SAMPLER  Actually, I delete all the key shortcuts for commands that I will never want to control with shortcuts. I often change the default shortcuts to commands more to my liking and don't do them in iKey at all.

I can' remember all the shortcuts I would like, so I use iKey differently. I set up universal shortcuts to access every standard menu (Application, File, Edit, View, Window, Help), using control key (^) commands ^a, ^f, ^f, ^w, ^h). For good measure I add ^t to open any menu beginning with "T"--that will usually be Tools or Table. In case of a conflict, iKey opens the most left-hand menu. I think It is easy to use arrow keys to move to the menu I want. Then I add application specific shortcuts for things like the clippings ^C menu in BBEdit. Also useful: ^, to open the Preference menu for any app. To open menu items for which I have no shortcuts, I open a nearby menu with iKey, then use an arrow-key.

Why? It is a little-known feature of OS X, that one can access any item in an open menu by starting to type its name. This saves the trouble of trying to remember/assign shortcuts for the menu items.

One of the most useful combinations I have will open and hold open the "Recent items" sub-menu that is under the File menu of most apps. To do this I create a shortcut in iKey to open the most-recent menu item (^R). Recall that ^F opens the File menu. To open the Recent Items submenu, I type ^FR.

In short, I do not assign shortcuts for most menu items, because it is easy to access them in a few keystrokes.

I do use iKey for other purposes. The shortcut to login to remote Unix computers saves the most keystrokes. Also, I run applescripts from iKey to do things like change the page-setup of Excel spreadsheets to landscape.

To top off an iKey-based system, I recommend Launchbar.   
(Version 2.3.2)

SAMPLER  I have found this to be the only set-up that will toggle a pasteboard on (and off, of course), and when on, allow it it to remain visible like any other app window until you toggle it off.

1. In the Pasteboard tab of preferences, leave "Always Show" and "Keep on Top" *un*checked. (I have "show when activated" checked, but it doesn't seem to matter.)

2.In the Hot Key prefs tab, set the main shortcut (I use ctrl-cmd-m) to "Toggle Always Show".

  
(Version 4.4)

SAMPLER  If you click on the Library button on the right top of the main Editor window, you will see a "Launchers" button. Click it and you will see a "Launchers" section, with a list of the Launchers (keyboard shortcuts).

I too think this is a great place for centralizing shortcuts. I tend to delete most application specific shortcuts so as not to interfere with those I create in iKey.

  
(Version 2.3.1)

SAMPLER  I can confirm 2.3 doesn't load with OSX 10.4.11 on a PB G4. However iKey 2.2 has been solid for years now.  
(Version 2.3)

SAMPLER  Thanks for pointing out the tear-sheet option to me, RWEBBER. It is exactly what I would want. However NB's attachment behavior is still too unrefined to tempt me to switch. For example, in NT one can attach one (or more) files by copying (ctrl-c) in the Finder and pasting (ctrl-v) onto a page. This is measurably faster than dragging and dropping, which is NB's only way.

In NT one can insert multiple attachments anywhere on the same line and mix them with text. Or, one can drag an attachment to any spot on a page. Try doing these actions in NB.

I'm going to uninstall NB from my system again, but I will take a another look at it next year.  
(Version 3.0v338)

SAMPLER  NoteTaker or NoteBook?

I am a long-time and heavy user of NoteTaker, a product which shares the origin of Notebook, and which is very similar in appearance. I use NT primarily for managing large projects and keep an outline of programs and data sets, with the actual files linked in. Every year or so I try Circus Ponies NoteBook to see if there is a feature or function which would lead me to switch. And this year (Version 3.0v388), as always, I cannot find one. The "stickies" and flag options in NB are attractive, but I find that creating them, dragging them out of the way, and resizing (stickies only) greatly slows my work flow. "Text notes" are not easy to work with. As occasionally happens in "PDFPen", I find them appearing at unexpected places, requiring action to delete or move them them.

The linking options in NoteBook, especially important to me, remain limited compared to those in NoteTaker.

My major criticism of both products is their inability to display two different pages at one time. The only way to see two pages at once is to duplicate a NB and open both. NT facilitates this by maintaining a backup of each notebook. If you open it up, you are asked if you want to maintain it as Read-Only. This is the perfect option, because it prevents one from writing on the copy, instead of the original. All in all, I find that NB has more page add-ons and variations, but NT is both more refined and robust.   
(Version 3.0v338)

SAMPLER  OS X 10.4.11 PB G4

I've used the Writer, Spreadsheet, and Data Base modules, and all have been solid. I find Writer very fast, even with relatively large documents (~5 MB, footnotes, illustrations, many tables). Conversion to and from rtf has been excellent. The only difficult that I encountered was that the page numbers in the Table of Contents (created in Word, saved as rtf)did not transfer. However I let Writer re-index the document and it created all of the TOC except where the TOC Bookmark was missing in the original.

In contrast, OpenOffice RC3 for Aqua crashed as I was closing three open windows of small documents.  
(Version 2.2.5p1)

SAMPLER  Version 1.0.1 The program still highlights individual words when a phrase has been specified. This is a bug.

It is possible to trick the program into finding only the phrase, albeit one file and one line at a time.

With a file selected, hit cmd-F and an undocumented Find window opens.

For example, if you've searched for "brown cow" (no parentheses!), the Find window will have the following search pattern.

(brown)|(brown cow)|(cow)

Erase all but (brown cow) and hit "Find All". Now all lines containing "brown cow" will be highlighted in the list below.

(The parentheses and |'s are regular expression characters).

However this work-around is no substitute for a fix  
(Version 1.0.1)

SAMPLER  Try:

435-615-7335  
(Version 7.0.2)

SAMPLER  PB G4 OS X 10.5.1 1.65 fine 1.66b1 not.

On other lists, users of 1.6.6b1 have reported many problems. On my system it caused no crashes but would not hold its settings. On the advice of a poster to Version Tracker, I installed 1.65. I have one substitution:- enter- acts as -control-. It's working fine.  
(Version 1.6.6b1)

SAMPLER  See the Developer's web site for pre-release issues of Version 2.0  
(Version 1.2.3)

SAMPLER  Amazingly auto-login capability

Two features set Password Wallet 4.1 above a half-dozen other apps that I tried, including info.xhead and steel:

1. the auto-login capabilities. I would have bought Password Wallet for the auto-login feature alone.

2. sync to the Palm

Others apps auto-type but work only in the simplest two-field setups, where the site places the focus in the login-id field and tabs automatically into the password field. Many sites don't do this. Some require two passwords or have the password and login-id on different pages.

PW 4.0.1 easily handles these complicated web sites because you can insert metacharacters for TAB, PAUSE-RESUME and RETURN keys into the login sequence. You can then do everything with button pushes or keyboard shortcuts.

You may need to experiment. For example, my wife and have two Verizon accounts and they need different sequences:

1st: TAB login-id

PAUSE/RESUME password (Then push a GO Button)

2nd: TAB login-id

PAUSE/RESUME TAB password RETURN

For the Bank of America, the login-id and password are entered on separate pages and require:

login-id RETURN

PAUSE/RESUME password RETURN

On the other hand, some sites are easy, for example:

login-id

password RETURN

But you don't need to set up these meta-character sequences. There are buttons and shortcuts just to copy the login-id and password into the clipboard.

There are other virtues, especially the easy ability to share data and to start new wallets with subsets of entries from existing ones.

The updates adds refinements which make the app even more of a pleasure. Two subtle but welcome ones: now one can set keyboard focus to the 'find' box, so that one less tab is required. Also, there is an option to always open an entry in a new window rather then over the main window.

I highly recommend this one.  
(Version 4.1)