version 1.0 beta

Mac users will recognize the screenshot below:

That is the "eject/load cd tray" feedback window that appears when one presses and holds the eject key on their mac keyboard. Nice and very useful.

Unfortunately, there is no such key on a PC keyboard. Mac users that are "forced" to use a PC keyboard still have the F12 key to trigger the eject/insert feature of the Mac. The rest of us, PC users swimming in the realm of Windows, have to lean/bend/crumple toward the cd unit tray to get it out or push it in. Well, there is an "eject" menuitem on the contextual menu of a cd/dvd icon in Explorer, so one can eject the tray, but there is no insert menuitem... Also, out in the wild, there are some softwares (free or not) that add such a menuitem (duh...) or set global hotkeys for eject and insert (which is closer to what I want). But I didn't found one that will work (and look) like the mac. That is, a single hotkey that will eject or insert the tray depending on its status. So... I decided to kill some spare time and build one.


Now I have a small Windows application that looks and works (almost) like the Mac feature. Currently, the beta version is under "heavy" testing on several XP machines.

It uses the "Pause" key as the hotkey, mainly because that is the most unused key in Windows, and, also, is located on the top left area of the keyboards. I didn't want to have to push two or more keys, so I didn't set any modifiers to go with. But, if I'll find more spare time, and if there will be enough interest for the cdEjectLoad app, I will make the hotkey customizable. And, probably, the feedback image too. For now, I'm happy with the current setup.

Grab it, test it and give me back some comments.
How do you do that?
Grab is simple, you have a link to a zip file on the top-right area of this page. Download it and extract the app executable to a folder of your preference.
Test should be simple too. When you run it, you will see nothing happening. The app has no graphical user interface, it just loads in the memory and waits for the "Pause" key to be pushed. If nothing happens when you press it, check if the app is running. Simplest way to do that is to run it again. If it finds itself in the memory, it will tell you so (and ask if you want to terminate it or not). If you want to run it every time your system starts, add a shortcut for it in the Startup menu (I think you know how to do that, else, Google is your best friend).
Give back comments is the hardest part. You have to come back to this page and click on the feedback button, then type words in that edit box. Kind of time consuming for a person in need for a quick hotkey to eject/insert the cd tray, isn't it?...