Dont see much speed improvement over having a routine maybe a DCL with buttons over press 1 <Enter> we use menus and tool bars easy to have a tool bar with 1 2 3 4 5 etc. You will need to make the icons here is the tool bar code. Its a MNU file use menuload. It should work without the icons.
***MENUGROUP=NUMBSTOOLBAR
***TOOLBARS
**NumberTOOLS
ID_ALAN_1 [_Toolbar("Alans2", _LEFT, _Show, 50,50, 1)]
1 [_Button("1","1.bmp,"1.bmp")]^c^c^c(command "1")
2 [_Button("2","2.BMP","2.BMP")]^c^c^c(command "2")