Filed under: Cool tools, Freeware
Shortcuts brings contextual menu items to your keyboard
Mice can be great, but sometimes my hands are too cozy on the keyboard to make the trip over to the aptly named pointing device. And contextual menus can be great, too, but I've got a few CM plugins creating a little maze of hierarchical menus. Some of them are used much more frequently than others and could benefit from ... a keyboard shortcut!
In walks Shortcuts, another very useful contribution from Abracode, makers of ClipMaster and quite a few other great (free) plugins and programs. It simply allows you to assign keyboard shortcuts to any contextual menu item. The interface shows you what menu items would be available for a file, folder, multiple selections and text selections in Cocoa text fields. You just select the menu item you want easy access to and assign a hotkey.
I experimented with a "Copy Path" shortcut and a "Secure Delete" shortcut with great results. My only significant complaint is the lack of Path Finder support, which could probably be fixed fairly easily. You can edit the way it interacts with various programs using AppleScripts, so it should be possible to add some new "context providers". It will take a little more exploration on my part.
Shortcuts is a free download.
Thanks Michael G.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ian Beck said 1:01PM on 2-22-2008
Assigning hotkeys to specific contextual menu items: meh. What I want is a program that will let me assign a hotkey for opening contextual menus period.
That is, I hit the hotkey and regardless of what application I'm in or whatever, the appropriate contextual menu opens. This would be so amazingly cool, and free me from one of my prime mouse-needs.
I've never found a piece of software that will do this; anyone else have any ideas?
Reply
Digifreak said 3:27PM on 2-22-2008
Preferences> Universal Access >Enable Access for assitive Devices (on)
then
Universal Access>Mouse>Mouse Keys(on)
Finally press Ctrl + 5 (num pad) to bring up the
(throw the mouse in the bin, and punch the air with your newly freed hand)
Only took me 15 years to discover that ;-)
Mike G said 1:02PM on 2-22-2008
I'm using it, for instance, with the handy NuFile CM: ctrl opt N and I have a new file in whatever Finder folder I'm working with.
http://growlichat.com/NuFile.php
Reply