy and intuitive automation in seconds. No writing…

It seems that others gave you a good hint. Since it is your software that is making a difference, ditch the hardware, adopt external numerical keyboard and go with that.

What do you think?

Re: The Amazing Shortcut Keypad

#42

Post by bastijn » Wed, May 03, 2017, 4:23 AM UTC

Slightly off topic but what kind of things are people automating behind macros here? I run autohotkey but only use 2-3 macros daily which are macros to start and kill apps I work on (hard kill to avoid waiting some shutdown time) and an "attach to app" macro.

Not enough to justify buying these. Am I missing out? Any great macros for developers?

Re: The Amazing Shortcut Keypad

#43

Post by a3n » Wed, May 03, 2017, 4:46 AM UTC

dln_eintr wrote: post #11

These guys have been making some pretty neat controllers for a while now: http://xkeys.com/XkeysKeyboards/

I like their slogan.

Re: The Amazing Shortcut Keypad

#44

Post by gradstudent » Wed, May 03, 2017, 5:10 AM UTC

This is great. It's like a mouse only stationary and with lots of keys that you can press instead of clicking. And you can program the keys to do whatever you want! Wow!

Re: The Amazing Shortcut Keypad

#45

Post by nathancahill » Wed, May 03, 2017, 5:13 AM UTC

isaacremuant wrote: post #38

Kind of on-topic, does anyone know what's the smallest industry made USB keyboard/button presser one can find? I'm talking small as in, number of keys. Ideally just one or two keys and a USB connection so that you can interact with a computer. Think like a clicker.

Maybe some accessibility hardware? Or for one press, repurpose a U2F key? I think Yubico has cheap ones branded with sites like Github.

Re: The Amazing Shortcut Keypad

#46

Post by epaga » Wed, May 03, 2017, 5:19 AM UTC

ekiminmo wrote: post #12

HammerSpoon already does a great job at this on Mac. http://www.hammerspoon.org/

Or alternatively BetterTouchTool, which additionally allows Touch Bar customization if you have a tMBP. https://www.boastr.net/

Re: The Amazing Shortcut Keypad

#47

Post by nebabyte » Wed, May 03, 2017, 5:44 AM UTC

or, y'know

AHK

Re: The Amazing Shortcut Keypad

#48

Post by nebabyte » Wed, May 03, 2017, 5:46 AM UTC

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #2

I like the idea, but can't you achieve most of the functionality just with an add-on $10 USB 10-key, and your choice of scripting? I have used the crazily versatile Controllermate[1] on macOS to do something similar with a gaming keypad that triggered Applescripts and shell scripts. 1: https://www.orderedbytes.com/controllermate/

Yeah, I was thinking this might have a niche in medium businesses/etc, but tbh if they have a bored tech guy they've probably already asked him/her to help automate basic tasks (for which any number of Python/AHK scripts already exist or can be trivially created)

Re: The Amazing Shortcut Keypad

#49

Post by lolive » Wed, May 03, 2017, 6:07 AM UTC

bastijn wrote: post #42

Slightly off topic but what kind of things are people automating behind macros here? I run autohotkey but only use 2-3 macros daily which are macros to start and kill apps I work on (hard kill to avoid waiting some shutdown time) and an "attach to app" macro. Not enough to justify buying these. Am I missing out? Any great macros for developers?

I remap CapsLock+hjkl as the arrows. And CapsLock+Space as Return. But of course I want them to be right at my fingertips. Not on an external "far away" device.

Re: The Amazing Shortcut Keypad

#50

Post by 8draco8 » Wed, May 03, 2017, 6:47 AM UTC

I use different solution that is arguable better than this and is right now on the market for not much money. I am talking about MMO mouses. Personally I am using Logitech G600 that have total of 20 programmable keys which can be programmed in 3 layers giving grant total of 60 macros, all within a reach of your thumb. This mouse is able to save macros onto on board flash memory which allows use on any system, even Androidm of course after configuring it either on Windows or MacOS.