Can I launch my favorites with keyboard or mouse shortcuts?

Shortcuts addicts will feel like in a candy store 🙂 !  In Quick Access Popup, any favorite location can be associated to a keyboard or a mouse shortcut.

In the Add/Edit Favorite dialog box, second tab Menu Options, click the Change button beside the Shortcut section.

Shortcuts can be assigned to any type of favorite. Not only to folders, documents or applications, but also to submenus, groups of favorites or QAP features.

When setting a shortcut, QAP check if the shortcut is already assigned to another favorite or to one of the QAP menus triggers. If yes, it will ask for another shortcut.

You can assign a mouse button using the Mouse drop down list. You can also use any key in the Keyboard key selector (“T” in the above screen capture). You can also select special characters like space bar, tab, enter, escape or menu key (also known as “application key” or “context menu key”, and displayed “application” in the key selector) by clicking on the desired link under the key selector.

All these mouse buttons or keys can be combined with one or more of the keyboard modifiers on the left side: Shift, Alt, Ctrl and Win keys. You can create shortcuts for Left only, Right only or Any keyboard modifiers. For example, Left Alt + Space and Right Alt + Space can launch different favorites or submenus. In the hotkeys lists, left modifiers are prefixes with “<” (for example “<Alt+Space”) and right modifiers with “>” (for example, “>Alt+Space”).

You can select None to remove the shortcut or, when a default hotkey is defined for this favorite, click Reset default hotkey to choose the suggested hotkey.

Starting with v11.5.6.9.1, you can also enter a hotkey code manually by clicking the manual input link. This allows you to assign hotkeys to special keys only accessible by their scan code. For example, you can assign a favorite to the Pause hotkey using its scan code SC045. Simply enter SC045 in the manual input dialog box. You can find more info on Special keys and on the internal representation of other hotkeys in the AutoHotkey documentation.

Note: You may find that some default hotkeys set by Windows using the Windows key (like Windows + L that locks your PC) could prevent you from assigning these keys with QAP. If you wish, you can disable the Windows + L (Lock) hotkey or even disable all Windows default hotkeys by creating or editing some registry keys.

Manage Hotkeys

To get a global view of your keyboards or mouse shortcuts, click the Hotkeys button in the Settings window. In the shortcuts list of the Manage Hotkeys window, you can sort shortcuts by Menu, Favorite Name, Hotkey or Favorite Location.  Double click a shortcut to change or remove its assigned hotkey.

 

By default, the list shows only favorites with shortcuts. Check See all favorites to find the favorites for which you could assign a new shortcut.

Take note that this window has a second tab named Hotstrings. See What are hotstrings?

Blocking QAP keyboard shortcuts in some application

There may be some applications where you do not want the QAP keyboard hotkeys to interfere with the app’s normal behavior. See this: Can I block the QAP keyboard shortcuts if they interfere with one of my apps?