This isn't a sales pitch, because the device doesn't exist yet. But I've written it up as though it did, and I was giving an elevator pitch, or doing a voiceover for a 5 minute infomercial.
I'd really like to have one on my desk now; I've wanted something like it for years. Everyone I've talked to about it wants one, too.
I've pitched it to a couple manufacturers, but was pretty much dismissed out of hand. My gut feeling about the rejections is they occurred because I didn't approach companies through "proper" channels. Sooo, being a man of limited means, and with some things to learn, I've started to wonder if maybe crowd-sourcing might be a better way for me to manifest this project. I'm looking to find some collaborators—specifically, someone who can write driver-level software, and perhaps someone who has better skills than I do with 3D modeling software.
I have a decent start on the physical design of the device, but my ideas aren't immutable.
I'm looking for more ideas and help here folks. The more dialogue, the better.
So, who's up for it?
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What is AccessPad Pro®™?
You're a power-user. The applications you work with do your bidding like a conductor directs an orchestra.
You've customized the way your applications open—all the Tools and Palettes show up right where you like them. You may even have a few custom workspace arrangements for different purposes. You switch between them with a mouse click, and you're ready to go.
You've made brilliant use of Actions, Macros, Scripts and other built-in time- and effort-saving functions.
You know hundreds of keyboard shortcuts, and have spent time reassigning the defaults to more deftly meet your needs. You've assigned F-key shortcuts to some of those functions that don't even have shortcuts.
You're a power-user, but you've run up against a couple things that put a brick wall in front of your ever-increasing efficiency.
First—your keyboard. It's been designed from the start for typing actual text. It's been that way since the dawn of the first mechanical typewriters. The way the keys are arranged are meant to make it easy for your fingers to find the keys. Even if you use the arguably better Dvorak arrangement for key assignments. Even if you have one of those split-and-angled ergonomic keyboards, they're still designed to do one thing well: Let the user type text as efficiently as possible.
Your keyboard—whatever the species—was never meant to be an efficient, ergonomic way to access the shortcuts you depend on. For your current keyboard—nay, ANY keyboard—to perform optimally as a shortcut access device, you'd do well to have a third hand, or a freakishly long set of fingers that could bend 360 degrees in any direction.
Second—Your keyboard only allows a finite number of shortcuts. If you find yourself wishing and begging for just one more F-key, so you wouldn't have to get rid of some of your old shortcuts just to add a newly discovered "must-have", you're out of luck. It's about impossible to find one that has any more than 16 F-keys. Even if you could find a keyboard with more user-assignable keys, there's still the matter of the first problem, that is: How to reach them easily and quickly?
Forget all of those hassles, starting now.
The AccessPad Pro®™ is a computer peripheral designed from the ground up to allow you—the kings and queens of all power users—to have access to a virtually unlimited number of shortcuts. It sits on your desk, opposite the hand you use for operating your mouse. You rest your hand on it, in a comfortable relaxed manner. Notice where your thumb naturally falls. Right there, under your thumb, you find that there are buttons that replicated the Command & Option keys found on your keyboard. They can be pressed and activated independently or in tandem.
Under the heel of your hand is a somewhat larger button. Press down slightly, and you'll enable the same behavior as the Shift key on your keyboard.
Using your thumb and the heel of your hand you can enable 7 combinations of modifiers (Remember, one of the permutations is NO modifiers pressed).
Now, look at your fingers. Beneath where they naturally rest on the AccessPad Pro™® you'll see six gracefully curved rows of buttons, 4 in each row. These buttons are arranged ergonomically, so the slightest shift and curl of your fingers can find and press any of the 24 buttons.
Let's do some simple math: 7 permutations of modifier key combinations, multiplied by 24 easily reachable, user-assignable function buttons...The AccessPad Pro®™ gives you comfortable access to a whopping 168 shortcut assignments, all without moving your hand off the input device.
But that's not all. 168 shortcuts isn't enough for you? No problem. You can have a virtually unlimited number of these shortcut sets, user assignable to work system-wide, or on a per-application basis, and you can load any set, any time you want. And because these custom shortcut assignments are written to a preset file using the industry standard XML scripting language, you can save these sets as tiny text files which you can share and trade with users on either the Mac or Windows platform.
You're a power-user. Forget about trying to grow a 3rd hand. Forget about wishing you had foot-long fingers.
Use your mouse for moving and controlling your cursor onscreen.
Use your keyboard for typing text, numbers and characters.
Use AccessPad Pro®™ to speed up everything else you do on your computer. Try it for a week and you'll wonder how you ever worked without it.
