Ch-ch-ch-changes!

"Monthly" becomes "Bi-Monthly"
Due to an ambitious set of 2005 roadmaps for our products and our company, TRIGGERED will now be published every other month. We value the quality of the content above the quantity of issues and we're sure our readers do as well. As news breaks we will also do special editions to make sure everyone is kept up to date and in the know.

How are you using QuicKeys?
We're looking for a fresh infusion of customer-submitted usage tips for QuicKeys X and Windows. We don't care if you're only doing the most basic things with QuicKeys or if you're orchestrating your entire work day with it, we want to hear about it! Send your Cool Customer submissions to coolcustomer@startly.com. If your submission is chosen for a newsletter, we'll send you some free swag!

If you have any suggestions for this newsletter, topics you'd like to see covered or changes to the format, don't hesitate to ask. Just e-mail us at newsletter@startly.com

Big Savings!
In honor of March being the month of the NCAA basketball tournament, we're exhibiting a bit of the old "March Madness" ourselves... Save 20% on any purchase from our online store before April 1, 2005!

Special Pricing for Mac OS X Single User $99.95 ... $79.96 Upgrade from v1.0 for $49.95 ... $39.96 Upgrade from v1.5 for $39.95 ... $31.96 Upgrade from v2.x for $29.95 ... $23.96 Migrate from Windows or Mac OS 9 for $69.95 ... $55.96

Special Pricing for Windows Single User $99.95 ... $79.96 Upgrade from v1.0 for $49.95 ... $39.96 Upgrade from v2.0 for $19.95 ... $15.96 Migrate from Mac OS X or Mac OS 9 for $69.95 ... $55.96

Important disclaimers and notes:

• You -must- use the link provided here to get the 20% Discount
• Your web browser must have cookies enabled to receive the discount
• You -must- choose Electronic Delivery method when you place your order
• Not valid on Academic Store purchases
• Not valid on previous purchases
• Discount pricing won't be apparent until Checkout time
• Offer Expires at midnight on March 31, 2005

Rethink those Pause steps, consider Wait for Menu
When you build a multi-step shortcut, the timing of the steps must be considered or you risk inaccurate playback of your shortcut. If the timing of a shortcut is not correct, buttons and windows won't be found, menu items won't be active, and so on. It takes time for the operating system and applications to draw a new window, switch from one pane or tab to another, and on slower systems this is even more noticeable.

Traditionally the Pause step has been the answer to this timing problem; if you expect a process to take 5 seconds you put in a Pause step that delays the next shortcut step for 5 seconds before continuing on. But hard pauses can be inefficient due to the necessity of setting them conservatively long for worst case scenarios. There is an alternative!

The Wait step can replace the Pause in many instances. This tutorial discusses using a Wait step to determine when a web page has fully loaded, check it out here.

Batch Processor, power often overlooked
QuicKeys is great for automating complex time-consuming tasks, but it is also adept at performing simple tasks on numerous files. Rather than manually opening 150 files and running the same short sequence on each of them, you might consider using the Batch Processor.

The Batch Processor applies a sequence of actions on a group of files. If you need to perform the same actions on multiple files, you can create a Batch Processor Action to automate the process. For example, you can convert a group of graphics files from BMP to GIF format, or automatically change the margins and font size of multiple documents with a single Action. Check it out here.

Drop by the QuicKeys Community forum and tell everyone your favorite QuicKeys tips & tricks or float a question or two. A great resource for experts and novices alike!

How are users tapping QuicKeys' potential?

The Cool Customer for this issue is Mark Pressman. Mark talks about using QuicKeys to access his thesaurus from the Services menu:

"Just needed to let you know that after hoping to make the switch from Microsoft Word to Apple's new Pages, the one thing that kept me from jumping completely was the need for a Thesaurus, which Apple's new program lacked.

Fortunately, I was able to download Nisus' Thesaurus for free, but it resided in the Services menu of Pages and I needed to highlight the word and then drag down and over through menus and submenus. Sure, it doesn't sound like a lot of trouble, but when you use a thesaurus a lot in your job, as I do, then it becomes a hassle of not being able to quickly hit a key.

QuicKeys afforded me the ability to lookup my selection without clicking the mouse. For that alone, it was worth every penny. I now use Pages for my word processing and Microsoft Word no longer resides in my dock.

I am just now, beginning to understand and explore all the possibilities of this nifty program."

Thank you Mark!

If you'd like a shot at 30 days of fame, send your Cool Customer submissions to coolcustomer@startly.com. If your submission is chosen for a newsletter, we'll send you some free stuff! (such as a T-shirt or mug, not an iPod or 3 inch high Philadelphia Eagles novelty football helmet)

We now offer a custom shortcut creation service to help you get QuicKeys shortcuts set up and tailored to your business needs. If you are interested in having us create a QuicKeys shortcut for you, head on over to our web site for details.

Filemaker incorrectly asks for password when opened by QuicKeys

There have been several reports of Filemaker requiring users to enter a password when a database is opened using QuicKeys, even though Filemaker has been set up to automatically enter the account name and password.

FileMaker's help says "If an account name and password is entered automatically when you open a file but you want to enter different account information, hold down the Shift key (Windows) or the Option key (Mac OS) when opening the file."

The problem lies in the hot key trigger used to launch Filemaker. If the Option key (Mac) or Shift key (Windows) is part of the hot key trigger, FileMaker sees these keys being pressed and assumes it is a request to enter different account information, thus asking for a password. Changing the hot key trigger so as not to include Option/Shift will fix this behavior.

The Stuff at the End of the Newsletter

We sincerely hope this newsletter has provided an item or two of interest to everyone. As a periodic publication, we hope to incorporate suggestions from the readership and iron out any problems uncovered along the way. If you have any feedback regarding this newsletter, please send it to newsletter@startly.com.

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