Who says a personal computer keyboard can only have 104 keys?
Who says a personal computer keyboard can only have 104 keys?
By Zatni Arbi
JAKARTA (JP): Keyboards that allow you to dance with the
software are not new. Years ago, I bought an OmniKey keyboard
from Northgate that I could set in such a way that the keys would
have additional functions to the standard ones. I liked it very
much but, unfortunately, it didn't last very long.
Just a few months ago, I talked about HP Brio's keyboard that
had all those useful extra rubber buttons on its right side. You
just press one of these small buttons and the Internet Explorer
jumps onto your screen. Press another, and you can mute the PC
speakers.
But have you ever thought that, maybe, the numeric keypad on
the right side of your keyboard is a little underutilized? When
NumLock is on, the keys are very useful, of course. We all like
to enter numbers with these keys. We input telephone and fax
numbers with them. The keypad can really feel like a calculator.
On the other hand, when NumLock is off, the keypad is usually
wasted (I always set the BIOS up so that the NumLock is turned on
every time the PC is started, and it usually stays on until I
turn the machine off). How many of you ever use the arrow keys or
the PgUp and PgDn keys on the keypad? I'm sure that you, like
myself, normally use those navigation keys that are closer to the
character keys to move around your document.
Siemens Nixdorf Informationsystem (SNI), the computermaker
from Germany, has some interesting ways of using the numeric
keypad to enable us to work faster. Courtesy of Steen Mirhoj of
SNI, I got the chance to test a preproduction keyboard that has
this convenient feature.
QuickDesk
The space-saving keyboard looked like all the other standard
keyboards from SNI. A gray, perfect rectangle, it had a distinct
feel because it didn't use any of those springs that are commonly
found in keyboards made by IBM or Alps. The one I tested was a
German version, it had all the Umlauts.
The cable was the first thing to catch my attention. Like all
other keyboard cables from this company, it was detachable.
Interestingly, it was a straight, round and small cable that
looked almost like the mouse cable.
Another distinctive feature of the keyboard was certainly
found in its numeric keypad. It didn't have the arrows and the
other navigating symbols that you usually find in an ordinary
keyboard. Instead, the keys had pictures, such as a calculator,
an envelope, a telephone device and a looking glass, on their
caps. These were the icons for the programs that you would launch
if you pressed the keys.
As I still had a Compaq Pressario test unit at home, I
connected this keyboard to it to see how the magic really worked.
Everything went smoothly until I tried to install the software
that came with the keyboard. It turned out that the software
could only be installed on a Siemens Nixdorf computer.
I happened to have a SCENIC Mobile 300, a notebook from the
same company, so I connected the keyboard to this notebook and
turned it on. This time the software was not rejected, although
it didn't install perfectly. The icon in the program's folder
didn't work even after I installed the software and restarted
Windows 95 twice.
Luckily I noticed a newcomer in the program tray at the bottom
of my taskbar. It turned out that the software automatically
loaded when I restarted the system. I double-clicked on the new
icon, and I got the QuickDesk panel, which you could see in the
accompanying picture.
Honestly speaking, up to this point I still didn't know what
the keyboard had in store for me. The manual that came with it
was very brief, it did not start by explaining what was special
about this keyboard. So, after some trial and error, I soon found
out what QuickDesk was all about.
HotKeys
The division (slash) key was preset for minimizing the active
window, while the multiplication (asterisk) key was preset for
maximizing it. The key on the top right hand corner of the
keypad, which is actually a minus sign, works like Alt-F4. It
will close the active window or application.
The next 11 keys on the keypad can be individually programmed
to launch any application. All I had to do was click on the
Setting button in the QuickDesk panel. A quicker way would be to
drag and drop the program icons from Windows Explorer.
Now, guess which keys should be used to turn the speakers
volume up or down? Well, you're right: The Plus key will raise
the volume, while the Enter key on the bottom right corner of the
keypad will reduce the power of the speakers.
What if we still want to use the numeric keypad to enter
numbers? Here the QuickDesk program really shines. Press the Num
key to activate NumLock. It will stay on as long as you tap any
of the keys. If you don't press any of the number keys in 10
seconds, the light will automatically turn off and the keypad
will be back under the control of QuickDesk. It's really neat.