---
title: "Cool Tool: Direct Access - Keyboard macros everywhere"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2006/8/21/cool-tool-direct-access-keyboard-macros-everywhere.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2006/8/21/cool-tool-direct-access-keyboard-macros-everywhere.html"
published: "2006-08-21T21:53:42"
updated: "2006-08-21T21:53:42"
tags: ["Cool Tools", "General Software Devel..."]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "Direct Access seems like a nice little utility I could use in my day to day work: from LarkWare : \"Here's how it works. You define \"actions\" within the direct access interface. An action can be opening a Web site,…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Cool Tool: Direct Access - Keyboard macros everywhere

By Roy Osherove August 21, 2006 In [Cool Tools](https://osherove.com/blog/category/cool-tools), [General Software Devel...](https://osherove.com/blog/category/general-software-devel)

**Historical article** · Originally published August 21, 2006; technical details may be outdated.

[Direct Access](http://www.nagarsoft.com/) seems like a nice little utility I could use in my day to day work:

from [LarkWare](http://www.larkware.com/NewReviews/directaccess.aspx):

"Here's how it works. You define "actions" within the direct access interface. An action can be opening a Web site, launching an application, composing a new e-mail message, or typing out a chunk of text. Each action gets assigned a set of keystrokes as a command - for example, I've got se aliased to the SlickEdit text editor that I use. Now, any time I type se in any application a little tooltip pops up showing the SlickEdit icon and the Direct Access confirmation key (F1 by default, though you can change this). If I hit the confirmation key, Direct Access erases the command keystrokes and launches SlickEdit. If I type anything else - say, "se" turns into "serious" - the tooltip just vanishes without being more than a momentary flash on screen."

## More in Cool Tools

[All posts in Cool Tools](https://osherove.com/blog/category/cool-tools)

- Aug 29, 2006

    ### [Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows - Updated](https://osherove.com/blog/2006/8/29/ultimate-developer-and-power-users-tool-list-for-windows-upd.html)

- Aug 27, 2006

    ### [16 Features in Resharper Every Developer Needs To Learn](https://osherove.com/blog/2006/8/27/16-features-in-resharper-every-developer-needs-to-learn.html)

- Aug 16, 2006

    ### [SharpRobo - Winform UI Unit Testing made easier?](https://osherove.com/blog/2006/8/16/sharprobo-winform-ui-unit-testing-made-easier.html)

- Aug 14, 2006

    ### [Two cool utils: InstallPad and Live Writer](https://osherove.com/blog/2006/8/14/two-cool-utils-installpad-and-live-writer.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

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### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/