S&T Keys for Streets & Trips 2010 Wish List

SpadesFlush:
Let me explained what i understood so you can correct me if i am wrong...

1- You want an easy way to open a file from a pushpin url by using a single hand for the operation (you need to do this in your car).
2- I guess your computer is equipped with a touch screen (to get the real benefit of this feature), and you will use it to select the pushpin.
3- Then you want to use a hotkey or a button from the F4 menu (from your touch screen i guess) to ctrl-click the previously selected pushpin to open what the url is pointing at in the pushpin (the first url will be opened).

Did I get it correctly?

Now because i am curious (and still need to understand the benefit to give me some motivations to do the job!!!), and want to understand if i can use that feature myself (this is usually the first motivation for me to spend time to work on S&T Keys ), what kind of function i could do with that feature while navigating in the car with S&T?

Because if i am at the planning phase of my trip and sit at home, i can just use the <CTRL> key and click with the mouse to do the job . (it seems to me that a lot of steps would be needed to do the job using S&T Keys, much more longer than doing the ctrl-click thing). I can see a benefit of the ctrl-click thing at home at planning phase so you can for example open a web site related to the pushpin... So what kind of thing you want to do while navigating with that feature in mind, so you are ready to do all these steps to achieve your purpose ?

Yes, this is essentially correct except that I would like to de-emphasize a bit the driving-in-the-car aspect. I am using a Viliv S5 UMPC that does have a touch-screen (with a built-in on-screen keyboard) as you surmised. Your Keys front-end really helps with this format because it allows me to avoid the fussy OSK.

I would be completely OK with your not working on this; Keys is terrific as is and I can really live without this enhancement. There are probably not that many cases where it would be sensible to be pulling up files (certainly not web pages) while you are navigating. However, you may want to look at, say, a hotel reservation confirmation before you get to the destination. Or a salesman might want to review a document while he is sitting at a traffic light in advance of a customer meeting.

Yes, if you have conventional keyboard. But with just a touch-screen, it is actually very difficult to do a ctrl-click. You have to (1) open up the OSK to get to the ctrl key, (2) click on the ctrl virtual key, (3) position the cursor over the pushpin, and (4) click. I am not even sure if that is possible. Actually, it is probably easier to double-click on the pushpin to get the balloon and then click on the text of the link. I have no feel at all for how difficult this is to program but if it is not something you want to take on, I am completely OK with that. I get the impression that I would be the only one in the World who might use it, anyway. If it's a bad idea, feel free to reject it; I really won't mind.

Spadesflush said:
Like i told you, the first motivation for me if it could be helpfull to myself (yes i know it is a little selfish ).

But sometimes at first sight even if i don't find it usefull, if many find it usefull, i can change my mind about it. Or if after explaining it, maybe i could find it usefull. This is how came the calendar mode idea last year. This was not my idea at all. A user ask about a way to see calendar dates in the planning by pressing a hotkey manually. After finding the idea usefull after discussion on the forum, i realized how interesting the idea was and if it was automatic, that i could use it myself. That was the motivation of doing it.

I can say also that when you proposed a modification to fit the GUI inside 600 pixels, so it can work on small portable devices as you used, i was not even aware that S&T can work on these small screen devices. So the idea never came to my mind for this reason. But after seeing that you were using it in such situations, and possibly many users could (even if i don't do it myself now), i thought it was a good idea to correct and squeeze the GUI cause it may help many peoples (even not me).

So i don't refuse the idea, let it makes it's way to a future version of S&T Keys and let see what will happen from now to this moment (may be many peoples will find the idea usefull or vote for it ).

This is the reason of this wish list thread. To catch new ideas and accumulate them in a single place until a new release is made and some of them are realized.

In the short term, I am not planning for a new version now. I think the version is pretty reliable now and I wish to make it to the big test in my next travels .

So don't hesitate to submit any other idea to this thread... (i know after looking of what you are writing on this forum that your imagination has a lot of potential for this )

All of that is entirely reasonable, MisterMoonlight.

Thanks for taking the time to consider it.

Would it be possible to adjust the notification of turns and exits? Seems that everything is set to 3/10 of a mile for highway exits? I drive over the road delivering frozen food and produce for Wal-Mart. It's a little hard sometimes to get 18 wheels to slow down in 3/10 of a mile. Thanks for all your work.

A good point. But perhaps rather than have that entirely controlled by MSFT, how about if the user had the ability to set his/her notifications?

duce said:
I really don't see how i can do this with s&t keys. Nothing in s&t can be configured to do this, so i can not automate anything to do the job...

I suggest you add this to s&t wish list instead

Wish List for Microsoft Streets and Trips