ShortcutMe - Windows Utitlity to Easily Create Keyboard Shortcuts
■ ShortcutMe
■ Important Note
■ Example
Do you open a particular software or file or website very frequently ? Have you ever wished if you could open it with a keyboard shortcut ? I always wanted to open Command Prompt in Windows just like in Ubuntu where ALT+CTRL+T will open the Terminal window. I have always missed that shortcut. You can do the same in Windows by creating a shortcut of it and assigning a key combination for it. But the problem is there is a delay of two seconds before Windows opens the app associated with the key stroke. I didn't use them only because of this reason. It is also difficult to create shortcut files for each and every application. So I made an app by myself to solve this problem.
ShortcutMe
It is a very simple Windows Utility designed in Visual Studio. I used VB.NET. Basically what it does is, it monitors your keystrokes just like a key logger and if the key combinations match with the any of the shortcuts you defined in the application it will execute the corresponding action.
Some antivirus applications which are just looking for code signatures but not the personality of the software, may flag the application as malicious. Don't worry about that, it is only because it monitors your keystrokes. Keyloggers do that for bad things. ShortcutMe does that for a good thing.
The shortcut action can be a software, a normal file or a link. You can assign various combination of shortcuts. It can be combinations of ALT, SHIFT, CTRL and any letter from A-Z. You need at least one letter and one modifier key (any of alt, shift, ctrl) to create a shortcut.
You must minimize ShortcutMe to hide it. It will run in the background and a icon will be shown in the notification area. Clicking on it will bring ShortcutMe back again. On the other hand if you close it, it will exit and the shortcuts will not work.
You must enable Run on Startup option because if you disable it, you will have to open the app again to enable the shortcuts after a restart. All the shortcuts are saved in the AppData folder. So you can place the exe file anywhere in your computer. It is completely portable. It require .NET framework version 2.0 which is built in to Windows XP on wards. So don't worry about that.
It uses internet connection for checking if there is a new update. A request is made to api.innoventionist.com every time the app is opened and every 1 hr. It transfers only few bytes. It is to keep the application up to date.
Important Note
This app gives you freedom to choose any keyboard shortcuts. That means you can set one for CTRL+C also. But this is assigned to copy operation by Windows. So don't choose such key combinations. It will work. It will copy the contents and will execute the shortcut. Isn't it inappropriate ? But you can do whatever you want. It is your creativity. Also the same case applies if you create two shortcuts like CTRL+M and SHIFT+CTRL+M. So if I press SHIFT+CTRL+M it will execute both the shortcut actions because second shortcut combination contains the first one. I hope you got the point.
Example
You can add command prompt like this:
You can save your to do list in a text file and link to it like this:
If you want to have a keyboard shortcut to open your favorite website you can do it like this:
Resulting items will look like this:
Now try your keyboard shortcuts.. How was it ? Let me know your feedback. I will improve it in the next version based on the response. If you like it share with your friends. You can subscribe to my blog with the form in right side. You can also like my Facebook Page for more updates. Good day !