Hot Keys

Hot keys are keyboard shortcuts that always trigger the same action — regardless of the currently active application. You can assign hot keys to almost anything in Butler's configuration. There are trivial uses for hot keys, such as launching applications or accessing web sites. But you can also take advantage of the more elaborate features of Butler's hot keys: For instance, assigning a hot key to a container will give you a pop-up menu (see below).

To assign a hot key to an item, select the item in question and switch to the Inspector's "Triggers" section. Then, highlight the "Hot Key" input field and enter your keyboard combination of choice.

The screenshot at hand shows how to make the [F4] key launch Safari.

Once you've entered a hot key, you can restrict it to certain applications, by either specifying a positive list or an exclusions list. If the item in question is a container, you can also determine whether the hot key should launch all (immediate) children of the container sequentially (default), or if the container's content should rather pop up as a menu.

To clear a given hot key, click on the [-] button next to the "Hot Key" input field.