RSI and win7 - solutions?

[danx55]

hi guys,

yes i know - not purely outlook - but seems like a nice forum, so thought peeps might have ideas

i used win7 at work and have many program session open that i toggle between a lot - added to this there is much cutting and pasting going on - so my hands are starting to feel the strain

but im struggling to see how i can change how i use the pc to improve this - i need to reduce/change

the way i do ctrl+letter actions, alt+tabs etc - but not sure how

> ...im even considering buying dragon dictation software as i think it will allow my to set up scripts

to perform these actions

cheers

dan

> ....when will touch screens come to normal pcs i wonder - i think this might help

> ...the whole keyboard+mouse setup doesnt seem to have really improved much from what i have seen. it still seems very arduous to do many repetative actions on a pc - should be easier imo

ta

 

[Diane Poremsky]

I know i can't think of anything useful - I'm assuming you are using Ctrl+A,C,V already and it would be very hard to automate it anymore. There are windows macro utilities such as AutoIt that might help with some repetitive tasks but unless the windows are the same each time, its going to be hard to automate copy and paste.

If you are copying from outlook to another program, try selecting nd draging text to other apps - it should work in any app that uses OLE.

 

[danx55]

hi Diane.




thanks for the reply. I will check out that program.


yes I use ctrl+c etc a lot but that is part of the problem I think :-D




was thinking along lines if a keyboard with smart keys that could be setup


to do cut copy plaster actions....if there is such a thing




cheers


Dan

 

[Diane Poremsky]

The Office keyboard from MS does have a copy and a paste key - and it may be enough to save your hands, but what would really save you is the ability to press one key to copy all in active document and paste all in some other document - pasting in the right document will be hard to script as will copying only a partial document.

FWIW, i have an older office natural keyboard - it has a zoom slider and all sorts of buttons (sleep, mail, media etc) but I never really used them. Because I used a laptop and a desktop, it was easier for me to use ctrl+c on the desktop than to keep switching how i did it. My new logitech has similar shortcuts, but require me to hold down the Fn key, so i don't really save any effort. <g>

 

[danx55]

hi again

thanks for info. will have to check out the ms

keyboard I think.

> ..also a one key press to show the running apps would be good imo

cheers

Dan

 

[Diane Poremsky]

to the best of my recollection, you can assign programs to the keys, so you should be able to open task manager or similar using a keyboard that supports the special keys - which might be most MS keyboards plus some others.

One reason I switched from MS keyboards to logitech was because i wanted my function keys back - my previous keyboard had a function lock key that toggled the F keys between one touch shortcuts (including copy and paste) and F key functions. It defaulted to the shortcuts and i use F functions more often. The logitech defaults to F functions and i need to make an effect to toggle the special keys - that suits me just fine.

(The other reason I switched was because the logitech is quieter - i record training videos and the microsoft keys were loud clickity-clacks on the videos. A quiet keyboard would have won out over function key behavior though.)

 

[danx55]

ok cool thanks. probably need to see it demoed in shop if possible to see what it can do

I don't use fn keys so wont miss those

thanks