List all Hotkeys Currently Active on Your System

JDN · Post by **JDN** » 2004 Dec 07, 02:09

There has been some discussion in some of the other threads about hotkeys versus short-cut keys versus accelerator keys.

Dft1 has posted a link to Gregory A. Wolking's app "Hotkey Detective". In addition, Dft1 has illustrated a nice technique using the Windows Basic Scripting Language to report all shortcut keys currently defined by the system.

One glaring restriction in the way MS has implemented shortcut keys is that in order to create or delete a short-cut key with Windows Explorer, the app must be either on the desktop or in the start menu. As a result I am certain that "Hotkey Detective" and the technique posted by Dft1 are restricted in that they only report shortcut keys that invoke apps that are in on the desktop or in the start menu.

I have written a small app that reports all hotkeys currently defined on a system-wide basis. The advantage is that the apps are not restricted. But the disadvantage is that I can't tell who owns the hotkey without a lot more work. This is likely what Mr. Woking may be referring to when he says:

"Windows 95 has support for hotkeys, but it's quirky at best, buggy at worst, and poorly documented."

You may download the app I wrote as well as the source code and you may use it as open source freeware from:

http://fire.prohosting.com/sylvest9/jdnhr.exe for the executable

http://fire.prohosting.com/sylvest9/jdnhr.zip for both source & executable

I can't promise how long these two files will stay on that server. So anyone who would like to make copies and put them on one of their servers for public consumption is most welcome.

I would post the source here but unfortunately, it is near 200 lines and I don't think Nikos would appreciate that.

narayan · Post by **narayan** » 2004 Dec 07, 04:40

I ran the app (45056 bytes--is this size OK?) on NT4, but it did not yield any list: A DOS-type black box appeared for a split-second and then vanished.

What is the expected form of output?

JDN · Post by **JDN** » 2004 Dec 07, 08:15

It is a console command and needs to be run from a CMD window.

Sorry. I have been working witch console commands so long that I forgot to make that clear.

It is 45,056 bytes and was written in Delphi.

The output is written to the standard output stream - just like any other console command - like the DIR command.

So, if you want to store the info in a file - say OUT.TXT - you could enter the command as:

JDNHR > OUT.TXT

The "HR" stands for "Hotkey Report".

For people not familiar with console commands or the CMD window, the ">" symbol (greater than) is called the "output redirection" operator. You can read about it in the Windows XP help system. If you open the XP help system (Start – Help) and enter the word "redirection" into the Search box, you should see the two topics "Using filters" and "Using command redirection operators".

JDN · Post by **JDN** » 2004 Dec 07, 09:39

The latest version of the exe file may be found here:

http://fire.prohosting.com/sylvest9/jdnhr.exe

I created a zip file containing both the source file (jdnhr.dpr) and the executable. You may download that from:

http://fire.prohosting.com/sylvest9/jdnhr.zip