Problem with Adobe acrobat reader 9.0 and strokeit

Hi,

I'm having a problem with Strokeit and Adobe acrobat reader 9.0.
The problem is as follows:

In a pdf file with hyperlinks, we can click them and jump within the document.
Acrobat provides the following hotkeys to navigate thru the document:

previous view: Alt + Left arrow
next view: Alt + Right Arrow

These work fine using the keyboard. However, when I try to configure strokeit to send these keystrokes, it does not work. (FYI, I've configured the gestures Left for prev view and right for next view). I have the right window class as other gestures/keystrokes seem to work, for instance Save As (Ctrl+Shift+S), etc

Can someone try this out on their computer and let me know if this works for them, and if not, any suggestions. I don't want to "send keystrokes" unless its the only solution. Hope Jeff can figure out the problem.

Thanks in advance
Amit

I have tested it, and it works on my computer: alt-left/right browses backwards/forward through the history of viewed pages (at least I think so -- I don't use Acrobat myself, but rather freeware programs like PDF-XChange Viewer or Sumatra).

The following are things you probably have checked already, but just to be on the safe side:

1. Are you 100% sure the save-as gesture that works for you in Acrobat is not simply the global gesture doing its work?

2. Are you 100% sure your application Adobe Acrobat in StrokeIt is identified correctly? I have CLASS:AcrobatSDIWindow as window identifier.

3. Are you 100% sure you pressed "add gesture" after you selected the gesture you wanted for alt-left? I sometimes forget to.

4. Are you 100% sure you actually had a history of viewed pages to browse through? If you just open a document and press alt+left, nothing happens, because you are already at the first page in your history. Same for the last page in history.

5. You could try adding an On Screen Display "acrobat left" command to your Acrobat>Left action, so that you can see whether the action is executed at all.

6. You could post the relevant lines from your exported actions file here so that we may check it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2010 07:34AM by Cerberus.

hi Cerberus,

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I have checked everything you said and cannot get it to work. Incidentally, I also tried "send keystrokes" which correspond to
[ALT_DOWN]V[ALT_UP]GV (for prev view)
[ALT_DOWN]V[ALT_UP]GW (for next view)

It does not work either. Removing the last "V" (or "W") causes the menus to open up but I'm not able to send the next keystroke successfully. It seems to be a problem in Acrobat (I used version 9.xx)

Which version did you use? I recall that it worked correctly for an earlier version.


I'm sure the Save As works correctly, as in Acrobat, the hotkeys are different from global save(as) actions. I also did the test of OSD and it successfully captures the gesture within Adobe. It just does not send the keystrokes or hotkeys correctly.

I'm pasting the lines from my config file below.

<VERSION>StrokeIt .9.4</VERSION>

<APP name="Adobe">
class=AcrobatSDIWindow
exec=AcroRd32.exe
down {
   gesture = Down
   Pgdn = keys, hotkey "[NEXT]"
}
Next View {
   gesture = Right
   Alt+Right = keys, hotkey  "[ALT_DOWN]
[ALT_UP]"
}
Prev View {
   gesture = Left
   Alt+Left = keys, hotkey  "[ALT_DOWN]
[ALT_UP]"
}
Save As {
   gesture = S
   Shift+Ctrl+S = keys, hotkey  "[CTRL_DOWN][SHIFT_DOWN]s[SHIFT_UP][CTRL_UP]"
}
up {
   gesture = Up
   Pgup = keys, hotkey "[PRIOR]"
}
</APP>

<GESTURE>
Right {
E`
}

Left {
e@
}

</GESTURE>

I added the "exec=AcroRd32.exe" as another trial option but does not seem to make a difference.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2010 12:13AM by amit.

I have been using the newest version of Acrobat, 9.3, which I downloaded yesterday. I am using StrokeIt Pro .9.7. I have deleted my Acrobat settings in StrokeIt, and imported your actions and gestures (except your Left gesture): every worked exactly as it should, I found no problems. I am on Windos XP SP3; you?

You might try downloading Acrobat 9.3 and see whether that works; if not, I am at a loss: it is then probably something in your computer's configuration that's different from mine. Trying StrokeIt .9.7 would be very far fetched, since I have never found any problems such as this in older versions of StrokeIt, except those that were my own stupid fault - but we have ruled out those, since it works on my computer. Oh, how frustrating this must be for you! I know the feeling. For instance, I am trying to play Youtube videos on my phone with the screen off; I have been trying countless tricks I found on the internet, spent hours and hours on it, but no luck.

As Gemisigo said, you could also try adding pauses with the Delay command between keystrokes:
[CTRL_DOWN]
Delay 200
V
Delay 200
[CTRL_UP]
Or something like that.

Hi Cerberus,

I was indeed a problem with Adobe. I was using v9.1 and it didn't work. I updated to 9.3 and everything started working fine.

Thanks for the information that led me to update Adobe.

Rgds
Amit

Haha, I am glad!

thank you all for troubleshooting this one!

.... except that i've chosen to stay w/ Acrobat Pro v8 due to the fact that Adobe
removed the MDI ability in v9 :(

maybe Acrobat Pro 10 will not only work with this, but also include ....

TRUE MDI !!! ------- MULTIPLE TABBED DOCUMENTS !!!!!
(shouting intentional --- maybe some fine person @ Adobe will read this)

and the settings work about 50% of the time in Pro 8 -
otherwise it glitches & will travel 1/2 page up/down, etc

.... PDFxChange is otherwise so darn crisp!
there are only a couple, but non-negotiable features in Acrobat Pro that keeps me there :(

I've exactly the same problem with a german version of adobe acrobat reader 9.3 on a german windows xp sp3 with strokeit 0.97. Fortunately i found an ugly but working solution:

Previous: [ALT_DOWN]A[ALT_UP]G[UP][UP][RETURN]
Next: [ALT_DOWN]A[ALT_UP]G[UP][RETURN]

You have to replace the german letters with the corresponding letters of the language you use.

Thanks for the above Dele. For the English speakers the keystrokes are:

Previous: [ALT_DOWN]V[ALT_UP]G[UP][UP][RETURN]
Next: [ALT_DOWN]V[ALT_UP]G[UP][RETURN]

A bit ugly :) but no choice for now. Wonder how Adobe did this. The manage to screw my happiness with ever new version they roll out.

If Adobe does not respond to strokeit, then run StrokeIt as admin, and adobe as non-admin, and
go to Adobe/Edit/Preferences/Security(Enhanced)/ then uncheck protected mode and run in application container.