Tutorials: Quick Tip – How to Set Custom Key Commands

Comments

1. colorjaws March 1, 2011 at 11:27 am

   hello,
   nice tutorial, but is there a document where we have all the shortcuts together?

   I notice that the program is using the qwerty keyboard but I live in belgium so we only have the azerty keyboard. The problem is that if I want to work on the z-axis I have to type “w” letter on my keyboard (what is the “z” letter is the qwerty keyboard). Is there a way to change all that or do I have to change all the shortcuts?

   How do I make a backup of the actual shortcuts?

   thank you for your answers

2. Jean Probert March 2, 2011 at 6:45 pm

   Hi colorjaws,

   I wanted to let you know I am looking into this, and will get back to you with more information. For now I can tell you this much: the custom shortcuts you set are stored in the preferences file. Are you on Mac or Windows?

   Jean

3. tbabcock123 July 24, 2011 at 4:23 pm

   hi jean,

   i’ve tried deleting a preset shortcut but the program isn’t letting me do it. when i bring up the command that has a preset, the box that should contain the shortcut isn’t populated with an alpha character. i’m using version 6.2 of CX. am i missing something?

   i’m trying to set the recenter command to R (which is currently the ‘hide resource palette’ command) and that doesn’t seem to work, but if i follow your tutorial exactly, i can reset it to the apostrophe. are there some presets that can’t be changed?

   thanks,

   -tom

4. Jean Probert July 24, 2011 at 5:35 pm

   Hi Tom,

   In version 6.x and earlier, the customization requires that the command key is also used, as the introductory modifier. So, if you type R in the box, the program will take that as Command-R, not simply R. You could think of Command-R as a custom key command which you can modify, but the single key R as a hard-wired hotkey which you cannot modify.

   So, if you enter R, the program gives you Command-R, but that is already assigned to the render dialog, so is not available (unless you delete it there, which you could do.) So these are limitations of the custom key command system in version 6 and earlier.

   Here’s the good news, and this also will address Colorjaws’ earlier question. Version 7 will have an extensive hotkey modification system, allowing just about every possible command or hotkey to be edited, and custom hotkey combinations will not require the command key (although it will be allowed, along with the other standard modifiers as well: option/alt, and shift.) This new system will be much more flexible for AZERTY keyboards.

   The new system allows you to export your customizations to a text file that can be reloaded or shared with other users, and also to an HTML page that can be reviewed for reference. The new system is very flexible, and very powerful, and will address all the limitations discussed in these follow-up questions.