Good evening
I have been looking for some time for something that might emulate SwiftKey on my desktop machines and after a short trial (10 minutes) decided to purchase FastKeys.
Although I am greatly impressed by what I have seen so far I am afraid I have a short list of questions / suggestions and would very much appreciate some help.
1. Is it possible to set a keyboard short cut to open the settings window ?
2. I am sure it will eventually become less of a problem but at the moment I am constantly in and out of the Settings panel changing various items, shortcuts and phrases etc.. Unfortunately, in order to test each item it appears to be necessary to press “Save” which then closes the window. Is it possible to save any changes without closing the Settings Window? And if not would you consider adding a second button so that there is “Save” (which would leave the window open) and “Save and Close” ?
3. I have set the option to show “Shortcut numbers” on the various dropdown lists but, although they work with the numbers along the top of the keyboard, they don’t appear to work with the numbers on my Numberpad. Is this a problem with my machine or something that could be added / fixed?
4. Having used SwiftKey for the last couple of years I am used to inserting items from the autocomplete list by pressing the Spacebar, which incidentally automatically inserts a space after the word. My question therefore is whether it would be possible to emulate this behaviour in FastKeys ? I realise it might be pushing the boundaries of what can be done with AutoHotkey but SwiftKey also removes any preceding space when any of the punctuation keys such as a full stop are pressed.
5. Looking at the Autocomplete suggestions it is likely that I will want to make a number of changes to the wordlist. Adding words with the shortcut key is relatively easy but removing items seems to be a lot more difficult. Firstly, because one has to open the settings panel and then the Wordlist and then because the items appear to be in almost random order. So to remove for example NeXt and NEXT one has to search through the entire list and find each one in turn and delete it.
I also don’t understand what determines the order in which entries appear in the autocomplete dropdown list – for some reason they don’t appear to be alphabetic (e.g. helps, help, Help, helping, helpful etc.). Perhaps there is a reason which is not self-evident but it seems counter intuitive to me.
So my questions are: will it cause a problem if I sort the Wordlists alphabetically? How can I get the autocomplete suggestions to appear in alphabetic order? And would it be possible to make deleting a word in the list much easier by, say, scrolling down to the word that I want to remove and pressing the delete key?
6. Finally, would it be possible with a single shortcut key to have a drop down list of Shortcuts. As I already use a large number of keyboard shortcuts it becomes increasingly difficult to find and remember new ones.
I am sorry for the length of the above which is entirely a result of my enthusiasm for the software.
Many thanks.
MKey
New user - various questions
Hi MKey and welcome to the forum! Thanks for your suggestions, this kind of feedback helps us making the sofware better. Very much appreciated! Here are some initial thoughts:
1. The fastest way to open the settings window is to click the tray icon. Currently it is not possible to set a shortcut but this may be added in the future releases.
2. We may think about adding an "Apply" button to the settings window.
3. Numpad keys are currently not supported. It will be implemented in the next release. EDIT: implemented in 2.18 today.
4. In FastKeys pressing a Spacebar key actually resets a current word and hides the pop-up suggestions window. I believe this behaviour is more intiutive and faster.
5. You can use any wordlist.txt file (many can be found on internet). The default English wordlist is a list of most common words sorted by frequency. However FastKeys also uses some additional complex algorithms for sorting the words internally and this can currently not be changed. We may consider adding few additional user preferences to allow user to have more control over this behaviour.
6. It would be possible to implement a Shortcuts drop down list, however, wouldn't it be be more convenient to add such commands to the Start Menu (new FastKeys version will allow more menus with their shortcuts)?
Thanks again for your helpful suggestions. As mentioned, some of them can (and will) be easily implemented, for others it may take longer...
1. The fastest way to open the settings window is to click the tray icon. Currently it is not possible to set a shortcut but this may be added in the future releases.
2. We may think about adding an "Apply" button to the settings window.
3. Numpad keys are currently not supported. It will be implemented in the next release. EDIT: implemented in 2.18 today.
4. In FastKeys pressing a Spacebar key actually resets a current word and hides the pop-up suggestions window. I believe this behaviour is more intiutive and faster.
5. You can use any wordlist.txt file (many can be found on internet). The default English wordlist is a list of most common words sorted by frequency. However FastKeys also uses some additional complex algorithms for sorting the words internally and this can currently not be changed. We may consider adding few additional user preferences to allow user to have more control over this behaviour.
6. It would be possible to implement a Shortcuts drop down list, however, wouldn't it be be more convenient to add such commands to the Start Menu (new FastKeys version will allow more menus with their shortcuts)?
Thanks again for your helpful suggestions. As mentioned, some of them can (and will) be easily implemented, for others it may take longer...
Hi Marko
Many thanks for the rapid response - it was much appreciated.
Following your numbering:
1. Understood –it just seemed odd for what is essentially a keyboard utility to have to use the mouse. I see I can easily use a shortcut to the Start menu and access the settings from there.
2. An “Apply” button would be great.
3. Many thanks for the Numpad - that was amazingly quick.
4. I understand your point. I was thinking in terms of Swiftkey where the text one types is entered into a box rather than the document and is only inserted into the document when one presses the spacebar. On reflection I was probably hoping for too much – for such a system to work you would probably have to replicate their predictive text engine which I imagine would only take about ten years to develop! Perhaps they will bring out a PC version.
5. I have been experimenting with some other wordlists but would nonetheless welcome the ability to influence the order in which words appear in the list. So will wait and see what you come up with.
6. Agreed - I hadn’t realised that it was possible to add the commands to the Start Menu - it works perfectly.
I fear that I will have more questions as I get used to the software.
In the meantime thank you again for the rapid response and for making the changes so quickly.
MKey
Apologies for the confusion but I appear to have signed my messages with a signature "Mkey" that is different from my User name "FastM".
I also managed to post the above as MKey without logging in! Had I logged in correctly it would have said FastM.
FastM
Many thanks for the rapid response - it was much appreciated.
Following your numbering:
1. Understood –it just seemed odd for what is essentially a keyboard utility to have to use the mouse. I see I can easily use a shortcut to the Start menu and access the settings from there.
2. An “Apply” button would be great.
3. Many thanks for the Numpad - that was amazingly quick.
4. I understand your point. I was thinking in terms of Swiftkey where the text one types is entered into a box rather than the document and is only inserted into the document when one presses the spacebar. On reflection I was probably hoping for too much – for such a system to work you would probably have to replicate their predictive text engine which I imagine would only take about ten years to develop! Perhaps they will bring out a PC version.
5. I have been experimenting with some other wordlists but would nonetheless welcome the ability to influence the order in which words appear in the list. So will wait and see what you come up with.
6. Agreed - I hadn’t realised that it was possible to add the commands to the Start Menu - it works perfectly.
I fear that I will have more questions as I get used to the software.
In the meantime thank you again for the rapid response and for making the changes so quickly.
MKey
Apologies for the confusion but I appear to have signed my messages with a signature "Mkey" that is different from my User name "FastM".
I also managed to post the above as MKey without logging in! Had I logged in correctly it would have said FastM.
FastM
I have problems with the new numpad support. Now you can only write 3 numbers at the 4 number the entry will be selected ! This is impractical if you have many phone numbers . Can you make in the settings on and off this option ?
I cannot imagine in which case would this be a problem. You type a number and a pop-up appears - do you want to continue writing a similar number?
Anyway, in my opinion Numpad shortcuts are too much and not needed in practice.
Anyway, in my opinion Numpad shortcuts are too much and not needed in practice.
Hello thinmanthinman wrote:
I cannot imagine in which case would this be a problem. You type a number and a pop-up appears - do you want to continue writing a similar number?
Anyway, in my opinion Numpad shortcuts are too much and not needed in practice.
I guess it is horses for courses. I just find it easier to use the Numpad than the number keys along the top of the keyboard.
I have to confess that when I asked for the option it hadn't occurred to me that some users would be using FastKeys to enter telephone and other numbers. Perhaps, if it could be done, it should be an option that can be turned off by those who would prefer not to use it.
FastM