Recently i bought myself a Tablet PC / notebook, which I have been using quite a bit with photoshop to modify photographs when away from my main desktop PC.

One problem i stumbled into however with this is the need to use modifier keys, such as Alt or Shift to change the way in which a tool behaves. When the computer is in tablet mode rather than notebook mode i have zero access to the keyboard, which made this a bit awkward to use the clone tool, for example, as i would have to half unfold the tablet to get to the actual keyboard, or use the huge standard on screen keyboard.

I had a bit of a search about and was unable to find software that suited my requirements, namely a small app that sat on screen and provided just the three modifier keys and more importantly, was free.

As i couldn’t find anything, and i was getting bored, i decided instead to just knuckle down and code it, and thus Modifier Lock for Tablet PC (ModLock) was born. A quick screenshot:

ModLock Screenshot


You’re welcome to download and use this if you wish, no license needed, all i would ask is that if you re-host the file you provide a link back to this page.

It is very rough and ready at the minute, no installer or start menu items, just run it and use it basically. If there is enough demand i will look at wrapping an installer around it. I’m also considering adding a timed auto-unlock for the keys of say 5 seconds, so let me know if thats something that would interest you.

How to use?

  • Run the program and let it sit on your screen
  • When you come to need a modifer, simply select the tool you are going to use.
  • Click the required button in ModLock, the button will go bold to indicate the key is locked
  • Go back to Photoshop and perform your actions or tasks
  • Click the button in ModLock again, it will unbold to indicate the key is no longer locked.

It was written in VB6, so as long as you have the VB runtimes it should work ok, any problems let me know in the comments below.

Ok, enough of the blurb. Click here to download it.
UPDATE: V0.3 has been released, which can be found here

~Shepy