Posted 10 May 2000; updated 18 Apr 2002
Inside Guide's "Toolbar" dialog (in the Settings menu), you can already toggle the availability of a toolbar button for a given functions in Guide. As of 12 Mar 2002, Guide 8 users can select the hotkey for a given function in Guide from the Toolbar dialog. Thus, a person interested in (say) galaxies can revise the hotkey list so as to be able to hit 'p' and get the "Go to PGC Galaxy" function, 'c' to get the "Go to Common Galaxy name" function, and so on.
DOS Guide users can't do this, but can still revise hotkeys with a little more effort. Unlike almost any "normal" software, hotkeys in Guide are set through a text file, hotkey.dat. For example, the following line in hotkey.dat:
Alt-C A 46 2344 A 67 2355
means that when you hit Alt-C, you get "action number" 2344 in DOS Guide and 2355 in Windows Guide. (The 'A 46' and 'A 67' are used internally to Guide to decipher the key codes provided by DOS and Windows; you should leave them alone.) Usually, the action codes are the same in both versions, but not always; and as you'll see, some keys available in one version don't work in the other (because Windows "hides" certain keys that DOS can see, and vice versa). To determine what actions #2344 and #2355 are, you can look in the file toolbar.dat and find these lines:
# 2344 Printer setup (DOS) # 2355 !charon.bmp Link to Charon
From this, you can probably see how you would reset the hotkeys with a text editor. Suppose you wanted to have 'p' correspond to 'Go to PGC Galaxy'. toolbar.dat contains the following line:
# 61 !go_pgc.bmp Go to PGC galaxy
You would then find the 'P' line in hotkey.dat, and add '61' to it. In this case, there would be no reason not to do so for both DOS and Windows Guide, as follows:
P 80 61 80 61
At no point should you modify toolbar.dat. Only hotkey.dat should be altered.
I recently acquired a keyboard with a row of buttons across the top. At least on mine, these are labelled as follows:
Back Forward Stop (as in browsing) Refresh Search Favorites Mail Mute - Volume + Volume Play/Pause Stop (as in media) Prev Track Next Track Media Dell.com Dell Support Sleep
Obviously, most non-Dell keyboards will have a different use for two keys (they're known within Windows simply as "App-1" and "App-2"), and not all keyboards support all these keys. But as this sort of keyboard has become reasonably common, I wondered if I could add support for the keys to Guide.
It turns out that it is quite easy to do so in the Windows version of Guide, and required no modifications to the actual software. There are two ways of doing it. One is very simple, but means you'll lose any existing hotkey assignments. That is, if you have carefully set up a lot of hotkeys in Guide, you'll find yourself back at the default assignments. If that's an issue for you, click here. Otherwise,all you need to do is to download this hotkey.dat file to your Guide folder (about 6 KBytes). It will replace an existing hotkey.dat file.
After doing this, you'll have the following new hotkeys set up:
Back Go to previous chart Forward Go to next chart Stop (media) Stop animation Prev Track Animate backward Next Track Animate forward Ctl-Prev Track Take single animation step backward Ctl-Next Track Take single animation step forward Media About Guide
...and can use Settings... Toolbar to set up still more hotkeys as desired. (Note that not only the buttons, but Ctrl- and Alt- and Shifted versions, are supported, which should be enough hotkeys for anyone.)
Also note that Windows may lay claim to some of these buttons, preventing you from using them in Guide. For example, I couldn't link "Search" to "Go To Object Name", logical though that seemed.
If you don't want to lose your current hotkey settings, things are a little trickier, but not much so. You should edit your current hotkey.dat file, and cut-and-paste the following and add it to the end of the file. Save your newly-revised hotkey.dat, start up Guide, and you'll have the new hotkeys as described above.
Back B166 2542 Forward B167 2545 Browser-Stop B169 Refresh B168 Search B170 Favorites B171 Web/Home B172 Mail B180 Mute B173 Vol-down B174 Vol-up B175 Play/Pause B179 Media-Stop B178 2456 Prev-Track B177 2455 Next-Track B176 2454 Media B181 App-1 B182 App-2 B183 Sh-Back C166 Sh-Forward C167 Sh-Browse-Stop C169 Sh-Refresh C168 Sh-Search C170 Sh-Favorites C171 Sh-Web/Home C172 Sh-Mail C180 Sh-Mute C173 Sh-Vol-down C174 Sh-Vol-up C175 Sh-Play/Pause C179 Sh-Media-Stop C178 Sh-Prev-Track C177 Sh-Next-Track C176 Sh-Media C181 Sh-App-1 C182 Sh-App-2 C183 CtlBack D166 CtlForward D167 CtlBrowse-Stop D169 CtlRefresh D168 CtlSearch D170 CtlFavorites D171 CtlWeb/Home D172 CtlMail D180 CtlMute D173 CtlVol-down D174 CtlVol-up D175 CtlPlay/Pause D179 CtlMedia-Stop D178 CtlPrev-Track D177 2453 CtlNext-Track D176 2452 CtlMedia D181 2004 CtlApp-1 D182 CtlApp-2 D183 AltBack E166 AltForward E167 AltBrowse-Stop E169 AltRefresh E168 AltSearch E170 AltFavorites E171 AltWeb/Home E172 AltMail E180 AltMute E173 AltVol-down E174 AltVol-up E175 AltPlay/Pause E179 AltMedia-Stop E178 AltPrev-Track E177 AltNext-Track E176 AltMedia E181 AltApp-1 E182 AltApp-2 E183