Author Topic: desktop shortcut to do a Simple task (Read 23,110 times)

questorfla · « **on:** April 13, 2016, 12:12 PM »

This is something that was requested by a friend that I don't see a simpler way to handle. They want me to create desktop shortcut to do the equivalent of pressing Ctrl+0 <is a Zero>. She only has one Ctrl button on far left with zero on far right on her Surface pro.

This combination is the one to revert all ZOOMED screens back to standard size and I saw her problem as it occurred but IMHO while an icon might be nice, i think it would be better to create a different hotkey. When her screen is ZOOMED to 500% she cant see the X to get out and that is what she keeps trying to do. An icon would also be covered up. But that is what she asked for.

Still, if there is an alternative way to make a different combination of keys do the same thing? Maybe as a backup in case she cannot see the desktop icons at all?

Maybe Ctrl+Fnc+Winkey which are all next to each other on her system.
If possible, i need to do this without adding any additional software like AHK etc.

BGM · « **Reply #1 on:** April 13, 2016, 02:25 PM »

You know, all windows shortcuts can already be used to react to keyboard shortcuts.

Say you make a shortcut on your desktop to notepad.
Just open the file properties and go to "shortcut" and set the "shortcut key" by setting the cursor in it and pushing the hotkey you want for it.
Only problem is that if you forget that you set it there, it will be hard to figure out where it is!
I don't know if this works in a Surface.

If you want to do other things, I would suggest looking into Autohotkey.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #2 on:** April 13, 2016, 03:25 PM »

I would take a look at the Autohotkey help for remapping keys. Also instead of a desktop icon you could have a tray menu command to send the key combination. See the help for Send and SnedMode Input. Send command in the help has a list of key names.

The key remapping is often a one-liner. For example if I want to press Shift F7 instead of control alt del I could do

Code: (autohotkey)

Sendmode Input

+F7::^!Del

If just using the hotkey symbols on the right hand side does not work you can use Send,{key}{key2}{etc} instead.

questorfla · « **Reply #3 on:** April 13, 2016, 07:26 PM »

Thanks, to you both.
But I was told i could not install AHK at all. That was my first suggestion to her as i said in my question.
I have many key re programmers made to do exactly ONLY reprogram the keyboard. But she doesn't want anything on there so..
All i could think of was find the character code for the CTRL key and the Zero key and try to batch it that wold give her the desktop icon anyway

MilesAhead · « **Reply #4 on:** April 13, 2016, 08:27 PM »

Sorry. I did not read the last line on the OP.

I am not familiar with those devices. Is there perhaps a programmable key that has a setting in Control Panel or something under the keyboard driver to send out a user defined sequence? I used a KVMA switch for years and they were never the same on different flavors of Windows. So I never did much with them.

4wd · « **Reply #5 on:** April 13, 2016, 10:37 PM »

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17038282/press-keyboard-keys-using-a-batch-file

Uses VBScript in a batch file to send keys - change keys and add a shortcut to the command file.

You can also do it with Powershell:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17849522/how-to-perform-keystroke-inside-powershell

It just calls the Windows Scripting Host to do the same thing.

Target · « **Reply #6 on:** April 14, 2016, 01:04 AM »

you don't mention the OS or the applications affected so you're probably always going to get a third party solution

Frankly I'd be surprised if there wasn't a reset hotkey built in to whatever you're using to zoom (eg CTRL+0). Alternatively CTRL&+ or CTRL&- seem to be pretty standard zoom keys...

questorfla · « **Reply #7 on:** April 14, 2016, 02:59 AM »

Sorry. I thought i would just ask how to do it. She knows about Ctrl+0 I already showed that to her. and yes, it works, which is why i am looking for other ways to do the same thing.
But she also has a Surface Pro as i explained which means we are dealing with Windows and Microsoft. While Ctrl+0 works it is not 'convenient' for her and since she is the 'boss-lady'! So, if she wants me to make another shortcut for it, plus a giant PANIC Button desktop icon, I always try to oblige.
This is just one of those things that is very upsetting to her and i am trying to keep the peace around the office. $:-\$

Thanks for the info 4wd, I will give that a shot.

arghh!!!

Guess what was removed from the latest build of Windows 10!
Yup! No Mo sendkeys.dll or any alternative apparentmly. This is reported as of Feb his year best i can tell.

2 days ago - As the title says, it seems to me that SendKeys.Send does not produce the expected behavior in some scenarios under Windows 10 build 14316 (the latest one ...
Same place reporting too. StackOverflow

4wd · « **Reply #8 on:** April 14, 2016, 06:53 AM »

Quote from: questorfla on April 14, 2016, 02:59 AM

Guess what was removed from the latest build of Windows 10!
Yup! No Mo sendkeys.dll or any alternative apparentmly. This is reported as of Feb his year best i can tell.

Did you try it?

My Win10 systems don't have sendkeys.dll but the example given on StackOverflow still works fine.

questorfla · « **Reply #9 on:** April 14, 2016, 01:08 PM »

yes plus scanned the entire hard-drive for any file named sendk*. No such file exists

I cant believe they would remove such a feature and have no replacement

BGM · « **Reply #10 on:** April 14, 2016, 03:07 PM »

You can create the sendkey script in autohotkey on a separate computer and then compile it to an exe (because you can compile ahk scripts) file and deploy that. Problem solved.

questorfla · « **Reply #11 on:** April 14, 2016, 08:11 PM »

viola!"' OR is that Ole' ?
depends on if it has horns?
I will try that in a few minutes

MilesAhead · « **Reply #12 on:** April 14, 2016, 08:52 PM »

Quote from: questorfla on April 14, 2016, 08:11 PM

viola!"' OR is that Ole' ?
depends on if it has horns?
I will try that in a few minutes

You may find this handy:
https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/21189-compile-ahk-ii-for-those-who-compile/page-30#entry622493

It is just a small Gui for compiling AHK. It has tabs for entering file version, copyright etc.

But it is cool because you can right click an .ahk file in Explorer and select Compile With Options. I recommend enabling the setting Save Settings in Script. That way you don't end up with a .ini file with settings for every .ahk you compile.

questorfla · « **Reply #13 on:** April 14, 2016, 09:22 PM »

Thanks.
FYI AVAST reports it as a 'dangerous file' that is not 'normally downloaded'
which means the developer hasn't "paid off" AVAST yet.

I like AVAST but i swear they dont let anyone get creative unless they "pay the bribe' to be white listed
AHK ITSELF!! Is another one. It took forever to get AVAST to allow me to get a copy.
I finally had to turn it off just to download.
One code-write i know says he DID pay them and they STILL marked his as 'possible dangerous'!
I have run his program now for almost a year and love it but AVAST said to "stay way"
What is a real shame is that someone would NEED to download a p[rogram just to make a single hotkey for an unusual combination that MS uses themselves.
Ctrl+0 is just hard for her to do with the keyboard layout on a surface pro. Takes two hands and she usually has a phone in one of them. I never found out why they removed sendkeys

MilesAhead · « **Reply #14 on:** April 14, 2016, 10:12 PM »

@questorfla on another thread I posted the VirusTotal report for Nir Sofer's NirLauncher. It is just a Gui with links for all his excellent utilities. But because there are so many and they actually do something to adjust your system settings, the report is nearly 1/2 red flags. It is scary. Somebody sends a copy of that to your ISP with a few red flags and they panic. Even though the actual conclusion may say "Probably Harmless" in large letters at the top.

Everyone is so paranoid now. It is really disconcerting.

Just for grins here is the "analysis" of the latest nirlauncher zip file:
https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/fa98048d34278fd4830cd81099d748c12eecdcce7064cc1bd3de6612f9b4532e/analysis/1460443868/

questorfla · « **Reply #15 on:** April 15, 2016, 02:14 AM »

ya gotta love all those "hack tools"

like?
that is always a BAD thing $:-\$

IainB · « **Reply #16 on:** April 15, 2016, 10:27 AM »

Quote from: questorfla on April 13, 2016, 07:26 PM

...But I was told i could not install AHK at all. That was my first suggestion to her as i said in my question.
I have many key re programmers made to do exactly ONLY reprogram the keyboard. But she doesn't want anything on there so..
All i could think of was find the character code for the CTRL key and the Zero key and try to batch it that wold give her the desktop icon anyway
__________________________

I had a LOL at that. It's hamstringing. "Here, I want you to tighten the screws on this piece of equipment, but just for grins you are not allowed to use a screwdriver of any kind."
IT Confucius say: Support person who provide one solution to dumb requirement will find more dumb requirement in email next day...

One suggestion: employ some lateral thinking - e.g., get her a headset for her phone so she can be hands-free.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #17 on:** April 15, 2016, 11:54 AM »

Quote from: IainB on April 15, 2016, 10:27 AM

I had a LOL at that. It's hamstringing. "Here, I want you to tighten the screws on this piece of equipment, but just for grins you are not allowed to use a screwdriver of any kind."
IT Confucius say: Support person who provide one solution to dumb requirement will find more dumb requirement in email next day...

For some reason it reminds me of people who would bring their can in for a tune-up. They would try to hand you points, plugs and condenser they bought from the parts store. About one out of ten would get the point when asked "do you bring your own eggs to the restaurant?"

But on the wacko requirement thing I am convinced it is simply a matter of "That would be cheating! Too easy."

questorfla · « **Reply #18 on:** April 15, 2016, 12:03 PM »

yeah but,,,
as much as i complain about it, the truth is, i enjoy doing this. Looking for a "Rube Goldberg" method to do something like this is really kind of a challenge that make te rest of the boring stuff bearable.

For instance, WHY can't this be done is a question that if answered may be helpful one day for a completely different task that really iS important. When Life offers nothing new to learn, it gets to be tedious just to get through the next day. I complain about it, but the truth is, i would be bored to tears without it. And she being the "Boss-lady" means that the more dumb the question or more ridiculous the request, I cna be sure that i won't have any competition for the answers I DO find.

A 'Brownie Point' is still a 'Brownie Point' no matter how you get it

.

I have enough feathers in my cap to be an Indian chief.

One more wont hurt my image.

questorfla · « **Reply #19 on:** April 15, 2016, 12:07 PM »

bring their can in for a tune-up?
Eh.??? Typo or were you being more 'descriptive'?

questorfla · « **Reply #20 on:** April 15, 2016, 12:21 PM »

Speaking of which, did either of you notice my post about needing a SQL editor>? The thing is, I am not sure that this is what I need.
It may be more in HOW to do it than a WAY to do it.
Adding pre-constructed objects to a database is more difficult that i at first thought. I can see why but not sure i see HOW to get past the problem. The things i am adding are folders to hold items that have not yet been added. Unless i can understand the relationship to these items within the finished product, they cant be done as simple "words" inserted in a layout.
Whe referred back to later in a search, they would be the one of the locators used to find the items under them so i have to put them in the same as they would be if created from an empty DB.
That much i figured out from the start. So i tried that, exported the DB after these changes were added but the exported file would not longer function as the starting template. As i type this, i "THINK" I can see why but that still doesn't tell me HOW to make it happen the way i want it to.

I have done this in other sections by adding the proper "insert into" statements so i know it can be done and it is probably something any first year SQL DB programmer does for kicks. Once i see the solution i will feel like an idiot for not realizing the problem

MilesAhead · « **Reply #21 on:** April 15, 2016, 12:52 PM »

Quote from: questorfla on April 15, 2016, 12:07 PM

bring their can in for a tune-up?
Eh.??? Typo or were you being more 'descriptive'?

I must get an AI spellcheck that catches words in the dictionary that I didn't mean to type. It seems to happen incessantly. Sometimes I have to edit 7 or 8 times just to post a paragraph. Computer!! Type what I mean! Not the words that just so happen to be there!

questorfla · « **Reply #22 on:** April 15, 2016, 02:08 PM »

Yes, AND this is something have posted here about in the past. WHY in this super-fast Futuristic world we live in can't there be a SINGLE FIX.
Like "One Ring to Rule Them All" Frodo!?

Typos are the most time consuming and irritating thing to deal with that it is beyond me why someone can't find a way to at least let SOME programs have access to a Shared Typo Library where we each could add our most often occurring ones along with the what we THOUGHT we typed (or MEANT to Type)!

One place this is extremely irritating is when you type a Password into Outlook or other app and all you get to see are tiny dots. Now tell me this: How much "safer" do those "dots" make you feel? Are that many people actually entering their passwords while people are looking over their shoulder and if so, what is to stop them from just watching your fingers to see what keys you hit?

In most cases all those "dots" do is prevent YOU from noting that you typed a "T" when you meant to type a "Y" or used caps when it should be lowercase. After a few frustrating tries to fix, you then find you are locked out for 10 minutes and you don't even know what you mis-typed.

I maybe "paranoid" but I SWEAR windows sometimes does this just to mess with your head. As in "You" did NOT make a mistake at all! But you have no way to prove this since all you see are DOTS! So MS just SAYS you did it wrong and tells you to re-enter it. The EYEBALL option they have added is a step in the right direction but how about the option to simply NEVER use dots unless I ASK for them?

I can't count the times I have tried to show this to people but no one is used to HOLDING down a CLICK so the display stays visible long enough to read it. And not ALL password fields OFFER the "Eyeball". This is true even when it is a Windows program.

I really think MS does this just to see how mad they can make you.

But i digress:
And as above,the single letter "i" is ALWAYS correct as a capital yet there is NO WAY to make that happen. This correction is even pre-programmed into Outlook/Word (try to add it and you will see it is already there and they ask if you want to redefine it). BUT. If you have fifteen "i" statements every one gets underlined and NONE get auto-fixed!

(NOTE: I have recently discovered a possible fix for this. If you ALSO add this to the option in Auto-correct for math (which is technically NOT correct) it does appear to work to make the switch to a capital "I" as it should in text. Because I never use the "i" in numbers anyway.. I guess i won't miss that much.

Even then, it wont help much on the BBS as apparently those corrections are governed by the browser your use to access the forum? And Google has not seen fit to offer "auto corrections" or if it does, it is an "extension I have not yet found. If you know which one please pass it along to me.

Still, A CUSTOM APP.. One to Rule Them ALL is called for here. One that could at least TRY to help when possible. I could add "hte" is REALLY "the" any time it appears and probably save an hour every day from corrections.

<<<END OF RANT >>!

questorfla · « **Reply #23 on:** April 15, 2016, 02:10 PM »

Quote from: MilesAhead on April 15, 2016, 12:52 PM

must get an AI spellcheck that catches words in the dictionary that I didn't mean to type

If you find it PLEASE send me a PM!

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #24 on:** April 15, 2016, 04:10 PM »

Quote from: questorfla on April 15, 2016, 02:08 PM

Are that many people actually entering their passwords while people are looking over their shoulder and if so, what is to stop them from just watching your fingers to see what keys you hit?

Actually shoulder surfing is really quite popular (it even got a name..). I used it the other day to get past a security door with a pin style lock. I just hung back a bit - pretending to be off in my own world - watched peripherally, and caught the guy punching in a pattern based code (naughty naughty - never use patterns). So the next time I got stuck at one of those doors...I wasn't stuck.

Situational Awareness Always.