The Problem:

At a job I was required to do many redundant and repetitve things, this included leaving notes on each phone call, keeping track of each phone call, writing emails/replies in various systems, checking tracking, and moving through various systems.

Unfortunately, at 100+ calls per day, you can only do the same action so many times before you work out ways to avoid it. So I created this and have used it for far too long.

The Solution:

A simple application that takes up minimal space, is always visible, quick to customise, and requires little as effort as possible to use:

It started off as a simple minimalistic notepad with timestamps and clearing functions, and then became a full task bar with many macro style functions

Features!

...

• always visible tiny task bar, that opens on mouse hover and does things when you click
• customisable with colours, click press times, etc
• can edit on fly messages, add buttons, add messages, etc
• has regex search so can quickly goto claims, orders, tracking, consignments etc in a single click
• has rtf(outlook) and html(gmail, zendesk, etc) email templates, so one click can generate a premade template with photos, formatting, etc
• has quick insert, so you can combine templates, or even insert a pre set message inside another template (ie adding particular photo for product info)
• one click to record an action, and to copy preset message
• pairs with a couple extensions on chrome that make it a bit better
• can view preset messages with one click ie addresses and stuff

Technical stuff

At it's core, it goes Label->ButtonEntity->MenuEntity->MenuBar

Each MenuButton can have a full recursive list, buttons can be added or deleted on the fly.

As far as challenges went, the bar never takes focus, so I can click and press ctrl+v in say firefox without needing to click back down, unfortunately parts of the app require typing, so it needs to gain focus on the search bars automatically and lose it so to not annoy.

When we moved from outlook to gmail, all the RTF style templates did not work, so I had to also copy it as HTML to clipboard so that pictures and formatting was preserved

Since the menu is changeable, the loading and saving of layout has to be recursive and the functions are a little ugly. (load=150lines of code)

Below is snippet from load file, it has regex to open certain URLS, it has preset messages and also stores current counts

Tab indented for sub menus makes it pretty easy to edit

   
;----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;--TRACK - copy consignment to clipboard, click track to track it -----------------------------------------------------------
;----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[track]<0>
~(\d[a-zA-Z]{3}|[a-zA-Z]\d[a-zA-Z]{2})\d{8}@https://msto.startrack.com.au/track-trace/?id={}
~[cpbpqkzCPBQKZ]{7}\d{7}@https://www.couriersplease.com.au/tools-track/no/{}
~((343\w{2})|(33\w{3}))\d{7}@https://auspost.com.au/mypost/track/#/details/{}
~[b-zB-Z]{2}\d{6}@https://online.hunterexpress.com.au/ss-2/freightJob/showExternal?connoteNumber={}
~[4WwDdCcsSFf]{4}\d{7}@https://www.borderexpress.com.au/tracking/?cn={}


;----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;--ACTIONS - Easy way to summarise actions, !s calls etc for quickly set values ---------------------------------------------
;----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[actions]<0>/i
Zendesk;SEE ZENDESK #()<1>
Calls<1>
Claims<1>
Freight<1>
Livechat<1>


;----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;--FAQ - any frequently asked questions, add more as required/delete as required --------------------------------------------
;----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[faq]<1>/i
Is Order Ready?<2>
	Store<0>
		Ready/NO TEXT;Advised order is in-stock and ready for collection (NO TEXT RECEIVED)<0>
		Ready/TEXTED;Advised order is in-stock and ready for collection (TEXT RECEIVED)<0>
		Not Ready/NO TEXT;Advised order is not ready yet (NO TEXT RECEIVED)<0>
		Not Ready/TEXTED;Advised order is not ready yet (TEXT RECEIVED)<0>
		Pre-Order/AWARE;Advised customer of pre-order date<0>
		Pre-Order/NOT AWARE;Advised customer of the current pre order date<0>
	Online<0>
		Ready;Advised stock is in ready for shipping<0>
		Not Ready; Advising still waiting for stock, ETA:<0>
		Pre-Order/AWARE;Advised customer of pre-order date<0>
		Pre-Order/NOT AWARE;Advised customer of the current pre order date<0>
Order Related<0>