Two Programs I am Seeking

[J-Mac]

I am looking for two particular applications.  One is a general timer/stopwatch/countdown application, similar to Timer/Timer Pro from Acute Software.  I do use Instant Boss and Stopwatch from our own coders here, along with a couple of other time and reminder-related utilities, but it's just too many to perform very related tasks. I am hoping for one to do a number of things.

The second application is a bit more involved: a program that can insert auto-text based on typed shortcuts. Something similar to MS Word's Auto-Text feature.  I used to use Pocomail as my email client and it has a feature that I used for repetitive phrases in my email messages. You create a phrase and then give it a shortcut. For example, I used "zbr" for "Best Regards" followed by a comma and two line breaks, for a closing in email messages. Blackberry has a similar feature for use on their devices.  BTW, I use the letter "Z" as a lead for most of my shortcuts only because it is unlikely that I would be typing a regular word and have the combination of "z" followed by the initials of the phrase I am shortcutting.  Thus the "zbr" for "Best Regards".

There is a program that is somewhat useful but too annoying overall to use, IMO. It is called PhraseExpress, but it pops up replacement suggestions while you are typing - as I said that can get a little annoying. Also, it has a number of built-in keyboard shortcuts that I definitely did not want, but they insist and instruct you to shut down all other programs that have any keyboard shortcuts so there won't be any conflicts. I really hate when a developer hard codes crap like this and then insists that you must live with it. I decided not to. A good example of how annoying this can be: a few months back I posted here about the Windows+S shortcut that OneNote 2007 uses for clipping suddenly started putting my PC to sleep - literally! Anytime I tried to clip something the PC immediately went dark without warning. The only clue was that I could see the white "progress"-type bar that looked like when my notebook PC was about to hibernate start across the bottom of the screen for a fraction of a second before all went dark. As I said, the developer said, basically, "Tough" and told me to either remove all other apps with KB shortcuts, or shut them down anytime I was running his programs. Yeah, right.

Anyway, does anyone have suggestions for the above two programs?

Thanks.

Jim

[mitzevo]

For your 2nd question, did you try DirectAccess ? Or how about Jitbit's AutoText

[J-Mac]

For your 2nd question, did you try DirectAccess ? Or how about Jitbit's AutoText

-mitzevo (December 27, 2007, 11:21 PM)

Thanks for those mitzevo!

I was looking at Direct Access already but for some odd reason I had not yet come across Auto Text.  (And with that name you'd think the searches would have put that right up there)

Are you using either? I'm hoping for some positive feedback before I do my usual thing and just install them all one by one!  (No wonder my registry is the size of a medium state, like Illinois!)

Thanks.

Jim

[lanux128]

J-Mac: for your 2nd question, check out this thread for some useful suggestions..

• IDEA: predictive text for ms word

[J-Mac]

J-Mac: for your 2nd question, check out this thread for some useful suggestions..

• IDEA: predictive text for ms word

-lanux128 (December 28, 2007, 12:19 AM)

lanux, I found a nice, little app on one of the threads you listed. YadaBytes SubText. Tiny, portable, and it works just like a Blackberry. Pretty cool! I'm using that now! It doesn't have a lot of features, but that was the problem with a lot of these; they have so many other features that they end up interfering where I don't need them!

Thanks.

Jim

[tinjaw]

I think Johannes Wallroth might have something to meet both your needs. I use both and can recommend them. I keep them on my USB stick.

Multi Clipboard
With Multi Clipboard you have access to nine clipboard texts (slots), which you can select either via mouseclick when the program window is active, or via Hotkey "Ctrl + NUMPAD 1.. 9", even if the program is inactive or minimized to the system tray. This copies the selected slot to the Windows clipboard, from which you can paste it into your active application (for instance with Ctrl + V). The hotkey "Ctrl + NUMPAD 0" hides or shows the program window, depending on the previous state. If nine slots are not enough and you need more, you can change to another of three available files.

[attachimg=#2][/attachimg]

Multi Timer
Ten independent Timers in one program, to count down to zero or up to max. 100 hours, with 1 second accuracy. Timers can be viewed one by one or all at once and can resume on a later computer session, all settings are remembered from the previous time ran. Sound signal (optional) and blinking message window (cannot be hidden with other windows) with user-defined message on alarm. Each timer can be assigned an individual identifier string. Always on top mode and hide in System Tray mode.

[attachimg=#1][/attachimg]

[yksyks]

J-Mac and others: Yadabyte Subtext is great, thanks! It's a good example of non-bloated application that doest just what it's supposed to do.

However, I found two small issues:

• First, it uses Windows clipboard, which is probably necessary, but might not be always comfortable. Not a big issue, as I'm using Ditto, though.
  
• Second, it always puts a space after the pasted text. This should be so when typing a space, but when I press Enter, I'd like to have a new line in the text, not the space. Anyone able to modify this? (It's an open-source.)

[J-Mac]

J-Mac and others: Yadabyte Subtext is great, thanks! It's a good example of non-bloated application that doest just what it's supposed to do.

However, I found two small issues:

• First, it uses Windows clipboard, which is probably necessary, but might not be always comfortable. Not a big issue, as I'm using Ditto, though.
  
• Second, it always puts a space after the pasted text. This should be so when typing a space, but when I press Enter, I'd like to have a new line in the text, not the space. Anyone able to modify this? (It's an open-source.)

-yksyks (December 28, 2007, 07:43 AM)

For a free app that was written a couple years ago, it IS pretty cool. It has worked for me so far.

Jim

[yksyks]

That's what I wrote. It is definitely cool. Just the extra space bugs me a bit... Trying PhraseExpress at the moment, but this is an overkill for my needs. (But it doesn't clear the clipboard and doesn't add the space...)

[tide]

Trying PhraseExpress at the moment, but this is an overkill for my needs.

-yksyks (December 29, 2007, 02:03 AM)

I am using PhraseExpress and recommend it. I like it so much I bought a license for it! I haven't tried most of the alternatives others have mentioned above so I can't say how it compares but it's the best of the ones I did try. Specifically, I've used ShortKeys for years and it's a great program which I can also recommend. I never had a problem with it except that it produced a conflict with another (totally unrelated and very specialized!) program so I hunted around for a replacement and settled on PhraseExpress.

[nosh]

I used to run a standalone text replacement utility called Perfect Keyboard long back but Autohotkey took over. It makes sense for me to run one (lightweight) app for several things and autohotkey does so much more.

For a timer + stopwatch, I'm running PC Chrono. It has voice synthesis which can be quite useful at times.

[lanux128]

J-Mac: glad to be of help..

yksyks: check out this thread for some AHK based solutions which will be easier to customise to your needs.

[yksyks]

lanux128: Thanks, I did already. In fact I have to admit that I jumped the gun a bit when I wrote that PhraseExpress is an overkill for my needs. In the meantime I browsed the manual and it payed off, as I discovered a lot of power in PhraseExpress which I was not aware of. For example, can some of its competitors offer the user input in the middle of automatic phrase? Or selecting from menu of choices (like "Mr." or "Mrs.") and continue? This seems to me very powerful and useful. Also, importing autocorrect entries from MS Office is quite a nice feature.

[lanux128]

yes, i am aware of the features even though i don't use it myself.. Phrase Express is quite popular here at DC. check out this thread for more discussions on Phrase Express..

• Does anyone use PhraseExpress?

[yksyks]

Thanks again, I've read this one, too. I'm going to stick with PhraseExpress for the time being. There's only one issue I've encountered so far: it collides with TapTap, sometimes invoking its function for double-click on Ctrl key. Anyone else?