Direct Access speeds up your work enabling you to use abbreviations for repetitive tasks. You can use them to expand a word into full text, do queries on the web, fill forms, compose emails and launch your favorite applications, and they will work in any program.
Autotext lets you substitute any word for long phrases you frequently need. Just define the abbreviation and, typing it - in any application - Direct Access automatically expands it for you.
| - | Type "plea" and have it turn into "Please let me know if I can answer any other questions." |
| - | Have several different email signatures, and enter any of them with just the abbreviation you have chosen. |
| - | Abbreviate your URL, cell phone number, street address, difficult html string, or any text that you find yourself typing over and over. |
You can also use Direct Access as a universal program launcher so that you can quickly get to anything - a specific web page, a folder, a document or a program - typing just a few keys, directly from any application you are working in.
| - | Start your email program with just "eml". |
| - | Open your Documents folder by typing "doc". |
| - | Run your backup job by typing just "bak". |
When enabled, Direct Access unobtrusively monitors the keyboard as you work. Regardless of what application you are using, if you type an abbreviation, Direct Access suggests a Command via a tooltip:
Direct Access detects the command and shows the confirmation tooltip
If you press the SHIFT key, Direct Access performs the command (and then removes the abbreviation if required). If you ignore the suggestion and just keep working, the tooltip vanishes - Direct Access is designed not to interrupt you!
You can organize related commands into a group, which you can then open as a menu, for example providing standard tech support answers, a range of signatures, or a selection of programming constructs.
To see how easy it is to use Direct Access, work through the Quick Start Tutorial.