Type and 'G'et (Mouseless Assembly)

    The keypress <Alt-G> performs some rather remarkable functions in Pathagoras. It is a tool you will want to memorize.

   The "G" stands for "Get". When pressed, it will get a wide variety of different items, depending upon the context in which it is called. Here is a summary.

When <Alt-G> is pressed next to the following keywords (quotes indicate the exact text):

•"meeting" -- Pathagoras will start a GoToMeeting session. (Please call ahead before entering a meeting.)

•"last" -- Pathagoras will open the last document called or saved via a Pathagoras function. (Note: "lastdoc" will performs same task.)

•"lastpath" -- Pathagoras will open the folder of the last document called or saved via a Pathagoras function.

•any phrase -- (1) Pathagoras will determine if that phrase is a QuickLink. If it is, the 'File Open' dialog pointing to the QuickLink will open. Otherwise, Pathagoras will search for the clause indicated in the section below titled: 'When <Alt-G> is pressed next to unhighlighted, non-keyword text".

•"upgrade" -- Pathagoras will check to see if you are entitled to the latest upgrade of Pathagoras, and if so, offer to download and install it.

When <Alt-G> is pressed next to unhighlighted, non-keyword text:

•if pressed against a number, it will open the SmartPath assigned to that number in the current profile.

•if pressed against a word, it will assume that the word is either a document or a clause name and will attempt to locate that name in the locations set out in Pathagoras' Hunt Path'

•Exclude Sorting Prefixes:

oThe only practical way to cause Word/Windows to display your documents in a desired order is to pre-pend sorting characters to the documents name. Pathagoras' DropDown Lists and Clause Selection screens will also appear in a desired alpha/-numeric order.

oHowever, those sorting characters, being part of the document's name, get in the way of the ‘type and get’ routine discussed above.. “Family Composition” and 'Executor Powers' are fairly easy to remember., but “A1d Family Composition” and "3b_PR Powers" are not.

oPathagoras has two ways to ignore the sorting characters you choose. The location to set the feature is "Pathagoras Features (bottom half)|DropDown Lists|DDL Tools. At the resutling screen, choose Settings and Options tab. There check the appropriate choice under "Ignore Sorting Characters for Alt-G Calls and provide the appropriate value that denotes the exclusion.

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Click to enlarge.

From the above screen, you can tell Pathagoras to ignore a defined number of characters. If your alpha-numeric sorting characters are always a set length, choose the 'Exclude first X characters options.  OR  to ignore all text up to (and including) the first designated character.  

Now ‘A1a Family Structure’ can be recalled with just ‘family structure<alt-G>’.  "3b_PR Powers" can be recalled with just 'powers of PR<Alt-G>'.

Text expander/Quick Parts, etc. The observant user will note that the Alt-G function is in many regards identical to popular text expanders and Microsoft's yet to be popular Quick Parts. The benefits of Pathagoras tool include the facts that the text is a document, instead of a encoded part of another program or a hard to get to (and therefore hard to edit) hidden file in the Quick Parts system. The clause can be more readily shared with others (just point them to the proper folder). The 'drawback (but frequent uses say, 'no it's not) is that you have to press <Alt-G> to trigger the recall. Don't forget AutoCorrect and other text expanders still work, so it really is the best of both worlds. See also Text Expander.

To insert just a section of the document that is bookmarked, type the document's name followed by two colons and then the bookmark name. E.g.,, "fruit::apples"

You can even insert images with this technique The only requirements are that  (1) the image file be in a DropDown List  of images and (2) that the folder to  which the DDL points contain the name ‘image’ or ‘picture’ or  'photo' in any form. So, if the DropDown List points to ‘C:\My Pictures\Nature Shots\Birds\' and there is an image in that folder called Hummingbird.jpg, just type ‘hummingbird’ and then press <Alt-G>. The image will appear at the insertion point. (If you have multiple images with the same 'core' name (eg., hummingbird.jpg and hummingbird.bmp), Pathagoras will insert the first one found following this order: .jpg. .jpeg, .gif, .bmp, .tif.)