Introduction:
WireKeys is multi-purpose automation tool for power users with extensive tray support.
This program can improve your productivity in various ways: Common actions with text (regardles of the currently running task),
windows, access to frequently used folders or documents or applications can be greatly simplified.
WireKeys provide an easy way to hold all this possibilities just at your fingertips.
This tutorial contains examples of some of WireKeys' most useful tasks: operations with selected
text, additional clipboards, quick access to the special window's controls, the floater, and so
on. Note that all hotkeys and combinations used below are the WireKeys defaults. You can change
any or all of them as needed.
Descriptions of other features, such as WinAmp control, Smart CD eject, Screenshot making, Boss
key, Desktop switching, Resolution changer, and more, can be found elsewhere in these Help pages.
1. Operations with selected text
A) Run selected text as from command string. You can greatly increase the speed of starting
applications and opening documents. Type the name of the desired application or select the path
to the document, press the 'Ctrl-Alt-R' hotkey (all 3 keys at the same
time), and WireKeys will execute corresponding command for you!
See the examples below. Select the text and press the hotkey for each box.
This feature keeps a history of use. To popup this history, double-press the hotkey as explained
below.
Press and hold 'Ctrl' then 'Alt' then 'R'.
Release 'R' still holding Ctrl and Alt.
Press 'R' again.
Then release all three keys.
(This hotkey combination can be referenced as 'Ctr-Alt-R-R')
In this history of use, you can "pin" favorite items for later use by selecting item with the
'Shift' key.
B) Inline calculator. Enter an expression that ends with '=' (equal sign) and press 'Ctrl-Alt-R'.
The expression will be replaced by its result. Look at the examples below. With WireKeys running,
you could enter '2+2=' including the equals sign and press 'Ctrl-Alt-R', then release them, and the number 4 will appear in its place.
Try this: put cursor behind expression and press Ctrl-Alt-R
Expressions can be very complex. You can use mathematical functions (such as those found in
JavaScript), perform simple translations between different numbering systems (such as hex, decimal and
octal), or write a small, C-like program and run it in-line.
C) Changing case/keyboard layout of the text. Select the text in this field and press
'Ctrl-Alt-Gray Minus' (Gray Minus is the key from keyboard's additional pad where 'Num lock' key
can usually be found). This will popup an additional menu with
the currently available actions. Move your mouse pointer onto the "Selected text" submenu and
choose "Convert to lower case" to change the case of the selected text. For quick access, you can
set a hotkey for every item in this submenu. The case of the selected text can be automatically
changed with the 'Alt-`' hotkey by default The '`' key (called grave, and pronounced grah-vay) is
found below the Escape key to the left of the number 1 key.
If you have more than one keyboard layout on your computer, WireKeys can automatically change
text typed in the wrong layout using the 'Ctrl-`' hotkey. The keyboard will be automatically
converted into right layout as well.
D) Context menu. Almost anything you can do with selected etxt can be called from special context menu in any application.
Select text, press Control key and click on text with right mouse button to popup it. Try to call this menu on the following text:
E) Text macros Macros are used to perform different repetitive specific actions and to process
selected text. Select the first line of text below and call the hot menu ('Ctrl-Alt-Gray Minus'),
then choose any appropriate macro from its submenu. Initially WireKeys does not assign hotkeys to
pre-installed macros - this can be done on your own through preferences dialog.
You can use additional macros from our web-site or create and add your own macros. The only thing you
need to do that is the implementation of your specific text processing in the JavaScript or VBScript
language. To learn more about macros, refer to the 'macros help page'
You can also record keyboard into macro using "Record macro feature".
Short 'How to': Start recording and press key you wish to see in macro.
Then press "Save and close" to add macro to WireKeys and assign hotkey for it.
You can record mouse clicks and movements too - Just choose what you wnat to record after pressing
"Record macro" item in tray menu
2. Additional clipboards
Additional clipboards help you manage many blocks of text at once. Normally, you have only one
clipboard, and when you copy text (hereafter referred to as a snippet) into it, all previous data
is lost. With WireKeys you can copy snippets into different clipboards at the same time and hold
them until you need them. Data copied to additional clipboards is NOT copied to the standard clipboard,
these clipboards can be used in addition to the standard clipboard.
WireKeys saves clipboard contents between shutdowns, so you can copy a
snippet today and use it tomorrow. Additional clipboards can also hold images. By default,
WireKeys adds 3 clipboards; you can have up to 99 clipboards.
With the NumLock key turned on, use hotkey 'Ctrl-Num 1' (where 'Num 1' is the 1 key
on your keyboard's right-hand keypad) to copy to clipboard #1. 'Ctrl-Num 2' copies to clipboard
#2; 'Ctrl-Num 3' copies to clipboard #3; and so on. Use 'Alt-Num 1', 'Alt-Num 2', and 'Alt-Num 3'
to paste snippets from their respective clipboards into a document or textbox as needed.
With WireKeys running, try this. Select 'Text for clipboard 1' from the textbox below and press
'Ctrl-Num 1', then select 'Text for clipboard 2' and press 'Ctrl-Num 2'.
Then click the textbox next to 'Try here' and randomly
press 'Alt-Num 1' and 'Alt-Num 2' a few times. You should see each snippet being
pasted into the box proving that all three are available as needed.
1) Every clipboard has a history of use. You can use clipboards as much as you want and can revert to the previously used snippet at any time. Access a history by pressing 'Win-Num 1',
'Win-Num 2', 'Win-Num 3', and so on. WireKeys adds every item to the top of the corresponding
history and moves all previous snippets down. You can define the maximum number of history
snippets in preferences. You can 'pin' your favorite item in the history, so it will never be
removed. To pin a snippet, open the history, press and hold the 'Shift' key, and click desired
item.
2)WireKeys adds a history of use to the standard clipboard too. Press 'Win-V' to access the standard clipboard's history of use.
By assigning hotkey to "Show application-specific history" action, You can call history in filtered mode. Press this hotkey to get history of items from the currently active application.
Additional clipboard can also be extended with additional plugin - "Right-Click paste enchancer" (can be downloaded from here).
This plugin adds history of the clipboard to all popup/context menus in almost *all* applications, instead of (or next to) standard 'Paste' item,so you will always be able see and choose what text you want to paste
Clipboard-related hotkeys by default
Standard
Clip #1
Clip #2
Clip #3
Copy
Ctrl-C
Ctrl-Num 1
Ctrl-Num 2
Ctrl-Num 3
Paste
Ctrl-V
Alt-Num 1
Alt-Num 2
Alt-Num 3
Popup history
Win-V
Win-Num 1
Win-Num 2
Win-Num 3
3. Convinient ways to control windows
With WireKeys you can hide windows to the tray, minimize them to the taskbar or into a floater,
roll them up to the titlebar, change a window's 'On-top' state, move it back into view, change
its opacity, create a shortcut or hotkey for quick access, and much more. All these actions can
be done using hotkeys, but there are alternatives.
1) Another way to quickly call these commands is through the hot menu. Press the 'Ctrl-Alt-Gray Minus' hotkey and choose the desired option. Note that the action's hotkey can also be found on the right side of the menu item,
so it's easy to remember hotkey combinations. Check submenus to get an idea what 'force' you have now
2) In the 'System actions', you can view and set some window's parameters and look at the corresponding application's information. (This information will open in a separate window.)
3) Visit "Application shortcut" menu. Here you can instantly add hotkey to run this application, create link to it on desktop or quick launch bar, make this application automatically hide to tray when you switch to another one
WireKeys has a built-in plugin called "Window's traits". This allows you to control window
actions by mouse gestures or even automatically.
3) With this plugin, you can minimize any window to the tray by right-clicking the window's minimize button,
roll it up to its titlebar by right-clicking the window's maximize button, and open the hot menu by right-clicking the
window's close button.
4) If you minimize an application to the tray, you can still access its main
menu directly through tray icon's menu. Also you can detach a hidden window into a floater. A floater is a small icon that sits
on your screen without obscuring your tray. Floater will hide itself automatically if you place mouse pointer over it without
clicking on floater for while. Double click on icon in tray or floater
to unhide corresponding window.
5) Plugin will modify system menu of each application you use.
Using system menu you can quickly assign a hotkey to the active application,
hide the application and open additional menus. System menu can be called by
the 'Win-Space' hotkey or by right-clicking the window's title or
by clicking icon in the top-left corner of window's title .
Some special actions when the cursor becomes a right-left or up-down arrow:
- Dock the window to the screen edges by left-clicking its resizing areas
- Expand the window by right-clicking its resizing areas. Repeat this action to revert the window to its original size.
You can use this to quickly align several windows near the screen edge.
The "Window's traits" plugin can also automatically hide unused windows. For example, let's say
you are reading your email in your email program. When you are done reading, you can simply
switch to another application, and WireKeys will move the unused email program to the tray
automatically. You can define a list of applications that you want moved to the tray (or to a
floater) in preferences.
4. Window`s floater
A floater keeps your tray uncluttered by creating icons that must be visible anyway but not
adding them to the tray. To create a floater:
- Click a hotkey (as defined in preferences)
- Choose the corresponding menu item from a minimized-to-tray application
- Set the corresponding option for a quick-run item
A floater can be temporarily hidden by holding the mouse cursor over it for a few seconds.
If you create a floater from the quick-run folder, you can browse the folder's contents from the
floater's context menu and quickly copy files into that folder by dragging them onto the
floater's window.
5. Context menus and quick access to preferences
Almost every item in the tray menu has its own context menu which you can right-click it to get additional benefits:
- Set process priority, view process information, etc.
- Select the resolution with different BPP/Color depth combinations
- Detach quick-run into a separate icon, show quick-run options, and more
- Popup explorer's menu for the selected file
Tip: To quickly set options for a particular feature, you can choose the item from the menu with the Shift key. This will popup the corresponding section from the preferences dialog (instead of
activating the chosen feature).
6. Open/Save dialog improvements and shell extensions
1) WireKeys extends Explorer`s context menu with some new and useful items. To see additional items right-click
on any file or folder in Explorer and look into "WK Specials" and "Jump to folder" submenus.
2) Look at any Open/Save dialog and middle-click on dialog title. You will instantly get list of the recently used folders.
By choosing item from this list, you will jump to this folder quickly, without need of drilling through
folders manually. This will work in Open/Save dialogs in Explorer, Microsoft Office, Total Commander
and many other programs - just click on dialog title with middle mouse button
3) You can also assign hotkey to quickly jump to favourite folder or change dialog style (icons, list, thumbnails, etc) by hotkey
8. Scheduler
Every hotkey in preferences has special 'plus' mark. Click on it to open submenu with action`s schedule.
You can add schedule to any action that can be called with hotkey
9. Hotkeys
Up to 3 hotkeys can be assigned to any action. With extended hotkey processing, you can assign
hotkeys like RCtrl-1-2-3. (This hotkey would be triggered by pressing Right-Ctrl, key 1, key 2
and key 3 simultaneously.) Using this type of key combination, it is easy to assign meaningful,
self-describing hotkeys. You can include mouse buttons and borders in your hotkeys. To enter such
hotkeys in preferences, choose items from the context menu to add them to hotkey.
You can also automatically activate hotkey`s action by schedule or by
typing simple alias of your choice in any text window. See hotkey`s suboptions
You can reassign standard Windows hotkeys (like Win-R or Win-F). You can also use the
"Press-and-Hold" effect to create unique hotkeys. To define such hotkeys, just press the
combination and hold it for 2 seconds. (This timeout can be changed in preferences).
Useful tip: You can disable the Caps Lock key to prevent accidental toggling. The Caps
Lock toggle will be performed with "Shift-Caps Lock" instead. Then you can use this key in your
combinations too! If you don't want to use left and right Shift/Alt/Control/Win keys separately,
you can disable this feature in the 'Extended hotkeys processing' in preferences.
You can always get a list of all currently active hotkeys by choosing "List all hotkeys" from the
"Help" submenu of the tray menu.
If you have unanswered questions about any WireKeys feature, please
use our support forum or
email our support services. More information can be found elsewhere in these Help pages.
