DONE: LabelControl - Mouseless control

[skrommel]

brotherS sent me this link http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=3179 the other day, about mouseless browsing using FireFox. I've made a general Windows version!

LabelControl - Overlays buttons and other controls with a Number for direct access via Ctrl-Number.

Features:
- Hold Ctrl, write the number, release Ctrl.
- User definable controls, options to move the mouse and detect toolbar buttons.
- Unreliable toolbar button detection.



You'll find the downloads and more info at 1 Hour Software by Skrommel.

It works great with anything using standard windows controls, but programs painting their own controls is mainly ignored. I've started making a graphical button detection routine, but it's very basic, so if anyone knows of ways of extracting button positions from various controls, please let me know!

Skrommel

[kimmchii]

wow that is soo cool, Thanks. 

[Carol Haynes]

Absolutely brilliant ... not that I can give up my mouse that easily 

[Hirudin]

Personally I prefer the mouse over the keyboard (I use the mouse to move the curser to the "password" field instead of hitting tab). Having said that, I think it's awesome that you made this program skrommel! A coding snack delivered without anyone knowing they were even hungry!

It might be cool to implement some standard numbers for standard buttons (if it's possible). Maybe "07" could be "OK" (because they sorta look the same, or maybe use " 0* ") and/or "11" could be "Cancel" (because the 1 key is also the "end" key) and/or "99" could be "Close" (because 9 is at the top right of the keypad, just like the close button is at the top right of the window)...

[skrommel]

Already planned for the next verson, Hirudin. I'm also thinking of making a label builder, where the user can place and number his own labels, one layout for each application.

Also, I've changed the name to LabelControl (removed the s).

Skrommel

[jgpaiva]

This is a great idea! And it works quite well, congratulations Skrommel!
Only one suggestion: why not have key work as a toggle, instead of forcing it to be pressed.
I mean, the user could activate it with a hotkey, like F8, then, the labels appear, and one could press the number on the label. If the user didn't want to activate anything, he'd press F8 again and the labels would disappear.
This would avoid interfeerence with program's hotkeys, and in my opinion, would be a bit more handy, since holding ctrl and pressing a few buttons is not very ergonomic.

[VSiAQ]

Why not ScrollLock instead of F8? 

[Hirudin]

Would it be possible to use the Numlock key? When numlock is activated (most of the time) the numbers would type numbers, when it's off (less of the time) they would type the numbers of the Labels.

[skrommel]

Updated LabelControl to v1.1.

Just added detection of toolbar buttons.

Skrommel

[skrommel]

Updated LabelControl to v1.2.

Improved the toolbar button detection and added menu detection.

Skrommel

[skrommel]

And then there was LabelControl v1.3.

Cleaned up number placement, corrected menu detection.

Skrommel

[skrommel]

I need help with LabelControl v1.4!

I've added listview detection, but I can't make it work properly with icon views. Anyone?

Skrommel

[skrommel]

Uploaded LabelControl v1.5.

Added listview and tab item detection. Added use of numpad.

Skrommel

[jdmarch]

Beautiful concept. I'm a diehard keyboard user, so was very excited. But after a few minutes of using it, I've unloaded it for now. But I'm looking forward to trying it again real soon...

Any way to ignore menus and menu items, since they already have perfectly good accelerator keys? When we start getting up to 20 numbered controls in a window, the time spent to identify them (and the fact that all the nice short 1-digit numbers are used up by the menus) makes it less useful.

Any way to ignore specific applications/windows altogether (especially those for which Ctrl+# is already a meaningful shortcut key).

And it would be helpful to have a single-key hotkey to disable/enable it. The time required to mouse over to the tray to do this repeatedly, removes the keyboard-centric feeling and much of the time saved.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[skrommel]

LabelControl is still in early stages of development, 'cause I can't get to all the controls I want.

If you check the Settings screen you can remove the classes you don't want labeled.

Skrommel

[urlwolf]

brilliant.
It doesn't work with opera, which is a pity, but otherwise totally cool!

[jdmarch]

Hmmm, tried without success ignoring Menu,MenuItem,MenuBar. So what's the magic word for a menu control?

[skrommel]

Many menubars are really toolbars, so until I add an option to ignore certain windows, there's no shure way of doing this.

I see in the sourcecode that I've added no way to ignore menus. Will do.

Skrommel

[jdmarch]

patiently anticipating....