Unity Pro and keystroke program

[BobB]

In the old DOS days (and early Windows) there were key stroke programs available. Program a key combination to insert a string.
Does anyone know of a keystroke program that will run on XP Pro and work in Unity Pro?
I wish to have some key combinations set up to automatically insert the early part of an address so that I only have to type in either the channel and bit number or just the bit number.
Save me a heck of a lot of time.
It may even be built into Unity Pro but if it is I have not found it.

[GeoffC]

Not sure what you are trying to achieve, but a couple of thoughts.
To enter the tags in the first place you could use an excel spreadsheet and the import function.
When using tags in the program the autocomplete function will do a lot of the work in entering the tagnames. Note the autocomplete table is built up as you use the tags in the program, ie first time you would need to enter pump1_run but the next time you would only need to enter p and it will autocomplete.
Another method is to do a section of logic with no tags, then just drag from the symbol table
You could make your tags as short as you like while building the program and then when you are finished change the tags to something meaningful (don't worry - the change is reflected immediately throughout the program)

Hope this helps

[Doug-P]

I'm not sure if this is quite what you're looking for but, there's a program called 'mclipbrd'. It sets up ten clipboards accessible to windows programs just like the one that comes standard with windows. Maybe it'll work for you.

http://www.nonags.com/nonags/clipb.html

After checking at Nonags, I don't see mclipbrd listed anymore. There are several others though.

I could email you a copy if you're interested.

[BobB]

Thanks for the replies.
Will have to have a look around and see what I can find.
By the way, I am old and old fashioned - dislike symbol programming and find using numbers much easier and certainly much fatsre except when having to type in all the address required by Unity Pro. Just trying to make life easier for myself.

[GeoffC]

Bob
Be careful if you use direct addressing you will find it very difficult to cross reference and search
Note that only the i/o and externally referenced (SCADA) tags need to be assigned an address, all internal tags do not need to be addressed

[mellis]

Bob,

Just get a programmable keyboard. You can program any string and assign it to any key. Totally independant of the software you are running, and you can change assigments as you go. I used to use one in Autocad for much the same reasons.

[JHarbin]

Originally Posted by mellis

Bob,

Just get a programmable keyboard. You can program any string and assign it to any key. Totally independant of the software you are running, and you can change assigments as you go. I used to use one in Autocad for much the same reasons.

Can you still find a decent programmable keyboard.

One of our VPs and I both use old Gateway Anykey Keyboards (Maxiswitch) but haven't seen a good replacement. I bet mine has saved me hundreds if not thousands of hours over the years.

If you know of one, a link would be appreciated - we don't know what we will do if our's fail.

[JBJennings]

LOL this one..... http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/ but I personally use this one.... http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/43...?WT.z_sp=Image It has 18 keys that are programmable with 3 separate macros for each G-key and the LCD is awesome.

Looking forward to the Logitech G19 in the future (Color LCD version)

[JHarbin]

Originally Posted by JBJennings

LOL this one..... http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/ but I personally use this one.... http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/43...?WT.z_sp=Image It has 18 keys that are programmable with 3 separate macros for each G-key and the LCD is awesome.

Looking forward to the Logitech G19 in the future (Color LCD version)

The G19 is available at Amazon US.

If I don't "game" is the LCD good for anything?

[mellis]

I used to use the old Gateway programmable keybpard too. I have a couple, they both quit working long ago.

I see JBJennings beat me to pointing out that the current users of programmable keybpards are gamers. Just try to deal with the "Star Trek" look and enjoy the function.

[JBJennings]

The LCD also shows your Media Player info, a Digital clock, and other useless information. On the G19 it can also display thumbnails.

[Robobob]

Try www.autohotkey.com/
I think this is what you are looking for. You write macros that are triggered by key strokes. There is a forum of users to help in writing the macros

[chud]

As Geoff said I would seriously considder moving to symbol tags. That will save the most time

[BobB]

AAARRGGHHH! Hate symbol programming! I like numbers.
Will have a serious look at autohotkey though. Thanks for the tip. Nice to see a few like minded people here quite frankly.
I use the keyboard all the time - beats the heck out of getting RSI from a flaming mouse.
I guess if one did not grow up in DOS days the GUI is great but for us old folk it is a resource intensive pain in the 'A'.

[GeoffC]

Bob

Why not use symbols that are numbers prefixed with a letter or underscore
eg 'A1', '_1'. I think that would require less keystrokes than even the best hotkey program. They would appear in your variable table so searching and cross referencing is easy and you can assign a description, you cannot assign a description to an address.

You could either

-use a spreadsheet to create the variable table assigning symbols starting at 'I1' to the input addresses, 'Q1' to the outputs and 'M1' to internals and import the table

-or just start programming and enter for example I1 for the variable (no need to declare before using) Unity will prompt if this is a new variable and you only need to hit the enter key. No need to use the mouse. At any stage you can assign the address to the symbol.

That brings up another benefit. You dont need to know the addresses before you start, or if you need to change an address it is a simple matter of changing the symbol address assignment, not searching through changing each instance