Everyday typing work on the PC can very quickly turn into a mundane routine, especially if you always have to enter the same text input over and over again. However, you can make life a little easier with Hot Keyboard Pro, which manages phrases like signatures, salutation or entire texts and inserts them customizable keyboard combinations"or auto-replace functions.

Features

Hot Keyboard works by recording frequent keystrokes. Once you have recorded your frequently-typed information. it is quicker and easier to fill out forms on the web, enter usernames and passwords, and send routine notes to customers and colleagues. It also lets the user run any program by pressinga hot key, for instance. with a single keystroke, you can launch your web browser and visit your favorite website. It also works inside the user interface of any application window, so it's easy to minimize your windows, bring a window to the top of your desktop, and even start your screen saver.

Hot Keyboard's text auto-replace feature automatically expands short words or phrases into long text strings and it corrects spelling errors in real¬time. It comes with a CD-player function that lets you use hotkeys to play music CDs, and control all of the CD player's functions. It also gives you hotkey control over your computer's speakers, controlling both music playback levels and all computer sounds.

The organization features in Hot Keyboard are extensive. All keyboard macros and shortcuts can be organized into menus, so you won't have to memorize your hotkeys, no matter how many of them there are. It also groups all Internet bookmarks together for one-click launching, and passwords into a single, convenient menu. It even has a built-in reminder system that creates notes that pop up according to a user specified schedule. There is also a workgroup feature to synchronize and share macros over a network, so that if you change the text in a macro on one computer, it will be changed across the network immediately.

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Performance

We'll start out by detailing the bad points, and then move on to the good. The program doesn't come with any in-built patterns for better recognition and only allows importing macros in its own proprietary HKB format. We first created a few individual text modules, something that is complicated and that you can't do without referencing the help file. Another thing that annoyed us was that while creating the macros, the input text field is too small and doesn't come with an automatic word wrap function, so YOl) can't see the text you type very clearly.

In addition to text macros, you can also open files, folders or URLs and associate a hot key with each action. It is also possible to save window positions, record macros, schedule their start time and protect them with a password. What we really liked was that all macros are always available at your disposal, whether you are working on a word processor, an email client, or want to fill out form on a webpage in your browser. The organizer comes in handy, since it cancels out the need to memorize shortcuts; instead, you can put them down in a configurable chart and print it out.