Customizing Your Software Can Be an Easy Job
Most of us are content to use our software just as it comes from the box (or off the disk). In fact, many computer users may not even know how easy it is to customize software so that it takes fewer keystrokes to operate.
The secret lies in using a program, such as SmartKey, that allows you to redefine what happens when you press a key on your computer’s keyboard.
For instance, while using a word processing program, you could use SmartKey to define one of your keys to close your letters--so that with a touch of that key, the cursor on your screen would space across the line to the proper point, enter “Yours truly,” add a couple of blank lines and type your name. That entire sequence could be stored under a single function key or a Control or Alternate key.
Any series of characters or instructions that you use repeatedly, be they numbers or text or program commands or any combination of the three, can be entered with a single keystroke using SmartKey.
There are several keyboard definition programs on the market, such as ProKey and SuperKey, but SmartKey was the first, having originated in 1979 for computers using the CP/M operating system.
When the IBM Personal Computer came along in 1981, introducing 16-bit microprocessors and a new operating system, PC-DOS, the publishers of SmartKey were slow to upgrade their program to take advantage of the PC’s advanced features and quickly lost out to ProKey in the IBM and IBM-compatible market.
But now SmartKey’s publisher, Software Research Technologies, is attempting to regain a portion of the market with two new versions: SmartKey 5.0, for the PC/MS-DOS world and SmartKey 4.2 for Kaypro computers using the CP/M operating system. Both versions have a list price of $49.95. Software Research is at 3757 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 211, Los Angeles, Calif. 90010. The telephone number is (213) 384-4120.
SmartKey and the other keyboard-definition programs tuck themselves away in the computer’s memory in a niche where they won’t interfere with your regular application programs. They work by calling on a set of keystroke definitions stored in a file that is loaded into memory along with SmartKey. A separate key-definition file would be used for each application program.
Each key can be given as many as seven different meanings, allowing more than 300 definitions to be stored. The program requires only five kilobytes of memory in CP/M systems and 21K in PC/MS-DOS versions.
SmartKey is compatible with nearly all programs, except IRMA, Leading Edge Word Processor, SmartCom II, Samna Word and Samna Word III and XY-Write.
The PC/MS-DOS version of SmartKey has one feature that adds flexibility to the key definitions. It allows you to design pop-up windows of any size or location in which you can create custom menus. Then, at whatever point you specify in a key’s operation, such a menu can be displayed on your screen and prompt you with as many as 10 choices of action.
With word processing programs, for instance, you might set up a key that first would let you create a document and then display a custom menu of formatting choices for margin settings, line spacing and text justification from which to choose.
Some of the more sophisticated spreadsheet and word processing programs available include “macro” features of their own that allow keys to be redefined while in the program. But you might find SmartKey more advantageous than using such macros because it offers you a consistent way to redefine keys, no matter what program you are using.
Other attractive features of SmartKey 5.0 are the ability to render your keyboard unusable when you’re away from your desk and to encrypt your files so that no one else can read them.
The new CP/M version of SmartKey offers many of the features of the PC/MS-DOS version but not encryption nor custom menu creation nor screen blanking, which prevents images from being burned into your monitor’s screen when you leave the computer on for long periods without using it.
If you have an IBM or compatible and a keyboard definition program such as SmartKey and want to customize your computer to make it easier to use, you’ll find the book “The Fully Powered PC” useful. A PC World Book, its authors are Burton L. Alperson; Andrew Fluegelman, the late editorial director and former editor-in-chief of PC World magazine, and Lawrence J. Magid, my colleague who writes this column every other week.
“The Fully Powered PC” explains how to use PC/MS-DOS commands along with a keyboard definition program (its examples are based on the use of ProKey but are easily translated to SmartKey) and simple BASIC programs to integrate all your software programs with each other and make them accessible from a system of master and sub-menus.
The book, published by Simon & Shuster ($34.95), also comes with a disk full of useful programs, including all those printed in the book, so you won’t have to spend weeks of tedious typing to take advantage of the integration systems described in the text.
Among programs you’ll get are those that let you use your modem to dial your phone from a name-address-telephone database file, automatically create a computer-use log suitable for IRS requirements, automatically start your business letters, provide a more useful directory of files on your computer disk and make a printed list of a disk’s contents in a format to fit in a disk envelope.
UPDATE: A couple of valuable but little-publicized programs I’ve reviewed in the past have been significantly enhanced and deserve another mention.
MagicPrint, MagicBind and MagicIndex, which use so-called “dot commands” to let you use many word processing programs to set true typeset-quality print on Diablo-compatible daisy wheel or NEC thimble wheel printers, now come in a version to drive the Hewlett Packard Laser Jet from either CP/M or PC/MS-DOS computers.
The programs let you adjust character spacing down to as little as 1/720th of an inch, make six grades of boldface type--even with fonts that don’t have a standard boldface version--and mix any size and style of type on a line and still have a perfectly even right margin.
MagicPrint ($195) is the basic print formatting and footnoting version of the program. MagicBind ($250) also adds file merging and automatic numbering. MagicIndex ($295) has all the above features plus index and table of contents creation.
The programs are available from Computer EdiType Systems, 509 Cathedral Parkway, Suite 10A, New York, N.Y. 10025. The telephone number is (212) 222-8148.
Lync is a telecommunication program that has become more sophisticated over the past several years as version after version has been introduced.
From the beginning, its most unique features have been automatic sensing and setting of telecommunications parameters, such as transfer speed (baud) and data structure (number of data bits, parity and number of stop bits) and the ability to connect two computers via telephone that are running the Lync program and use one to operate the other.
Now Lync version 5.0 adds two important, and unique, features.
One is the ability to convert any binary file into an ASCII file before sending it over the telephone and to reconvert it when received. (Binary files can be composed of 256 kinds of characters, while ASCII files can use only 128 kinds.)
The importance of this feature is that it allows sending programs that store data in binary format--including the popular Lotus 1-2-3 files or standard WordStar files--via ordinary electronic mail services that recognize only ASCII-formatted files.
In addition, Lync now allows you to encrypt any file you send, even program code sent via the popular “XModem” protocol. That process provides complete security for your files even though you transmit them over public data utilities such as CompuServe, the Source or MCI Mail where someone discovering your password could gain access.
Lync lists for $195 and is available for more than 200 computers including PC/MS-DOS, CP/M and Apple-DOS systems. It is available from Norton-Lambert Corp., P.O. Box 4085, Santa Barbara, Calif. 93140. The telephone number is (805) 687-8896.
