What is a Hotkey?
A hotkey is a combination of keyboard strokes used by software programs to save the user some time. The hotkey combination "Ctrl+S" is commonly used to save a file. Hotkeys can also be used to access programs running on your computer, for example, in Windows the hotkey combination "Alt+Tab" will allow the user to switch to another program running in Windows. (source
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Other Terms for Hotkeys...
chord (kôrd) noun
- Music. A combination of three or more pitches sounded simultaneously.
ar- peg- gi- o (är-pe(j'e-o') noun
- The sounding of the tones of a chord in rapid succession rather than simultaneously.
- A chord played or sung in this manner.
Understanding Hotkeys...
For the sake of our documentation, we should start by clearing up some terminology.
A hotkey denotes pressing one or more modifier keys with a regular key – this is the full combination of keys that activates the defined effect. Modifiers are the first part of the hotkey – the most often are Shift, Ctrl, Alt, and Win. A hotkey can contain multiple modifiers, such as Shift+Win. The last part of the hotkey is the Key portion. Each hotkey contains only one regular key. Examples of hotkeys you may be familiar with are pressing Ctrl+S to save a document, or Ctrl+P to print, Alt+F to open the file menu is also a chord.
Typically, typing capital letters (or the extended characters like the percent sign or parentheses using the Shift key will not be considered a chord, even though it technically is. For this reason, Windows typically forces you to use Shift and Alt together when registering hotkeys. GeoShell does not impose this restriction, but only because we assume you have good reason for doing things which might seem stupid. 
Hotkeys are sometimes called "chords" because they require pressing two or more keys simultaneously. They are a major feature of GeoShell, and there is a set of Standard HotKeys which come preconfigured. In addition, many plugins have one or more hotkey that they install, and you can configure your own hotkeys to launch any application, or run scripts, etc. All hot keys are setup in the registry under: HKCU\Software\Geo\geoShell\Services\Hotkey\szIDs
Place a new STRING value in that subtree, with a name of your choice. Set the value to be
MODIFIERS|KEY|COMMAND, where:
MODIFIERS = Any combination of "win", "ctrl", "alt" and "shift", using the plus sign 
to combine them.
KEY = The key that must be pressed with the modifier keys (see below for details).
COMMAND = What you want to execute. This can be:
- A Program. That is, the full path to an executable
(Take care to write the path in quotation marks if it contains spaces (like C:\Program Files\...).
- A Menu. This is either a GeoShell built-in service/menu, such as "GeoTasks" or "GeoStart", or the path to a folder you want to make a menu out of. (NOTE: The corresponding uID value must be set to 1, or it will open in your filemanager.)
There are some exceptions to this rule:
- You need not specify a modifier if you don't want a modifier
(like |LAUNCH_MAIL|pegasus.exe will allow you to use the mail button on the Microsoft extended keyboards to launch Pegasus Mail, or |F10|Notepad.exe would let you launch notepad at the press of the F10 button).
- You must leave the command (and the trailing pipe (the "|" character) off for all the plugin(aka "Module_") and "Core_" hotkeys. Example: Core_Recycle is just "Win|C"
- There is at least one plugin that violates these rules. You can register hotkeys for specific instances of GeoFlexiMenu, where you specify like this: MODIFIERS|KEY|**GeoFlexiMenu## where ## refers to the specific instance of GeoFlexiMenu. e.g.: 1_1.
Most of your plugin registry entries should look like this example:
Key = HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Geo\geoShell\Services\Hotkey\szIDs
Name = Opera
Type (only win2k and above) = REG_SZ
Data = Win|O|"C:\Program Files\Opera\Opera.exe"
Next, set up a parallel entry in HKCU\Software\Geo\geoShell\Services\Hotkey\uIDs with the same name as you put in szIDs. Make it a DWORD and set the value to either 0 if your hotkey is intended to execute a command or 1 if you want it to bring up a menu.
- If you set the uID to 0, COMMAND can be any command, with parameters.
- If you set the uID to 1, COMMAND can be any Registry Menu, Disk Menu or Default Menu.
Additional Hotkey Information
- Available Keys — Here is a list of keyboard keys and how to enter them in the registry for use with Geoshell's Hotkey System.
- Keystroke Sequences — a guide to setting up GeoShell so that you can launch any application you regularly use with two keystrokes or less.
- Standard HotKeys — An explaination of the default hotkeys that come preconfigured in GeoShell
