Increasing productivity (or as some of us call it – becoming lazy) is always on the mind of anybody. We’ve already written about using keyboard shortcuts to launch programs, now with EscapeClose Pro you can use certain keys to do some trivial tasks like closing and minimizing windows.

EscapeClose Pro’s primary task is to close a window when the Escape key is closed. It can however, do a lot more than just that. Below is a list of shortcut keys that EscapeClose Pro has:

• Hitting the tilde (~) key will minimize the running app or all the apps. You choose.
• The ‘Escape’ key can be used to close a window.
• To select all files in Windows Explorer, the asterisk (*) key can be used.
• ‘+’ or ‘-’ can be used to select and deselect files respectively.
• Pressing ‘F11′ will make any application switch to Maximized view.

There are different “modes” for each task. For instance, selecting ‘Mode 1 (close Esc)’ will make the mouse pointer jump to the Close (X) button on the top right of a window when the Escape key is pressed. Under ‘Mode 2′, hitting the Escape key will directly close the application.

The best feature I liked about the software was that it made it easier for me to maximize and minimize applications by hitting the (~) and ‘F11′ keys respectively. Quite a time saver, given that my caption buttons are the size of an ant.

Other features include completely hiding a window (did not work with Firefox). Pressing the tilde and escape keys will completely hide a window or restore it to the system tray (based on what you choose). How’s that for hiding programs that don’t minimize to the system tray? =)

See the screenshot for more options and commands.

EscapeClose 1.5 (Free)

EscapeClose 2.1 (Trial)

(Thumbnail credits to Ukaaa’s The Great Escape)

[Windows Only]: If having lots of shortcuts on the desktop is your idea of making life easier, then you probably should try this trick out. No software involved, just a few minutes spent in tinkering with the properties of your applications.

There are plenty of software like Launchy to make launching applications by keystrokes a snap. But what if you’re the kind of guy (like me) who does not want to install software if it can be done manually? There’s a very simple solution to this for Windows users.

Create a shortcut for your app if it doesn’t already exist. Start Menu items, desktop items, Quick Launch, or any other shortcut will also do. Now right-click on it and proceed to Properties. You should be in the ‘Shortcut’ tab.

Enter your desired keystroke in the ‘Shortcut Key’ area. For instance, I have used the keystroke Ctrl + Alt + P (for the plugins directory) as seen in the screenshot (click to enlarge). You’re done.

Launch applications with easy-to-remember keystrokes.

Additional tip: You can even select to run the shortcut in a normal window, maximized, or minimized. Quite convenient.