One year ago yesterday (ha!),
@Signorina shared her AutoHotkey script for changing the keyboard shortcuts for Firecracker such that you could press one key to both rate your understanding of a question and submit that rating, moving on to the next question. With an AutoHotkey script, you can press 4 to move on to the next question, rather than having to press 4
and enter to move on. Unfortunately, AutoHotkey isn't available for Mac OSX users. Fortunately, after a bit of research, I found a workaround for Mac OSX users. If you're using Chrome, it requires two things: The Chrome "BackStop" extension (free) and the aText application (free trial, $4.99 to purchase).
Keyboard shortcut modifying tutorial for Mac OSX:
1)
Install aText. I recommend clicking the "Download free trial" button on the left so you can play around with it before buying it. However, I already had purchased a copy of this, so I haven't tested this out with the free trial. If someone could be so kind as to test it using the trial version and report back to confirm that it works, I'd appreciate it!
2)
Create a group. Open aText and click the "New Group" button. Name your group Firecracker. In the "Expand" field, make sure
Immediately is selected. In the "If abbreviation is placed after" field, make sure
Any character is selected. In the "Enabled in" field, select
Only these Applications. A dialog box will open with a list of applications - Since we only want this script to run while using Chrome, select Chrome. The rest of the settings can be left with their default values.
3)
Create your first shortcut. With the Firecracker group highlighted, click the New button, which looks like a plus sign. In the "Abbreviation" field, type the number 1. Now click the Insert button at the bottom and select Key. A dialog box will pop up. In the "Key" field, type 1 and click Close. We're going to do this again - Click Insert, select Key, but this time, in the "Key" field, hit the enter key and click Close. This tells aText that when you type 1, what you really mean is "1 enter."
4)
Create the rest of the number shortcuts for numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5 using the instructions from step 3.
5)
Create a shortcut for showing the answer. I'd rather press the spacebar than press "S" to show the answer. So press the New button again, and in the "Abbreviation" field, press the spacebar. Now click Insert, select Key, and in the "Key" field, type the letter s and click close.
6)
Install the Backstop extension for Chrome. When aText replaces the abbreviation with the intended text, it basically highlights the abbreviation and deletes it before inserting the desired text. The problem is, it deletes this by sending a "backspace" command, which, in a browser like Chrome, tells the browser "go to the previous page." Which breaks Firecracker. However, you can fix this by installing the free
BackStop extension for Chrome, which tells Chrome NOT to go back a page when it sees you hit backspace.
So... that's it! Test it out and let me know if you run into any problems or questions. Hope this helps someone.
Fair warning: You'll want to turn this off when you're not using Firecracker, otherwise your spacebar and numbers 1-5 won't work. The easiest way to turn it off is by selecting the Firecracker group in aText and changing "Enabled in" so it says "No Application (Disabled)." When it's time to Firecracker again, change "Enabled in" back to "Only these applications." You can also go into aText preferences → Hotkeys and create a keyboard shortcut that allows you to enable/disable aText at will (though it will disable it in ALL applications, unfortunately). Another way around this would be to use a separate browser solely for Firecracker. Firefox is a good option, and it seems you can disable the "backspace means go to the previous page" setting following
these instructions (haven't tested it myself, though).
Also, an aside: BackStop is awesome and I just keep it turned on all the time. I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally lost a half-written comment because I backspaced without realizing my cursor wasn't in the text field, causing me to jump back a page. Never again!
aText is ALSO awesome - I have shortcuts set up to auto-complete my email address and insert symbols I use all the time. For instance, typing ",a" inserts the alpha character α, and ",b" inserts the beta character β, ",e" gives me ε, -> becomes →, ",done" turns into ✓.
Ciao everyone,
I posted a while back a way to tweak keyboard shortcuts with AutoHotkey so that the keyboard shortcut I choose enters a score and automatically goes to the next question. 1 click.
I've been busy with my first year of med school, but now I'm back at it and this time I tweaked the script so that it ONLY works when the Firecracker page is open, and it works for any browser, but it won't affect the other browser tabs, since I find myself googling a lot, and I need a full keyboard to search for info at the same time as I'm doing my questions.
1) Install AutoHotkey
2) Right click on the icon and "edit this script"
3) Paste the following:
SetTitleMatchMode, 2
#IfWinActive, Firecracker
h::Send {1} {Enter}
j::Send {2} {Enter}
k::Send {3} {Enter}
l::Send {4} {Enter}
Space::s
return
4) Save script and right-click "reload script"
-- 1 click selects a score, saves the score, and automatically goes to the next question
-- You can edit the script and use any letter-number combination you'd like.
-- The space bar shows/hides the answer
-- The code only activates when you have the Firecracker page open, on any browser, and disables when you're on any other tab/webpage
This way when I do my daily questions I'm just clicking.... space... k... space... l... space ..k ...space... etc.
That's it!
