Hey! Robin here - the creator of TASK: The Amazing Shortcut Keypad. Great to see so many comments and some interesting engagement :D<p>A lot of you are identifying other ways to achieve this sort of automation either with AutoHotKey or custom scripts and if that works for you then good on ya, no point in changing :)<p>However, the keypad was designed to give you quick, easy and intuitive automation in seconds. No writing code, no binding keys or running scripts. You just drag and drop and it's there.<p>It's not supposed to be revolutionary new tech, it's just taking a fairly standard macropad and making it easier, faster and less bother to get working. Added benefits are you can share automation 'recipes' and it'll be open source so you can hack/tweak it to your own needs.
I like the idea, but can't you achieve most of the functionality just with an add-on $10 USB 10-key, and your choice of scripting? I have used the crazily versatile Controllermate[1] on macOS to do something similar with a gaming keypad that triggered Applescripts and shell scripts.<p>1: <a href="https://www.orderedbytes.com/controllermate/" rel="nofollow">https://www.orderedbytes.com/controllermate/</a>
My mechanical keyboard has all this functionality, built-in. No software. No coding required, as it just remembers your strokes. (Or emulated mouse input via its mouse input controls.)<p>The same company has a mechanical numpad/calculator that can do the same as this shortcut keypad as well, in about the same package, along with having a calculator and display.<p>These macro pads are all over r/MechanicalKeyboards. Plenty of parts and kits to get you started if you want to make your own.
I use different solution that is arguable better than this and is right now on the market for not much money. I am talking about MMO mouses. Personally I am using Logitech G600 that have total of 20 programmable keys which can be programmed in 3 layers giving grant total of 60 macros, all within a reach of your thumb. This mouse is able to save macros onto on board flash memory which allows use on any system, even Androidm of course after configuring it either on Windows or MacOS.
You can assign macro or function to keys on your keyboard, why the need for the extra hardware?<p><a href="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/237179/assign-macro-or-function-to-keys-on-your-keyboard" rel="nofollow">https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/237179/assign-macro...</a>
Wouldn't it be faster to just input a key accelerator (which you can do on your Mac straight from system preferences -- I would assume Windows has similar)? That way you don't have to take your hands off the keyboard, simply press command-foo.<p>I doubt cmd-foo is harder to remember than the bindings of blank keys on an accessory device.
HammerSpoon already does a great job at this on Mac.<p><a href="http://www.hammerspoon.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.hammerspoon.org/</a>
I made a program that lets you use a laptop as an external keyboard, which is also based on an Arduino.<p><a href="http://peterburk.github.io/programs/#keymouserial" rel="nofollow">http://peterburk.github.io/programs/#keymouserial</a><p>As a clicker for presentations, I'm planning to buy a Sanwa Supply NT-MA1 Optical USB Numeric Keypad Mouse. But I still need to save up money for that.
These guys have been making some pretty neat controllers for a while now: <a href="http://xkeys.com/XkeysKeyboards/" rel="nofollow">http://xkeys.com/XkeysKeyboards/</a>
Alternative if you feel like spending a little more: <a href="https://rama.works/m10-a/" rel="nofollow">https://rama.works/m10-a/</a>
I’ve been wanting a macropad for a while, but to be a really useful complement to the keyboard this would need a display. There appear to exist some OLED solutions, but iirc they were very pricey and probably didn’t support Linux very well.<p>Unfortunately nobody makes what might be a cheap display-enabled solution, namely a macropad with a regular, large LCD character display matrix, with buttons arranged on the side to each line, like a quickdial.<p>This is probably not super hard to realize with Arduino (though I would be unsure which interface to use; possibly serial over USB? Then implement an evdev driver?). Getting it nicely looking and sturdy would be much harder, though. So if anyone is going to market something like this let me know. ;)
I actually made something similar using a small program called "luamacros" to intercept keys from a Planck ortholinear keyboard, then I printed out labels to put on the blank keycaps.<p>I think I've finally settled on a good layout, so I'll be printing up some custom keycaps to permanently print the legends on the keys.<p>It's surprisingly useful! I've got some buttons to open websites, some to do git-things, some to open terminals to various places on my PC, some to open folders, and a few to open programs.
Kind of on-topic, does anyone know what's the smallest industry made USB keyboard/button presser one can find?<p>I'm talking small as in, number of keys. Ideally just one or two keys and a USB connection so that you can interact with a computer.<p>Think like a clicker.
Less powerful than autohotkey, and requires you to use a separate keypad? Just use autohotkey and the keyboard you're already using? I just bind my capslock to my alternate layer. For instance holding caps turns j,k,l,i into arrow keys.
This is great. It's like a mouse only stationary and with lots of keys that you can press instead of clicking. And you can program the keys to do whatever you want! Wow!
Steelseries keyboads offer the same functionality with numerous easily programmable keys. I use heavily with Sublime Text. Steelseries engine software is flacky on mac though, since sierra update often freezes, fine on Windows.
Ideally keys should have programmable LCD icons aswell, I would happily pay $200 for such. I used to use Actions app on ipad, but a bit slow compared to steelseries, so stopped using.
Slightly off topic but what kind of things are people automating behind macros here? I run autohotkey but only use 2-3 macros daily which are macros to start and kill apps I work on (hard kill to avoid waiting some shutdown time) and an "attach to app" macro.<p>Not enough to justify buying these. Am I missing out? Any great macros for developers?
I can also recommend QuadroSync, which basically turns your iOS device into a TouchBar. I don't use it much because I prefer keyboard shortcuts, but it's one of the first apps of its kind that I actually can see myself using for a bunch of things.
I use xcape (<a href="https://github.com/alols/xcape" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/alols/xcape</a>), to overload modifiers. You get around 7-8 extra keys at an easy to reach distance.
The device somebody needs to make is a little 3x2 home/end/pgup/pgdown/ins/del block of chicklet keys with an adhesive back that I can stick on to my Macbook Pro to turn it back into a computer.<p>Most (all?) other manufacturers have also ruined that little magic block of keys, so there would certainly be a market from folks like me who were brought up in a world where you could delete a character or jump to the end of a row with a single finger.<p>Charge me $500 for the thing and I'll still buy it.
BTW, full demo vid is here showing the drag-and-drop software in action as well as several use cases.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIkcKXIPrLY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIkcKXIPrLY</a>