Keyboard shortcut to open a program blocks character to be entered in text fields

1

I set e on the desktop icon of Thunderbird as a shortcut (Ctrl+Alt+e) to open it.

Now, when I edit a document (for example in LibreOffice) and I want to add the character "€" (which is the third character on the key e), instead of entering it, Windows 7 opens (respectively switches to) Thunderbird.

I tried entering "€" with Ctrl+Alt+e and with Alt Gr+e, bot no luck.

As soon as I remove or change the shortcut, I can type € again.

Any chance to use e for shortcuts without losing the possibility to enter "€" in text fields?

unor

Posted 2012-09-29T15:43:38.603

Reputation: 2 749

OK, and Whats the Question ? – Ankit – 2012-09-29T15:55:12.567

@Lamb: Sorry, I thought it was obvious: Any chance to use "e" for shortcuts without losing the possibility to enter "€" in text fields? I'm no Windows user, but never stumbled upon this when I set shortcuts for friends on Windows XP. – unor – 2012-09-29T16:04:43.897

Are you using it through AutoHotKey?

– avirk – 2012-09-29T16:27:09.423

If I understood the question correctly, you want to have same set of keys do Different task depending on the context ? – Ankit – 2012-09-29T16:37:02.043

@avirk: No, I use the Windows core default way: right-click on desktop shortcut, selecting "Properties" (don't know the actual translation), typing a character into the "Shortcut" field. – unor – 2012-09-30T00:24:55.997

@Lamb: Yes. When I'm in a text field, I should be able to enter any character. Windows should only use the shortcut, if I'm not entering text (which was the case in Windows XP, I guess). – unor – 2012-09-30T00:26:28.867

No exactly what you want, but we can have a setup which looks for active/existing windows and then perform the action accordingly. For ex.- If you are on Word or Notepad and press ctrl+alt+e it will type "€", otherwise it will launch Thunderbird. – Ankit – 2012-09-30T08:46:58.013

Ok if you are agree to tun a third party software to map the shortcut for you then we can try to solve out this problem. – avirk – 2012-09-30T17:05:45.743

Answers

0

I use AutoHotkey, it is simple free software you can use to setup hotkeys without the worries of what you are experiencing.

It supports replacing windows keyboard shortcuts...

Example:

I have mapped my Windows Key + I to open up Internet Explorer I have also done things like ::e~::€ ;which would replace the keystroke of e~ to €

Get AutoHotkey AutoHotkey

After install, run AutoHotkey and say "yes" to the option of using example hotkey options, that way you can see the format for how you can use keyboard shortcuts and keystroke replacements.

Of course AutHotkey has plethora of different things you can do like a lot of programming languages, such as inputboxes and moving your mouse pointer and clicking things etc.

Kairan

Posted 2012-09-29T15:43:38.603

Reputation: 756

Good info, but How does it solves the problem of having a Conditional Hotkey, which performs different action based on the focus. – Ankit – 2012-09-30T08:21:12.420

@Kairan you have not give any solution to this problem, you just indicated the path to follow but what if OP is not a programmer to write script for that? I think you should have to give the script to the OP for run. – avirk – 2012-09-30T17:07:49.813

Asked: 2012-09-29T15:43:38.603

Viewed: 155 times

Active: 2012-09-30T03:33:17.680