KeyCounter

[skwire]

KeyCounter is a small app that keeps track of how many times you press any key you've added to its list.  It falls into the useless but kind of cool stats category.  It was originally written upon request from a friend but I have since fleshed it out for NANY.

Features:

• You can build out a list of only the keys you want to count.
• Auto save and reload of your keylist and counts.
• Export current list and counts to CSV format.

Version 0.0.1.1 adds:

• KeyCounter now saves the list automatically on Windows shutdown, restart, and logoff.
• KeyCounter now enters monitoring mode when it's started.  You can add keys/groups in real-time, no need to stop monitoring now.

Version 0.0.1.2 adds:

• Added the Spacebar, Escape, Tab, and Pause keys.

Download: http://skwire.dcmembers.com/apps/keycounter/KeyCounter.zip

[skwire]

Website | Download
v1.0.5 - 2010-04-08
    + Added ability to auto-export list to CSV at user-defined interval.
      Edit, Options, and set the value.  Leave blank to disable.  Files
      are auto-saved in your ~install\data folder using the following
      timestamp format:  yyyy-mm-dd_hhmmss.csv.  (Thanks, J. Poston)
    ! Exporting to CSV missed the first row.  (Thanks, J. Poston)

[TripleJ]

Hi!

Very nice application, skwire

KeyCounter does not seem to load the list of keys I want to monitor automatically on startup?

What might be the reason for that?

OS: Win 7 Ultimate 32-bit

Thank you!

[skwire]

KeyCounter does not seem to load the list of keys I want to monitor automatically on startup?
What might be the reason for that?
OS: Win 7 Ultimate 32-bit

Thanks for the kind words.  Since KeyCounter works here for me under XP, I'm going to guess you're running it out of your Program Files folder under Win7.  If so, try moving the KeyCounter install folder to a non-protected folder and see if it works there.  Let me know how it goes.

[mrspadina]

Thanks for putting this together, I'm using it now and it's a very useful, albeit, basic tool to have around.

[skwire]

You're welcome.  I'm glad you find it useful. 

[StevenM]

Just wanted to thank you for this program!!

It is not useless at all!

Check this out: I do traffic design and sometimes we have to count traffic. We usually place some cameras for a few hours and let them record the situation. Later in the office we count it.




We used to do it with a pen and pencil. But Key Counter saves a lot of time, because you can do the whole thing realtime with your eyes focused on the screen while your hand is pressing keys for certain directions. It goes much faster. Otherwise, you would have to stop the playback every xx seconds to look back at the paper, add a line for each car, pay attention to directions and then later count all those lines (a real pain if you ask me).

Damn it! I'll ask my boss to send some $$ to you for beers and stuff.

Kind Regards,
Steven Marshall

[skwire]

Just wanted to thank you for this program!!

You are most welcome.  Thanks for the feedback.  =]  I'm glad it's working out well for you.

[mouser]

fun to see someone find a new use for it 

[skwire]

fun to see someone find a new use for it 

Yeah, no kidding. 

[knutnukem]

Hi there!

First, thanks a lot for this tool! I find it really helpful!

However, I seem to have the same problem TripleJ described a while ago (list of keys to monitor is not saved) - only I'm running KeyCounter on WinXP, have admin privileges on my local machine and already tried to run KeyCounter from the "Program Files" directory and the "My documents" directory.
KeyCounter seems perfectly able to save files in these directories, since the timestamp of config.ini and Key_Counts.lst.tmp changes when I click "Save" in the options dialogue or close KeyCounter. It also notices whether I want it to start up minimized and / or instantly start monitoring.
There is no entry in config.ini that looks like it would contain information which keys to monitor, and the contents of key_counts.lst.tmp doesn't seem to influence the application (even tried to rename it to key_counts.lst, but that didn't change anything).
Waaah, what am I doing wrong? 

Kind regards
Knut

[skwire]

I'll take a look at it.  Thanks for the feedback.

[skwire]

@knutnukem:  Please re-download and try v1.0.9 build 5, please.  Let me know if it saves properly now.  Thanks and sorry for the trouble.

[knutnukem]

Great job, KeyCounter now starts up with my favourite list of keys! 

Thanks a lot!

[skwire]

Great job, KeyCounter now starts up with my favourite list of keys! 
Thanks a lot!

You're welcome and thanks for the bug report.

Website | Download
v1.1.0 - 2011-06-30
    ! Key list wasn't being saved properly.  (Thanks, TripleJ & knutnukem)

[bag-o-wire]

skwire thank you for this awesome program, but may you add function to add custom keys. For example I have got 2 layouts: Russian and English. But your app only count English letters :-(

P.S. I use your app first of all to modify some ergonomics, so I just want if I pressed Russian "я" key count of English "z" goes +1

[skwire]

Thanks for the kinds words.  Your request is asked for quite frequently but, unfortunately, I don't think there is a way to do it.  Let me try to explain.

KeyCounter doesn't count "characters" such as 'a' or 'z' or 'я' or 'は' etc.  It counts presses of physical keys.  When using a Russian keyboard layout on an American keyboard, the 'z' key creates a 'я' character.  That's why the 'z' counter increases.  KeyCounter has no idea if a 'z' or a 'я' was created.  It just knows that that physical key was pressed on your keyboard.  

Does that make sense?

[worstje]

Skwire, I'm sure there's APIs that allow you to request the current keyboard layout. Or am I mistaken and do those things not exist?

[skwire]

No idea, really.  Either way, I've no desire to take KeyCounter to that level. 

[Robby250]

Hey there, this is a wonderful application; but I've created this account to report 2 things.

First of all, I'm on Windows 7 32 bit, but I don't think that has anything to do with the fact that the keycounts are saved to a file named Key_Counts.lst.tmp instead of Key_Counts.lst. Now, I've changed it to the latter, and the keys are loaded fine and everything is well. If you could modify your last version with this, I think that new users would appreciate it.

Secondly, the program includes in the key counts repeated keys; for example if you hold W for 10 seconds, it registers a lot of keypresses. This is annoying in games where you hold movement keys and such, and I just want to know how many times I've pressed a certain button. If you could include an option to disable the registering for repeated keys then this application would be lovely.

Oh, one more thing. Buttons coupled with modifier keys don't seem to count (alt+2; ctrl+shift+4, etc.). I'd like alt+2 to count as one press to alt, which is counted and another one to the 2, which doesn't count as far as I've seen.

Bold part is the most important issue for me, since for repeated keys I've disabled them completely, and the first issue I've fixed it manually.

[skwire]

@Robby250:  Welcome to the site and thanks for the feedback.  Regarding the issues you mentioned:

• 1) I could have sworn I had that Key_Counts.lst.tmp issue fixed in the latest build but I'll take another look.
• 2 & 3) Due to the limitations of the Input command in AutoHotkey, I don't think there is much I can do about either of these issues.

You may have better luck with other key-counting applications.  One really well done one is TypOmeter.

[Robby250]

2 & 3) Due to the limitations of the Input command in AutoHotkey, I don't think there is much I can do about either of these issues.

Hmm, I thought that the keys under modifier presses could be done due to another thing you've mentioned yourself:

KeyCounter doesn't count "characters" such as 'a' or 'z' or 'я' or 'は' etc.  It counts presses of physical keys.

But anyway, I'll try that other software, thanks for the link!

EDIT: That program works well, doesn't have any of the issues I've mentioned here. Thanks!

[IainB]

I saw this thread in my Google reader, and recalled it just today when I happened across KeyCounter from Zhorn Software.
I'm not too interested in key counters for myself, but I thought I'd just drop the link here in case it might be of use to someone else reading this thread in the DC forum.

[Robby250]

Hello again, after using the other software for a while, I have found some undesirable things with it aswell:

-Amount of each individual key isn't tracked in total, it resets when I close the software, it only keeps information of key presses in certain days and total;

-Now, the tracking of total key presses in total is something I want, but it is merged with the amount of mouse clicks as well, which I don't want;

-It has too many unnecessary options and trackers such as daily key presses, mouse clicks, words, etc.

I only want a simple tracker with the amount of keypresses for each individual key and total amount of keys, and this software seems perfect for the job.
I've noticed that the typometer doesn't track key presses, it tracks the release of a key, hence probably making it possible to ignore repeated keys. If you could find a way for your software to also track keys under modifiers, that's all I would need. The software would be ideal. I don't necessarily need it not to track repeated keys, since I could disable them, but that would be a bonus. What I need is the key-under-modifier tracker or however you name it.

[skwire]

Are you familiar with AutoHotkey programming at all?  If so, here's a quick snippet I wrote that will do what you want for letters a-z and numbers 0-9.  Press F1 at anytime to see a simple message box showing your keystroke stats.  You could easily extend this to cover all keys, to save/load data, display data in a more elegant way, etc.

Code: (autohotkey)

myKeys := "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890"

; Iterate through myKeys variable and create a hotkey for each letter and number.
Loop, Parse, myKeys
{
    Hotkey, ~*%A_LoopField% up, CountKeys, On
}

Return ; End of auto-execute section.


CountKeys:
{
    ; Get the third character from the left of the hotkey name.
    StringMid, myKey, A_ThisHotkey, 3, 1
    
    ; Increase character counter and total counter.
    %myKey%_Count++
    Total_Count++
}
Return

F1::
{
    ; Null out report variable.
    myReport := ""
    
    ; Iterate over myKeys variable and build out report, key by key.
    Loop, Parse, myKeys
    {
        myReport .= A_LoopField . ":`t" . %A_LoopField%_Count . "`n"
    }
    
    ; Display report with total at the bottom.
    MsgBox, % myReport . "`nTotal:`t" . Total_Count
}
Return