Channel Daily News

The shrinking keyboard

Rare Pebble Software Ltd. has released version 1.1 of TouchCursor, a utility for editing text in any Windows application.

TouchCursor puts the cursor keys conveniently under the fingers of touch typists – on the home row of the keyboard. It uses the space bar like an extra Shift key to turn the letter keys into cursor keys, allowing one-handed operation and combination with Shift, Ctrl and Alt.

TouchCursor works with almost all Windows programs, providing the same functionality in Word, Notepad, e-mail clients or anything else. The company claims this product speeds up text editing, while enabling the keyboard navigation of menus and auto-complete lists. Used on a laptop, it can replace awkwardly positioned cursor keys, according to the company.

Initially, TouchCursor emulates Home, End, Insert, Delete, Page Up, Page Down, Backspace and the arrow keys, but users can add other keys and move the existing ones to suit their preferences.

The supported operating systems are Windows 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista.

A license costs $20 and permits a single user to install the software on all computers that they use.