Dexpot Forum

Hi,

I have the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000.

It has lots of extra buttons -- at the top it has buttons labeled 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 (these are not the regular number buttons, these are programmable). And at the bottom it has "Back" and "Forward" -- I've configured those buttons to launch the app with the following command line arguments:

"1": "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dexpot\dexpot.exe" -w 1
"2": "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dexpot\dexpot.exe" -w 2
"3": "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dexpot\dexpot.exe" -w 3
"4": "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dexpot\dexpot.exe" -w 4
"5": "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dexpot\dexpot.exe" -V

Back: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dexpot\dexpot.exe" -prev
Forward: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dexpot\dexpot.exe" -next

It works for the most part (and in some cases, better than regular hot key combinations -- which can get swallowed up by the app which has focus -- Orcale VirtualBox likes to steal hot keys from me a lot and send them to the VM that has focus instead of letting the app get it -- but this command line approach seems to work much better)...

But there are a few things that don't work / that I can't figure out how to make work:

If I press "5" (to bring up the full-screen preview) and then hit a number ("1" - "4") or "Back" or "Forward" almost nothing happens. It just stays in full screen preview. If I hit enough numbers (like maybe 3 to 10 of the keys), eventually the preview gets all weirded out and flickers and such -- or the rendering gets screwed up -- but that's it.

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Also, it would be awesome if I could hit like a key combination like "alt" and the programmable key, and have it move the current window to a given screen or ctrl+programmable key to copy the window, or ctrl+shift to copy and switch desktop / alt+shift to move and switch, etc...

-- If there were command line params for the above, I could maybe assign those keys to another app -- or a script even -- which could detect if I was pressing alt/shift/ctrl, and send different args to the app... but I didn't see any command line arguments for copy/move -- only switch desktop.

Thanks,
--Mikey

BrainSlugs83 wrote:If I press "5" (to bring up the full-screen preview) and then hit a number ("1" - "4") or "Back" or "Forward" almost nothing happens. It just stays in full screen preview.

It's supposed to do that. You can use the regular number keys 1-4 to switch desktops and leave the full-screen preview.

I didn't see any command line arguments for copy/move -- only switch desktop.

Move active window to desktop 1: "-command 101"
Move active window to desktop 2: "-command 102"
Move active window to desktop 3: "-command 103"
...

Copy active window to desktop 1: "-command 201"
Copy active window to desktop 2: "-command 202"
...

It's supposed to do that. You can use the regular number keys 1-4 to switch desktops and leave the full-screen preview.

You misunderstand me. I'm not hitting the regular number keys 1-4, I'm hitting my special macro keys "1"-"4" (hence the quotes) -- these are macro keys that launch the program via command line and supply the aforementioned command-line arguments.

Edit: No, I misunderstand you -- you're saying the regular keys 1-4 do work... well crap... -- it's weird to switch between the two sets of keys -- and not very intuitive -- I'd like to do everything from my macro keys -- is it possible to detect (from say a powershell script, or a c# background application) if the full screen preview is currently running? -- I could have the macro keys launch my script or app, it could evaluate what state the app is in and perform the correct action (inject a keypress, or launch the app with the correct argument...)

Edit: And when I say "almost nothing" happens -- some things do happen -- the white selection changes -- sometimes -- but if I hit enter, it will go back to the previous desktop -- or if I click on a different one after hitting the macro key, the wrong one comes up and it does this weird kind of catch-up dance where dexcube, etc. show the wrong animation -- it's super weird -- after all the visual garbage though, eventually it dumps me into the right desktop. For now I've disabled dexcube.

Move active window to desktop 1: "-command 101"
Move active window to desktop 2: "-command 102"
Move active window to desktop 3: "-command 103"
...

Copy active window to desktop 1: "-command 201"
Copy active window to desktop 2: "-command 202"
...

NICE. That's quite helpful!