Author Topic: New program: Ethervane ActiveHotkeys (freeware) (Read 549,805 times)

tranglos · « **Reply #50 on:** September 14, 2009, 03:04 PM »

Quote from: MrChris on August 03, 2009, 11:23 PM

noticed that it does not show the Alt-F4 as active (the key that brings up the "turn off computer" dialog box in Windows XP, or closes whatever application window you're in).

That's becuse Alt+F4 is not a system-wide hotkey. It only works within an application - even though it's a standard that practically all programs respect. (A programmer is theoretically free to reassign Alt+F4 to a different feature, though doing so would be silly.)

It makes sense, because a system-wide hotkey can only be assigned by one application at a time. If Alt+F4 were a system hotkey, only one program could be closed by Alt+F4, and all other apps would have to use different keyboard shortcuts for that. The same applies to Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V etc.

briandr67 · « **Reply #51 on:** November 02, 2009, 11:02 AM »

Tranglos,
It looks like a great app. I am running Vista Business SP2. Under Vista the settings are found in C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Ethervane. Under Vista all accounts including Admin. accounts are run as user accounts. Any program needing to write information to disk needs to have it's privileges elevated to administrator. The only privilege I have as an administrator is that I don't need to type in an admin. password each time I need to elevate a programs privileges. There is a checkbox under properties to elevate permenantly. One thing that is puzzling me is that it has reported 59 out of 1984 possible key combo's as being active, but it reports Ctrl+C (Copy) Ctrl+V (Paste) and Ctrl+X (Cut) as inactive although they do work. Same results occur when run with or without elevation. Any Ideas? Just a tip for the readme is if people want to automate the installation and removal of the program, including adding shortcuts install it with Nir Sofer's freeware gem, Zip Installer. It is available from his site, www.nirsoft.net Brian

tranglos · « **Reply #52 on:** November 02, 2009, 12:13 PM »

Quote from: briandr67 on November 02, 2009, 11:02 AM

One thing that is puzzling me is that it has reported 59 out of 1984 possible key combo's as being active, but it reports Ctrl+C (Copy) Ctrl+V (Paste) and Ctrl+X (Cut) as inactive although they do work. Same results occur when run with or without elevation. Any Ideas?

The answer is in my reply just above your message

The keys you mention are not system-wide hotkeys.

A system-wide hotkey can only be assigned by one application at a time. If Ctrl+C were a system hotkey, only one program could use it, in and all other apps you would have to use a different keyboard shortcuts for "Copy". The same applies to Alt+F4, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V etc.

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #53 on:** April 04, 2010, 07:12 PM »

Thank You!!!

Configurable HotKeys in T-Clock 2010 would never have worked without this delightful little program.

...They'll be along shortly now!

ewemoa · « **Reply #54 on:** April 20, 2010, 11:13 AM »

Is there already support for VK_APPS (the key that brings up the context-sensitive menu)?

(I checked the thread so far, the docs, and the app itself but didn't have much luck figuring this out.)

J-Mac · « **Reply #55 on:** August 02, 2010, 03:51 AM »

Hi Marek!

Quick question: What is the purpose of the toggle feature? I had a conflicting hotkey today (apparently after installing AutoHotKey its default script uses Win+Z which was already assigned to Ultra Recall by default. And AutoHotKey won!), and was searching for a new one to use (for Ultra Recall). I found that sometimes I would click to find active hotkeys and then when I tried to assign one that was supposedly not active it was rejected by the app with an error stating that it was already in use. So I click on the search button again and all the Yes and No's reversed themselves. I read the About tab and saw where it mentioned a "toggle" feature. What is that for and how does that work? It confused the heck out of me!

Thank you.

Jim

app103 · « **Reply #56 on:** August 14, 2010, 09:39 PM »

Mentioned on gHacks

http://www.ghacks.net/2010/08/14/how-to-configure-system-wide-website-shortcuts-in-windows/

skas · « **Reply #57 on:** November 14, 2010, 10:02 AM »

I seem to have some hotkey conflicts on my system, so I've downloaded and installed a couple programs to identify all the hotkeys/keyboard shortcuts currently assigned by WinXP & my software.

So of course, I downloaded ActiveHotkeys, but I was not able to unzip the latest release, downloaded from the first message in this discussion.<http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=18189.0;attach=40705>;

My 7-Zip program states that <activehotkeys-1.10> is "invalid or corrupted."

I then downloaded the 1.0 version, and I was able to unzip & run that one.

Btw, another program I just installed is Hotkey Commander 2.0 (15-days or 15 dollars). If you're looking to improve ActiveHotKeys, I suggest looking at Hotkey Commander for ideas....

Steve

tranglos · « **Reply #58 on:** November 14, 2010, 02:12 PM »

Quote from: skas on November 14, 2010, 10:02 AM

So of course, I downloaded ActiveHotkeys, but I was not able to unzip the latest release, downloaded from the first message in this discussion.<http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=18189.0;attach=40705>;

My 7-Zip program states that <activehotkeys-1.10> is "invalid or corrupted."

Hi Steve,

You can grab the latest version from here:
http://ethervane.com/files/activehotkeys.zip

Contro · « **Reply #59 on:** January 04, 2011, 08:56 PM »

Nice indeed. I was looking for something like that.

I'll try

superboyac · « **Reply #60 on:** January 31, 2011, 06:52 AM »

This is a great program, as usual. But seriously, how do i find out which programs are using the particular shortcut? I'm having a problem where two programs have the same global hotkey assigned, and the one that wins is not the one I want. So your program tells me there are two programs, but how do i find out which it is?

skwire · « **Reply #61 on:** January 31, 2011, 08:18 PM »

Quote from: superboyac on January 31, 2011, 06:52 AM

how do i find out which programs are using the particular shortcut?

Unfortunately, because of limitations in the Win32 API, you can't.

superboyac · « **Reply #62 on:** January 31, 2011, 08:29 PM »

Quote from: skwire on January 31, 2011, 08:18 PM

Quote from: superboyac on January 31, 2011, 06:52 AM
how do i find out which programs are using the particular shortcut?

Unfortunately, because of limitations in the Win32 API, you can't.

Aww, crap. This is going to take me forever to figure out!

tranglos · « **Reply #63 on:** January 31, 2011, 08:45 PM »

Quote from: skwire on January 31, 2011, 08:18 PM

Unfortunately, because of limitations in the Win32 API, you can't.

What skwire said. Windows has that information, but there is no API function to retrieve it. Your only bet is to stop individual apps and see which hotkeys disappear together with the apps.

Theoretically, a program might:
a) check registered hotkeys
b) kill a process
c) check hotkeys again
d) the difference in hotkeys will show those that the killed app used.
e) repeat from the top.

But it's such an ugly solution (force-killing processes) that I don't think anyone'd want to implement it

And of course under Vista and highter there will be processes which the user just cannot kill.

Maybe better: remove/disable as much as you can in the various Autostart sections (e.g. using Autoruns), the check the hotkeys, start the suspect apps manually and check again.

superboyac · « **Reply #64 on:** January 31, 2011, 09:25 PM »

Quote from: tranglos on January 31, 2011, 08:45 PM

Maybe better: remove/disable as much as you can in the various Autostart sections (e.g. using Autoruns), the check the hotkeys, start the suspect apps manually and check again.

I'll give that a shot. If anyone has any tips, the hotkey I'm looking for is Ctrl-Alt-
. My Windows installation is still pretty new, so there isn't much software installed. if any of you thinks they might know which program is doing it, I'd appreciate it.

skwire · « **Reply #65 on:** January 31, 2011, 09:30 PM »

Could it be some default hotkey from your graphics card driver software?

superboyac · « **Reply #66 on:** January 31, 2011, 09:47 PM »

Quote from: skwire on January 31, 2011, 09:30 PM

Could it be some default hotkey from your graphics card driver software?

Ah! Brilliant! I think you may be right. I think it started after I installed my ATI drivers. if you are correct, that's going to be awesome! Great intuition...

mouser · « **Reply #67 on:** August 20, 2011, 07:56 PM »

Featured on the excellent FreeDownloadADay site today:
http://www.freedownloadaday.com/2011/08/20/identify-global-keyboard-shortcuts/

MilesAhead · « **Reply #68 on:** August 20, 2011, 11:52 PM »

Quote from: mouser on August 20, 2011, 07:56 PM

Featured on the excellent FreeDownloadADay site today:
http://www.freedownloadaday.com/2011/08/20/identify-global-keyboard-shortcuts/

I noticed that just now. Congratulations tranglos !!

mouser · « **Reply #69 on:** August 22, 2011, 04:33 PM »

And featured today on another great site, ILoveFreeSoftware:
http://www.ilovefreesoftware.com/22/windows/find-hotkeys-being-used-by-windows-programs-activehotkeys.html

raymm · « **Reply #70 on:** September 11, 2011, 11:18 PM »

Here is what happpens on my 64 bit machine:

I run activehotkeys, z,s, other keys stops working.
There are other things that happen, if this is useful to you, send me a response.

tomos · « **Reply #71 on:** September 22, 2011, 01:16 PM »

Quote from: raymm on September 11, 2011, 11:18 PM

Here is what happpens on my 64 bit machine:

I run activehotkeys, z,s, other keys stops working.
There are other things that happen, if this is useful to you, send me a response.

I guess it's not meant to be left running in the background, but if I use it to check Shift and Alphabetical keys:
the combination of Shift + any alphabetical key has no effect when typing.

(this is my pester Tranglos day

)

tranglos · « **Reply #72 on:** September 22, 2011, 01:47 PM »

Quote from: tomos on September 22, 2011, 01:16 PM

I guess it's not meant to be left running in the background, but if I use it to check Shift and Alphabetical keys:
the combination of Shift + any alphabetical key has no effect when typing.

It should cause no problems running in the background, because it only does anything during the short moment after you press the Test button. Other than that, it just sits there doing nothing. But I've never tried it on 64-bit windows. Are you running 64-bit?

Windows does not have a method that would list registered hotkeys. The only way to check if a hotkey is in use is to attempt to register it. If the attempt fails, the hotkey is in use. This is what ActiveHotkeys does. When it registers a hotkey successfully (i.e, the hotkey was available), it immediately de-registers it.

If for whatever reason the de-registration failed, there would be trouble, because the hotkey would remain registered and hence unusable in other applications, until you quit ActiveHotkeys. I know of no reason why registration should succeed but de-registration should fail. I've never seen it fail, and MSDN does not list any 64-bit specific issues (or any potential gotchas at all). In any case, quitting ActiveHotkeys should restore all keys to normal behavior.

tomos · « **Reply #73 on:** September 22, 2011, 02:17 PM »

Quote from: tranglos on September 22, 2011, 01:47 PM

In any case, quitting ActiveHotkeys should restore all keys to normal behavior.

Yeah, it's no problem when closed down.
I wouldnt lose any sleep over it, just reporting.

also yeah, 64bit (Win7 pro)

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #74 on:** September 22, 2011, 04:57 PM »

Quote from: tranglos on September 22, 2011, 01:47 PM

If for whatever reason the de-registration failed, there would be trouble, because the hotkey would remain registered and hence unusable in other applications, until you quit ActiveHotkeys. I know of no reason why registration should succeed but de-registration should fail. I've never seen it fail, and MSDN does not list any 64-bit specific issues (or any potential gotchas at all). In any case, quitting ActiveHotkeys should restore all keys to normal behavior.

I used it extensively when coding the HotKeys option into T-Clock and never noticed any ill or even odd behavior. And that was all done on a Windows 7 x64 machine that runs 24/7 for months at a time ... And ActiveHotKeys was running along just fine the whole time.