To be productive we wish to do as much as possible from the keyboard, and that means that we’d like to use hotkeys as much as we can, because they make things happen with a single or a few keystrokes. I’ve emphasized the words “or a few” because I have concluded that QuickSilver is the foundation of keyboard productivity and it usually requires several keystrokes for QuickSilver to make something happen.

On my Mac, to launch Skype for example, I type Command-Space, then the three letters; S K Y. That’s because if I typed just two letters; S K, QuickSilver would launch SketchBox. With QuickSilver you sometimes have to type an extra letter or two to filter down to what you want.

You will also have noticed that all Mac apps have hotkeys, but these are always a single key combination, such as Command O for Open. The single key combination is actually a limitations, which is one of the reasons I’m recommending iKey. iKey is a perfect complement to QuickSilver if you use it right.

iKey: The Hotkey Productivity Aid

There are other Mac programs similar to iKey, but iKey was the one that I tried out in depth. iKey is a kind of wizard based programming environment where you never have to write a line of code. You just select various options and type in the keystrokes. You use it to script keyboard entries and to script mouse movements. You can specify whether the script applies to all applications or just to a specific application. You can then attach whatever script you have created to a Hotkey combination.

So part of iKey’s charm is that you can attach a script to either 1 or 2 keystrokes. This means that if you want to put Save As on to two keystrokes, say Command S then Command A, you can. The most difficult part of setting up hotkeys is finding key combinations that you will remember, so having the possibility of using two keystrokes rather than one is a big help.

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