If you have an Extended Keyboard, you probably know about the “del” key next to the “help” and “end” keys, and you have probably noticed that if you type that key, some applications will perform a forward-delete, some will do nothing, and some will insert non-printing characters into the document. The DEL Key Control Panel is intended to add the forward-delete functionality to those applications that don’t have it.
This is done by intercepting a “del” keystroke and translating it to a right-cursor keystroke followed by a backspace.
If you don’t have an Extended Keyboard, you may not have a forward delete capability at all, although some applications may also put it on another keystroke, such as command-backspace. But you are also in luck, because beginning with version 1.1, the DEL Key Control Panel can also replace the “del” with a keystroke of your choice. (Request from PowerBook owners)
To use DEL Key, place it in your System Folder or Control Panels Folder and reboot. When you open the DEL Key Control Panel, the display will look something like this:
The On and Off buttons in the upper right corner immediately enable and disable DEL Key. DEL Key always loads into memory if it is in the System Folder at startup time, but the On/Off state is pervasive from one startup to the next.
Since some applications already handle forward delete on their own, it would be better to let them handle it directly rather than translating the keystrokes. For this reason, DEL Key will ignore keystrokes entered into any program included in the list in the center of the Control Panel. (Note that these programs can include System 7 desk accessories.) To add an application to this list, click the Add button; a standard Open File dialog will allow you to select an application. To remove an application from the list, select it with the mouse, then click the Remove button.
If you don’t have an Extended Keyboard, you don’t have a del key at all. But if you click the “Set Hotkey” button, a dialog pops up prompting you to enter a keystroke to use instead of the del key. To continue without changing the keystroke, just click the mouse.
Caveats:
1) An application cannot do a forward delete when at the end of text, but DEL Key has no way to know when this is the case. If you type a del at the end of a block of text, the application will probably ignore the right cursor, and then do the backspace.
2) If you type the del key several times in a row, some applications may interpret each right-cursor/backspace pair as a separate round of typing, and may let you Undo only the last one.
Shareware info:
I thought about making this shareware, but then I decided that a postcard is a good enough fee. Can you stand a few minutes and a few cents?
Steve Stockman
Sonflower Softworks
3640 Oaktree Circle #306
Fort Worth, TX 76133-4707
817-292-9443
CompuServe: 76507,2646
America Online: SonflowrSw
Compatibility notes:
DEL Key has been tested along side of TypeIt4Me v3.2 (by Riccardo Ettore), and they seem to get along just fine.
FlashWrite ][ v1.10 (by Andrew Welch) apparently intercepts and uses keystrokes before DEL Key can see them, so it places non-printing characters into the text in spite of DEL Key.
Version History:
1.0 Original release. (Think C 5.0.3)
1.01 Correct a problem with autoKey events. (Think C 5.0.3)
1.1 Allow another hotkey besides del itself. (Think C 5.0.4)