Action Shortcuts

What Are Action Shortcuts?

Remote Controller

An Action Shortcut is a method to map a keystroke key (or key combination) to an action in the computer program. For example, you can create an Action Shortcut that will map keys Ctrl+P to the Play Selected Cue action of the Easy Player. See possible Actions listed in Figure 1.

Wireless, pocket size remote control devices can be used to control the Sound Mill Easy Player. Virtually all remote controllers work by sending keyboard keystroke signals to the computer when you press one of its buttons. Think of the remote controller as a keyboard with a very limited number of keys. For example, you might have a Play button on the controller that sends a Ctrl+P signal to the computer. The actual keystrokes sent are generally based on the menu item Shortcuts of the computer program that the remote was designed for (ex. Windows Media Player, Power Point, etc).

Player Actions

The following Player Actions can be controlled by a remote control device by Actions Shortcuts:
Play Cue, Stop, Pause, Resume, Volume Up, Volume Down, Mute, Next Cue, Previous Cue, First Cue, Last Cue, Show Mode, Exit Show Mode, Show Cue Buttons.
See the Actions menu items for details of each action. Show Cue Buttons is on the View menu.

Load Actions Shortcuts

These menu items allow you to dynamically change the keyboard shortcuts associated with the Actions menu items. Check the Actions menu for changes after clicking any of these options.

Sound Mill Shortcuts - Shortcuts are set to match the Sound List Editor Actions Shortcuts.
Windows Media Player Shortcuts - Shortcuts are set to match Windows Media Player Actions Shortcuts.
Power Point Shortcuts - Shortcuts are set to match Power Point Actions Shortcuts.
Custom Actions Shortcuts - Shortcuts are set to Custom Actions Shortcuts that you have saved.

Manage Custom Actions Shortcuts

The Tools -- Manage Custom Actions Shortcuts menu items allow you to edit the shortcuts that are applied to the Actions menu items. This is useful when you have a remote control device and want to map the Actions to specific buttons on the remote. Your remote manual may tell you what keystroke signals are mapped to each physical button. If not, use our Key Mapper Tool to quickly discover which keystrokes are sent by each button.

See our Knowledge Base article, Remote Controller - Custom Shortcuts for Easy Player, for a step by step procedure of setting up action shortcuts for a wireless Remote device.

Figure 1. Actions Shortcuts List

Manage Custom Actions Shortcuts Menu

Edit Current Shortcuts - This menu item allows you to Edit the Player Action Shortcuts currently in effect. It will pop up a list in the Edit Action Shortcuts dialog (see Figure 1). Select any Shortcut in the list, then click the Edit button to edit its Shortcut keystroke definition with the Shortcuts Editor (see Figure 2).
View Current Shortcuts - Allows you to view the Player Action Shortcuts currently in effect. These Shortcuts are applied to the Player Actions menu items.
Save Current As Custom Shortcuts - After editing the current Player Action Shortcuts, click this menu item to Save them for future use as Custom Shortcuts. Once saved they can be reloaded at any time via Behavior -- Load Actions Shortcuts -- Custom Shortcuts.
View Custom Shortcuts - Allows you to view the Player Action Custom Shortcuts.
Remove All Menu Shortcuts for Diagnostics - This will remove all Player Menu existing shortcuts for doing problem determination. To re-establish Player Menu shortcuts, just close then re-open the Player. This does not empty the Player Action Shortcuts definition, it simple removes any currently applied shortcuts from the menu items.

Shortcut Key Editor

Figure 2. Shortcuts Editor

The Shortcut Key Editor (Figure 2) will set the key (or key combination) for the Shortcut. The Modifier keys (CONTROL, SHIFT and ALT) can be added as combination keys (ex Ctrl+P combination) by checking the associated Modifier checkbox. Use the Key pulldown to set the Key. The Reset button clears all Modifiers and sets the key to None.

Notes

In the Key pulldown, it is recommended that use choices of letters (A-Z), numbers (0-9) or function keys (F1-F24). Using other key values may produce inconsistent behaviors if you are not careful. Also see Reserved Keystokes below. Of course, rules are made to be broken on occasion.
Be careful not to duplicate a key combination that is already assigned for menu items on the Player. For example, Ctrl+N is used to create a new Playlist. Menu items shortcuts will take precedence over these user defined Shortcuts.
If you want to nullify any Action Shortcut, set its shortcut key to "None".
Numbers (1,2,3... ) on the Keyboard may be sent as keystokes "D0", "D1", "D2"...
Numbers (1,2,3... ) on the Number Pad (when Num Lock is On) may be sent as keystokes "NumPad0", "NumPad1", "NumPad2"....

Reserved Keystokes

Some keys are reserved for navigating the Cue Button Table by keyboard and other purposes. These should be avoided as key selections whenever possible if you want to maintain the keyboard grid-style navigation of the Cue Button Table. If you do need to use them, you may lose some Cue Button Table navigation function. Using Reserved keys in combination with a modifier key is ok (ex. CTRL+HOME is ok, but using HOME as a single key is not recommended).

Player Pre-Assigned Keys

These are Player Assigned Keys, but can be Reassigned to Shortcuts. If you do reassign one of these keys, you will lose its default assigned Player function.

Perform keyboard grid-style navigation of the Cue Button Table: Arrow keys( UP, DOWN, LEFT AND RIGHT), PAGE-UP, PAGE-DOWN, HOME, END.

End Show Mode: ESCAPE

Toggles Show/Hide of the Cue Button Table: B, "." (Period)

Windows Reserved Keys

Do Not Reassign any of these to Shortcuts!! You'll get unexpected results and it is likely that the shortcut will not work.

Windows moves control focus to Next or Previous control: TAB, BACKSPACE.

Windows button push (same as a mouse click on a button): ENTER, SPACE bar.

Windows special purpose keys: CONTROL+ALT+DELETE and ALT+TAB, ALT, NUM LOCK, PRINT SCREEN, SCROLL LOCK, WAKE, SLEEP, POWER, CAPS LOCK, WINDOWS key.

Wireless Number Keypad Considerations

Figure 1. Number Keypad

See our Knowledge Base article, Remote Controller - Custom Shortcuts for Easy Player, for a step by step procedure of setting up action shortcuts Number Keypad.

Figure 1 shows one possible actions mapping for a Number Keypad with a Num Lock key. With Num Lock Off, many keys automatically become grid-style navigation keys for the Cue Button Table : Arrow keys( UP, DOWN, LEFT AND RIGHT), PAGE-UP, PAGE-DOWN, HOME, END, TAB, BACKSPACE (outlined in Red in Figure 1). You don't need to setup Actions Shortcuts for these. The buttons with Actions symbols pasted on them (Play, Stop, Pause, Resume, Volume Bump-Up / Bump-Down, Mute) would each require an Actions Shortcut to map the action to a specific key. You can map each action to any key you choose. The keys outlined in Blue would be available for Ad Hoc Sound Actions. Finally, you can over-ride the navigation keys by setting up Actions Shortcuts or Ad Hoc Shortcuts for any of those keys.

There are two exception keys that are reserved by Windows and should not be assigned to shortcuts. The TAB key will always move focus to the next control. And ENTER key is used by windows as a key press/click and so will always perform the Play action on a selected cue button.

Number Keypads WITHOUT a Num Lock key can also be used by mapping the number keys with Actions Shortcuts. However, there are no actions for Up, Down, Left And Right, just Previous and Next. So you'll have sequential stepping through your cues (forward and back) rather than grid style navigation. Most people using remotes will probably opt to show one cue on the screen at a time, so this won't matter in that case.

However, you could still achieve the grid-style navigation on Keypads WITHOUT a Num Lock key by using the free, third party tool AutoHotkey . It would essentially involve a remapping with AutoHotkey, to remap number keys to send the Num Lock Off keystrokes (see Listing 1). If you need help with this, create a topic on the Forum .

Listing 1. AutoHotkey Remap Script

Numpad1::Send {NumpadEnd}
Numpad2::Send {NumpadDown}
Numpad3::Send {NumpadPgDn}
Numpad4::Send {NumpadLeft}
Numpad6::Send {NumpadRight}
Numpad7::Send {NumpadHome}
Numpad8::Send {NumpadUp}
Numpad9::Send {NumpadPgUp}