StickyKeys, it has always been there
Whenever someone asks what I dislike most about the UX, I always say, the keyboard. I found the keyboard quite unintuitive, having my right thumb stretch all the way to the left to do a cut (CTRL-X), paste (CTRL-V), select all (CTRL-A), bring up Windows Explorer (WINDOWS-E), even uppercase a letter using the SHIFT key. I was spoiled by the Treo 650 and the BlackBerry
8700c where you can just press the SHIFT key for example, and it remains pressed down, until you hit another key, making it really easy to uppercase a letter when writing an email or text message with just one thumb.
I was ready to look for a utility or hack to ease this discomfort. I did a Goolge search for “keyboard utility one finger shift ctrl alt” and guess what, the results were the best ever - this functionality is already built-in in Windows.
StickyKeys is part of the Accessibility Option in Windows (Control Panel->Accessibility Options). Microsoft lists tips on using StickyKeys and the following are the must haves on the UX:
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When StickyKeys is on, pressing any modifier key (SHIFT, CTRL, WINDOWS LOGO, or ALT) latches that key down until the user presses a key that is not a modifier key. If the StickyKeys sound features are on, you hear a short low-pitched beep and then a high-pitched beep. When the next nonmodifier key is pressed, the modifier key(s) are released.
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Pressing a modifier key twice in a row locks the key down until it is tapped a third time. If the StickyKeys sound features are on, you hear a short low-to-high sound after the first tap and a single high-pitched beep after the second tap. After a modifier key is locked, it stays locked until it is pressed a third time.
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Any and all of the modifier keys (SHIFT, CTRL, WINDOWS LOGO, and ALT) can be latched or locked in combination.
StickyKeys doesn’t support the Function Key (Fn) of the UX however. The Fn key allows you to access the extended keys in blue such as the function keys. In any case, this dramatically solves the keyboard problem and I am quite happy.
A screen capture of the my UX StickyKeys settings after the jump.
Technorati Tags: Micro PC, Sony Vaio, StickyKeys, UMPC, Vaio UX, Vaio UX Tips, Vaio UX50
3 Responses to “StickyKeys, it has always been there”
- 1 Pingback on Jun 13th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
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Here’s a tip with sticky keys: you can quickly enable them on most systems by tapping the left shift key 5 times in a row. under windows, the sticky key notifier pops up asking if you want to enable them.
guess what? the same is true for fn. tap fn 5 times in a row and a similar notifier pops up about stickyfn.
while this may not be advertised, it was also always included. at least on my ux180p
stickyfn works well with sticky keys, alt-fn-4 is no longer a pain. its also nice when in portrait mode to quickly tap fn-s and activate the scroll function on the fingerprint reader.
another good shortcut is windows-u. brings up the accessability utility manager with a magnifier, narrator, and on screen keyboard.