So a friend I used to work with (we’ll call him “Kenneth”) first turned me on to Texter. You see, at the time, I was working as a phone-based helpdesk analyst, and our ticketing system was fairly complex. Because of its complexity, a call was 3 minutes, minimum. That meant even if we could solve the problem in 20 seconds, it took 3 minutes to fill out all the details in the ticket.
Then it got worse (or better, depending on who you asked) when our management decided to standardize our note detail formatting (for the record, believe it or not, I’m actually in the “better” category). So all notes had to look the same format, to ensure proper documentation. Later posts will show why I’m such a documentation whore, especially when it comes to computers.
This is why Texter became such a boon to us at the helpdesk. It shortened our typing by A LOT.
Installation
So installation was super easy. I downloaded the executable installer from Lifehacker’s site, and ran the EXE. The entire installation is two or three windows, tops – depending on your UAC settings (If you do not know what UAC is, then assume it’s ON, and you will have three windows).
So my first window (not pictured) was the UAC window, and I clicked “Allow”. Then, my second window simply asked where I wanted to install the program:
I’m not a fan of changing default install locations, as that tends to cause problems later on, so I clicked “Install”. That presented me with the final window:
Yup, that’s it. The entire process took about 12 seconds, from start to finish. We’ll actually spend more time configuring the program, but that’s an ongoing process, as you’ll soon find out.
Configuration
So the program is minimized to the System Tray (or, if you prefer, the Notification Area) as a standard. So I pull up the hidden icons, and find the Texter icon:
Notice it uses the LifeHacker icon. That’s because this program was released for LifeHacker’s distribution by Adam Pash. But what we’re concerned with is creating “hotstrings”, or short typing bits that turn into longer bits.
Wait…what? Don’t worry, I’ll explain.
Once I’ve right-clicked on the icon in the System Tray, I’m presented with some options. For now, I’ll start with Creating a new Hotstring:
So, let’s create my standard closing for this blog, shall we? I want to be able to type in “/close”, and tap the Enter key, and my entire closing should show up. So, to do that, I configure the window thusly:
Now, all I have to do is type “/close” and hit the Enter key, and the entire thing shows up.
There’s a LOT more you can do with this, including creating scripts and the like. You can also use certain symbol combinations to simulate keys like Enter, CTRL, Shift, Tab, etc. The most common are:
| Special Character | Keyboard Equivalent |
| # | Windows Key |
| ! | Alt Key |
| ^ | Control Key (CTRL) |
| + | Shift Key |
Note that these keys only work in the “Script” mode when creating a hotstring. You will need to change the drop-down menu from “Text” to “Script” for these substitutions to work.
And combinations work with these special characters. So, in Lifehacker’s example, ^c would be the same as pressing CTRL-C on your keyboard (the copy command).
Some More Kinda Cool Parts
Texter is also available via a Portable App. That’s right, you can run it from a USB stick without ever installing the software on to the PC you’re working on. This is good for technicians on a user’s PC, who need to do a lot of repetitive typing, or who want to run a script on-the-fly.
The Not-So-Great
I’ve noticed a few quirks with Texter. On my work PC, a few certain cases would cause unexpected behavior to occur. These are very rare, and seem to happen on with specific key sequences. I haven’t run into it in a while, but when I do next time, I’ll be sure to post the specifics here as an update to this post.
Supposedly, there are some compatibility issues (which may or may not the be the cause of the above statement), but per Lifehacker’s latest updates, these should be resolved for Windows 7 users. I’ll have to try out some more testing to let you know, as I haven’t had it installed on my Win7 machine for very long.
When entering dates, there is some dynamic functionality, so one can enter a code to enter the current date. But I haven’t found a way to enter cardinal notation (i.e., “3rd” instead of “3”).
Final Conclusion
I’m very happy with this program, quirks notwithstanding. It’s saved me a LOT of typing, and that helps with repetitive stress injuries and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. With some playing with the scripting features, one can even figure how to automate entire screens of ticketing systems.
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