Rank: Member
Joined: 12/6/2010(UTC) Posts: 10  Location: Nantes, France
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Hello,
I'm currently finishing my evaluation of ManicTime (and will most likely buy it). Note that I use ManicTime in French, so the button and menu names below might not be accurate; I'm back-translating to English as I write this message.
I tend to do most of my tagging using the lower-left panel, selecting activities using Click, Shift-Click, Control-Click and Mouse ScrollWheel. This is sufficiently efficient. However, once activities are selected, I find there are some ergonomic slowdowns in tagging them, that could be cured by a few keyboard shortcuts:
Quite simply, have a keyboard shortcut to the big "Add tags..." button. Currently, once my selection is done, I have to move the mouse all the way from the bottom of the screen to the top of screen where the button is, then to the middle of the screen where the Tag window appears, then back down again. A single instance of this gymnastic is not much of a bother, but I tend to repeat it dozens of time when I tag items, for a total between 100 or 200 times per day! This keyboard shortcut might cut my mouse movements by half, which would be an enormous gain. Rather than a key combo (using Alt or Control), direct key input (a function key such as F6 or a simple letter such as T) would be best.
I make use of the nice "Zoom to Selection" feature. However, when I select another item in the bottom-left list (especially in the "Display only untagged activities" mode), I often can't see it in the current zoom level. I have to move the mouse all the way to the right of the screen, click the "Auto-zoom" button, then move the mouse to select "Zoom to Selection" again. It would be good to have a shortcut to trigger "Auto-zoom".
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Rank: Administration
Joined: 4/13/2010(UTC)
Posts: 872
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For the shortcut, CTRL-T should open up Add tag window.
Maybe it would be good if right click on non selected area wouldn't reset selection, but offer the zoom to selection menu?
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Rank: Member
Joined: 12/6/2010(UTC) Posts: 10 Location: Nantes, France
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Excellent news, apparently I missed that information when I read the documentation. It will most certainly be useful! I don't know if right clicking on non selected areas should reset the selection (depending on whether there's already a tag where we click or not?). Ideally, as discussed in my other post, such an entry would be available in the lower-left pane context menu (where I made the selection in the first place). Anyway, I find I click the Auto-zoom button often enough (and it is far away enough) that a shortcut key could be valuable. :-) Edited by user Monday, December 6, 2010 3:54:27 PM(UTC)
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Rank: Newbie
Joined: 12/6/2010(UTC)
Posts: 3
Location: UK
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Funny how on the day I sign up to ask about short-cut keys...someone else does too!
Anyway, I have been using the free version for a long time and it's great. Recently, I discovered the Pro version and found a few really nice features, one of which is the stopwatch. I was wondering if there's a possibility of putting a 'use anywhere' keyboard short-cut for starting and stopping this. I know you can right-click the task icon and choose from there, but if I want to quickly start tagging a phone call, it would be a lot handier to hit 'F10', type a few tags, then press 'Enter' to start.
Maybe I'm just lazy but if I'm using the keyboard to type the tags, then I would find it easier to use it the whole way through. Also, being able to specify what key the short-cut is assigned to would be a BIG bonus! :)
I know this may be awkward as MT wouldn't have the focus, and may just be on in the system tray, but I've seen other programs do it so I think it should be possible.
If this could be added it a new version, then consider me upgraded! ;)
Richard.
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Rank: Member
Joined: 12/6/2010(UTC) Posts: 10 Location: Nantes, France
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Such shortcuts are known as global shortcuts. They take over any shortcut defined in any application running at the same time. There's apparently a Windows API to enable programs to configure them, but you have to be careful about what you do there: using F10 as a global shortcut would be a bad choice (as many programs use it for their own functionality). What is more often used for global shortcuts are more complicated combinations, such as Ctrl-Shift-E, Ctrl-Alt-T, etc. Not much more difficult to use, but much less likely to conflict with another program.
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Rank: Administration
Joined: 4/13/2010(UTC)
Posts: 872
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We will take a look at the global shortcuts. I must admit I'm not to knowledgeable about this so we will see what we find out.
About global shortcut for Start stopwatch. How would you end it? Currently in the context menu for the icon we have Start stopwatch, then Stop stopwatch and Start new. So it looks like we need two keys, one to start and one to stop?
It also looks like we need shortcuts for Auto zoom and Zoom to selection?
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Rank: Member
Joined: 12/6/2010(UTC) Posts: 10 Location: Nantes, France
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It can be the same shortcut for the stopwatch, which toggles it between started and stopped (with maybe a notification displayed by the application so that the user knows the current state of the stopwatch). I know I have such a global shortcut to start / pause my music player. Note that I don't use the stopwatch myself.
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Rank: Newbie
Joined: 12/6/2010(UTC)
Posts: 3
Location: UK
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I understand about having to use complex shortcuts to avoid conflict with other programs but I think if it was customizable then there wouldn't be an issue. For example, I personally don't use any programs with certain function keys at all, so I would like to be able to set one. But...if I did get an issue at some stage, I could always change it. Maybe this over complicates it, but it would be nice.
I know of one program that uses 'F11' as a global shortcut but doesn't allow you to change it (just turn it off and on) and because that conflicts with another program I use, I had to turn it off but it would've been nicer if I could have changed it.
I also think the start/stop being the same would be fine. If I want to start another stopwatch for different tags, I could just press it twice. So, in my head (if the shortcut was F10) I could press F10, set my tags and reminder, then press F10 when I'm done. If I want to start another straight away, I just press F10 again. As a nice touch, when I press the shortcut to end the stopwatch a message box saying that it's stopped would be good (in case I accidentally pressed the key!) as long as I could just press 'Enter' to dismiss it. As a REALLY nice touch, making it a small see-through notification which disappears after a while (like in Outlook when you get a new mail) would be awesome , but I could live without that! ;)
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