Working with ActiveWords is easy. For some it's a challenge. Allow me to dare you and shorten your learning curve: please challenge me with topic requests. It is my pleasure as an active member of the ActiveWords community to show off what you can do with this program. I hope it pleases you too.
Explaining the essence of ActiveWords to other people like your colleagues at work is a different story. Sometimes catch phrases work well, like the one on the new ActiveWords website: One Word is Worth a Thousand Clicks. I like that one-liner. Ramon McLeod (PC World) put it this way: ActiveWords Turns Words into Actions.
But in addition to showing a bucket full of raving reviews to your colleagues, what else could you think of to persuade them to try the little gem you discovered? This is not a rhetorical question. We need hands-on examples that immediately get the message across - preferably within the first 30 seconds of your colleague's short attention span.
Over time I found the following approach highly effective with the people I know. These are 'normal' people, not PC experts. The only requirement is that you create an active word consisting of just one extremely powerful command tag, called <ADD TEMPORAL ACTIVEWORD>. Don't hesitate to look this command tag up in the AWSL help file. AWSL is short for the ActiveWords Scripting Language.
Create the new active word using the four steps that you may already have seen in my other posts. By the way, to cut and paste previously clipped text (like I'm doing now to show you the steps), I use a utility called ClipMate. I just found out their prices will go up after April 15, 2004 from $24.95 to $29.95 for a single user license - so hurry if you were planning to buy such a tool anyway. It works well for me.
These are the steps:
1. Click on the add button in the ActiveWords monitor bar;
2. In the ActiveWords Add Wizard dialog, choose the Scripting action (it's the last option), then choose Next;
3. in the Add New ActiveWord Wizard - Command dialog, type or paste the following text in the Action field:
<ADD TEMPORAL ACTIVEWORD>
then press TAB to write a description of your choice in the Description field, then choose Next;
4. In the final dialog screen you may name your action. I suggest you name it addtmp. Leave the checkmark in the Confirmation Flag field as it is.
Choose Finish.
Your script is now ready.
Here comes the part where you use your new active word.
Open an empty document in your word processor and type the following sample text as one line, followed by your ActiveWords trigger key (<F8> for most users).
| Type: |
| This new weblog on ActiveWords is AWesome. demo addtmp |
Now type
demo<8>
Wow. The line you typed must have created a new active word without opening a wizard or ActiveWords editor. Yes. Let me explain it to you.
The line of text that you typed basically consists of three parts. It's easier to analyze it backwards.
Part 3: addtmp: this is the name of the active word you created using the 4 steps
Part 2: demo: this is a new active word that gets created on-the-fly by the powerful <ADD TEMPORAL ACTIVEWORD> command tag
Part 1: all other words: this is the text you'd like to be substituted when you trigger the active word <demo> Once you understand this three-tier approach you can vary the text, even play around with <ENTER> command tags.
A couple more comments on the nature of active words created using addtmp:
as soon as you shut down ActiveWords (or put your computer in stand-by mode), the active word <demo> disappears. If you'd like to use this method to create permanent active words (I personally do), then follow the steps above and create another active word with the command tag <SAVE TEMPORAL ACTIVEWORDS> You could name this new active word <savtmp>. When you are ready to save your temporary active words, just trigger this <savtmp> command, click Next and confirm the name of the active word by pressing the Finish button.
You can create 30 temporary active words. From a programming point of view you could use them as temporary variables. After reaching the limit of 30 active words, the first temporary active word will be overwritten with the next one.
The <addtmp> only accepts manually entered text as input. Don't try to cut and paste text - that won't work.
Although you CAN create several temporary active words with the same name (<demo> for example), it is no use. The subsequently created active words with the same name can only be triggered after they are saved.
You clear all temporary active words by triggering the <CLEAR TEMPORAL ACTIVEWORDS> command. As you probably already guessed, I created an active word called <clrtmp> for this purpose in my wordbase.
As always I highly welcome comments and requests.
AWesome Scripting!
AWesome (this blog)