I’m glad to announce the availability of Direct Access 1.5.

It’s a big step forward in ease of use and functionalities if compared to the old version.

Here’s a brief list of the new features:

1. Windows Vista support and a new interface. Direct Access now fully supports Windows Vista and has a new more coherent interface. All the commands information is directly available in the right pane.
2. Use shortcuts to create new commands. This was one of the most requested features. It was rather lengthy adding a new command in the past. Now, you can select a piece of text and press CTRL+SHIFT+W to create a new Autotext command. Likewise, pressing CTRL+SHIFT+A adds a new command to launch the active application.
3. Search for commands. This was another very requested features. You can now search for a command just typing a few keys in the search box. The results are filtered instantly.
4. Support for Macros. You can insert special fields in your command to perform certain operations when the command is executed: for example, you can be requested to enter a piece of text (useful to personalize the text inserted in your email, or to do queries on the web), insert the current date, a special character or position the cursor.

You can have a more detailed look at the new features from the what’s new page.

We also added a new user forum. You are welcome to post your comments and suggestions there. We are also planning to create a command data bank with common phrases organized by context.

Technorati Tags: direct access, autotext, text substitution, email automation

Here are some anticipations of the new features you’ll get in Direct Access 1.5, which I expect to release in beta in January. Here are the main new features of 1.5:

• support for Windows Vista
• reduced memory footprint
• new, redesigned, easier to use interface
• instant search to quickly find your abbreviations
• new powerful functionalities for Autotext commands

The new interface of Direct Access

Office 2007 style tooltips

Commands are displayed so that you can get the maximum amount of information in a very reduced space. For each command you can clearly see its description, abbreviation (the word you have to type to activate it) and the preview. The little yellow ball tells you if the abbreviation requires a confirmation or will be fired immediately.

Instant Search

With Instant Search you can quickly locate your favorite commands typing a few keystrokes. The commands list is updated instantly to reflect your request.

Redesigned edit dialogs with a number of new features

The dialogs used to create commands have been redesigned to be much clearer and easier to use. A number of new commands have been added to perform special tasks:

• insert a manual text input: this allows you to perform a number of tasks: when the command is executed, a pop-up window is displayed asking for additional information: for example, you will be able to search google, wikipedia, a dictionary from any application and compose personalized messages executing a command and typing a parameter of your choice in the input window.
• insert the current date (using the time/date formats of your choice)
• insert special keys like TAB, ENTER
• insert an ASCII character typing it’s ASCII keycode
• have the cursor positioned at a certain place in the inserted text

OSD Command execution confirmation

Direct Access shows an OSD text confirming the execution of a command. So, you immediately know if the command has been correctly triggered.

I’m expecting to release Direct Access 1.5 in beta in January. All registered users will get the upgrade for free.

Technorati Tags: Direct Access, autotext, Nagarsoft

A new version (1.2) of Direct Access has been released today. It’s mainly a maintenance release. Here are the main changes:

• the command detection has been improved reducing its impact on the system (some user, with v.1.1 reported issues typing certain key combinations on some programs)
• Multi monitor support
• Reduced delay when sending text (autotext) to other applications (can now be reduced to 20ms)
• Autotext can be now used in the command prompt window (cmd)
• The Hub does no longer appear in the window list (when ALT tabbing)

Download it from Nagarsoft

They have many names. The dictionary calls them boilerplate text, but you’ll also find them as stationery, AutoText, templates, canned text or text macros. The idea is always the same: type a text once – use it many times.

How many times are you typing the same answers again and again to customers that are asking always the same questions (probably ignoring any FAQ)? Test it! For the next twenty answered mails, pause for a second and think if you didn’t write that answer (complete or in parts) before. You’ll see that it happens more often than you thought.

Having canned text or text macros handy can be a great time saver and taking a little effort organizing the text can quickly pay off. You just have to start it and the more boilerplate replies you have ready, the more time you can save.

Read the in deep discussion of the uses of boiler plate text is in the article Thomas Holtz (reproduced here with permission of the author) published in the September issues of the ASPects, the monthly magazine of the ASP.

Read the full article: boilerplatetext.pdf (40KB)

Technorati Tags: Boilerplate text, text substitution, technical support

I received a message from a customer telling me Direct Access was identified as a key-logger by Spy Sweeper.

Installing the trial version confirmed that as the following screen appeared. Apparently, even with Spy Sweeper active, Direct Access continues to work properly: sometimes a window appears telling me about the “threat”. That’s not the best welcome mat for a prospect who’s just installed the new software!

I cannot blame Spy Sweeper for that: Direct Access works like a key logger since it needs to detect which keys are pressed to recognize the user commands. I tried to contact Webroot about the problem but the case has to be opened by a customer and, unfortunately, it looks like mine is not willing to go through their loops to solve this issue.

If you happen to be a Spy Sweeper customer, please write them about Direct Access so that they can update their definitions.

Direct Access was featured on Bits du Jour on the 10th October and a 50% discount, on sale at 19.97$ instead of 39.95$.

The promotion ended with 17 copies sold at discounted price, plus 2 regular copies. It was great day

I would like to thank Ellen of Bits du Jour for the superb work done on the copy. She wrote it from scratch and patiently mended it according to my suggestions. She also gave me the right to republish it on my website. I believe she’s really good at presenting things from the customer perspective, something that’s really difficult for business owners who “created” their product.

I believe that important roles where played by:

• publishing a note in her blog and newsletter about the upcoming sale. From that day I could see traffic of people from bitsdujour downloading my software so that they are “ready” for the sale.
• the day before the promotion, a link in the main Bitsdujour page pointed to my website (I got roughly the same traffic on the 9th and 10th of October, about 80 visitors from Bits du jour - that’s what Google Analytics said)
• a post from the Direct Access lover Patrick McKenzie on his blog telling about the promotion

A lot of people sent comments and suggestion. It was a really interesting experience and if you sell software you should try it, just to see you products through Ellen eyes who is a great copywriter.

Here’s the original text, as appeared on Bits du Jour:

Launch Fast: Direct Access
We feel like we spend half our lives navigating between applications. We set up our PCs for efficient navigation a long time ago, but we run so many programs at once, and have so many web pages open, and have files in so many folders - we just figured that it was impossible to be as fast as we used to be.

But then we found Direct Access. Direct Access lets us get to anything - a specific web page, a folder, a document or a program - using just a few keys. We make the shortcuts, so they’re words that make sense to us and that we can easily remember. And we can use them from any program - we don’t need to leave the current program or document first.

Plus, Direct Access’s autotext feature lets us substitute any short key combination we’ve set up for any long phrase we frequently need. And because they work inside any program, we only have to remember one set.

Use Direct Access to:

• Start your email program with just “eml“
• Check your eBay auction without leaving the email you’re writing
• Edit your timesheet file by typing just “tims“
• Open your My Documents folder just by typing “mydox“
• Mute your speakers without leaving your current document
• Run your backup job by typing just “bak”

Direct Access lets you choose your own command words so you can pick something easy for you to enter and remember. Commands are executed as soon as entered or upon pressing a confirmation key (like F1) so they won’t get in the way of your other work.

And then use Autotext to really speed up your work. For example:

• Type “plmkq” and have it turn into “Please let me know if I can answer any other questions.”
• Have several different email signatures, and enter any of them with just the abbreviation you’ve chosen.
• Abbreviate your URL, cell phone number, street address, difficult html string, or any text that you find yourself typing over and over

News for deal seekers: Direct Access is on sale - only today -, 10th October, on bitsdujour at 50% off.

Bits du jour offers a new software at huge discount everyday. So, if you are looking for a deal, don’t miss it.

Bitsdujour
http://www.bitsdujour.com

Thanks to the comments received, I noticed that having an easy to use and straightforward interface is very important for you. I’m working to make the setup process (defining and editing the actions) as direct as possible.

An improvement on this comes with new release of Direct Access that can open the edit window of the action when you type the associated command.

F1:execute the action.
SHIFT+F1: open the edit window.

This will make it much easier to adjust and modify your actions.

The only drawback of this is that you have a limited choice of the hotkey for the confirmation key (single character: F1..F12; I also added support for cursor keys, a suggestion of Mike Gunderloy). I believe that the benefit is much higher, though.

For a full list of changes, see the release notes.

When Marcus Tettmar contacted me about a partnership between Direct Access and Macro Scheduler, I immediately saw the synergy of the two products combined.

Macro Scheduler is a macro tool that allows you automate and execute a variety of operations, using a powerful programming language.

With Macro Scheduler, you can use Direct Access as the premiere interface to execute any kind of operation, just typing the appropriate command and pressing F1.

One of the nicest thing of Macro Scheduler, which makes it the perfect companion of Direct Access, is that each macro is stored in a separate file which can be called from Direct Access. You can also pack your macro in a self contained EXE file for maximum flexibility.

Now, back to the deal.
Direct Access customers can purchase any edition of Macro Scheduler with a 25% discount. That’s a saving of up to $124 (for the Enterprise edition).

Information on how to obtain the discount will be mailed to customers this afternoon (if you are in a hurry, you can contact me).

Today, I have released a minor update for Direct Access, that addresses some issues and adds some little new functionalities. In particular, now you can directly add an Autotext Action from the Hub or the Notify Icon from the clipboard contents. Moreover, when adding or changing an Action a label tells you the command is already in use by another action. If you associate a command to more than an action, when you type it a menu is shown with all the actions associated to the command. For a full list of changes, see the release notes.