The trouble with a Tablet PC is the lack of a keyboard. Ok, you can use the stylus, but some applications rely on awkward keystroke combinations which just aren’t readily available on a Tablet PC. There’s one particular website I often access with my Tablet PC which never seems to remember my password, and also seems to fox my browser so that it can’t remember it either. So I end up having to bring up the on screen keyboard and type out my email address and password. And I nearly always make a mistake. Well I did. Now I use QuickButtons on my Tablet.
QuickButtons lets you create Button Bars. You can add buttons and assign keyboard scripts to buttons. So I’ve created a button which when clicked will enter my username and password. I have my QuickButtons bar at the top of the screen and set to auto-hide – just like the Windows Taskbar does. So I just move my stylus up to the top and click on the button. Simple. Much easier than fiddling about with the hand-writing recogniser or on-screen keyboard. Buttons can also be set to run other applications. It’s particularly good in conjunction with Macro Scheduler. I have buttons which run Macro Scheduler macros.
So QuickButtons lets me reduce awkward keystrokes to single mouse clicks.
The software was originally written to help a young boy with Muscular Dystrophy. He struggled to use the keyboard, but with QuickButtons his parents were able to create large buttons which performed those keystrokes for him when he clicked on them with the mouse.
QuickButtons 1.6 is now available, with support for additional keys, new icons and updated appearance. You can download it here.
