ActiveWords 1.9 Review The Quick, Efficient Type Eric Grevstad
Mon 2/24/03 -- We have no problem with the phrase administrative assistant replacing the old sexist connotations of secretary, but today's offices should mourn the loss of some old-fashioned secretarial skills. One is touch typing; to anyone trained to keep his or her hands on a typewriter's home row, constantly lifting a hand and moving a mouse to maneuver through layered menus or multiple windows feels as inefficient as one-finger hunt-and-pecking.
An even greater time-saver that's even more underused these days is the concept of shorthand. Yes, Microsoft Word's AutoCorrect and AutoText provide on-the-fly fixing of freind for friend and offer to finish the phrase if you type the first few letters of To Whom It May Concern:, but you probably don't bother to program your own boilerplate text entries. And if you do create a Word shortcut for your company's "About Us" paragraph, it won't help you use that text in Outlook or PowerPoint.
But keyboard diehards and efficiency experts everywhere have a new champion: ActiveWords. Available in starter or deluxe versions -- ActiveWords SE is $10 and ActiveWords Plus is $50 -- ActiveWord Systems' utility stretches the idea of shorthand abbreviations into what the company calls a "context-free user interface" or new way to work with Windows, using the keyboard instead of mouse.
Running in the background and monitoring all keyboard input -- even if you're in an application with little or no use for keyboard input, such as playing Solitaire or just looking at the Windows desktop -- ActiveWords waits for you to type one of its namesake abbreviations followed by a trigger key. When you do, it instantly types in as much boilerplate or replacement text as you like (up to 32K) -- or launches a program, opens your Web browser to a desired site, creates a new e-mail message for a desired addressee, or executes one of several other functions.
ActiveWords consists of a thin toolbar you can dock at the top or bottom of your screen (or auto-hide, Windows Taskbar-style, until you move the mouse there), with a few icons for examining or editing your shortcuts, adding a new one, or reviewing the most recently used ones.
If you type slowly, you may notice a "Mr. I-Beam" cartoon cursor keeping an eye on your input, smiling and offering to complete a shortcut when you've typed an ActiveWord. The trigger key -- usually F8, but you can change to it any of the other 11 function keys or a double press of the space bar -- serves to distinguish normal input from the same words used as shortcuts; for instance, Mr. I-Beam will sleep through your typing Ask Mary for help on this, but typing help <F8> summons ActiveWords' help screen.
Once triggered, an ActiveWord erases itself or disappears from whatever document or application you were working in; if you prefer, however, you can press Ctrl-Space to pop up a separate "ActionPad" typing area before giving a shortcut command. You can also assign multiple functions to the same word, so news <F8> might pop up a dialog box asking if you want to launch CNN.com or MNSBC.com.
(Since our fancy-schmancy new Microsoft and Logitech keyboards preempt the function keys for their own shortcuts, we found ActiveWords' two-spaces trigger to be the most handy. Optionally, as you create your own shortcuts, you can assign them a single space, Enter, or other trigger; this obviously works best if you use nonsense instead of real words, such as emom instead of just mom to start your weekly e-mail to you-know-who.)
Adding new shortcuts is as simple as clicking the toolbar and following a step-by-step wizard that asks what you want the shortcut to do -- i.e., which document, program, hard-disk folder, or Web site to open -- and what word or abbreviation you want to assign it. Power users can explore dialog boxes to review, edit, or delete shortcuts; the Plus edition also lets you save and switch among multiple vocabularies or sets of shortcuts (dubbed WordBases).
In addition, the Plus version works with more and more sophisticated ActiveWords applications or "agents" than ActiveWords SE, such as the one partly shown above that provides a whole vocabulary of shortcuts for Microsoft Outlook -- letting you instantly send a meeting request, add an appointment, or call a contact from within any application, just by typing a word or two.
It also supports a scripting language for writing shortcuts with input prompts and other capabilities, although we found the language a little limited, without a macro recording mode like ActiveWords' ancient DOS predecessor ProKey. Perhaps most important, the $50 ActiveWords Plus is licensed for an individual buyer to install on up to three PCs; the $10 ActiveWords SE is for a single system. Both are available as 60-day trial downloads, though we were annoyed that the activation key e-mailed to us for our SE download had expired when we didn't get around to installing the software until two days after downloading it.
The more time you spend with ActiveWords and the downloadable samples available for both versions, the more you find it can do -- letting you highlight a word or phrase anywhere on your screen, then press F8 to run a Google search on that topic, or discovering that the program actually notices and suggests you might want to create an ActiveWord shortcut if you launch a particular program or visit a URL numerous times. It's an appealing way to save time, automate repetitive tasks, and keep your hands on the home row instead of messing around with that newfangled mouse.
