Chapter 5, Getting Familiar with Your Workspace
| Editing Functions | |
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Setting User Preferences |
Chapter 5, Getting Familiar with Your Workspace |
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The Hotkey Editor enables you to save different Hotkey Catalogs, and share these Catalogs with other users. Use the Hotkey Editor to manage hot keys (keyboard shortcuts).
The Hotkey Editor allows you to:
Quickly and easily modify the existing default hotkeys.
Keep a copy of your user defined hotkeys for sharing and backup or updating your copy of Toxik.
Regroup or Document a list of all hotkeys.
The new hotkey dispatching mechanism ensures that local hotkeys are processed before any global ones. This removes your viewer from any unnecessary constraints, and will mimic the hotkey dispatching workflow of Autodesk IFFFS products.
Toxik now has only one file that contains all the default hotkeys. This file will be located in /resources/resTables/defaultHotkeys.xml. The default hotkeys will be grouped in domains.
For example:
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Hotkeys are composed of four elements.
Action -- This is the name of the corresponding hotkey action that will be executed.
State -- This is the state the keyboard must be in for the action to occur. This is basically the modifier keys that must be pressed (Ctrl, Alt, and Shift)
Key -- This is the single keystroke part of the hotkey that is not a modifier.
Type -- The type of hotkey (Press or Release)
The default hotkeys file contains a list of domains each comprising a list of hotkeys.
The "Global" domain contains hotkey actions that are not bound to a specific context. When a hotkey is triggered, if the hotkey is not processed locally, then it will be treated as a global hotkey.
The "Local" domain contains hotkey actions that are bound to a specific module or context in Toxik. When a hotkey is triggered in the context of a tool or over a certain viewer for example, this hotkey will be processed by this local domain.
Local domains may contain sub domains. These sub domains allow you to create domains on the same level that will use or share common parent domain hotkeys. For example, in Toxik, hotkeys for different types of viewers are stored in the parent domain /local/viewers. The player and the schematic each have their own local domain under /Local/viewers/player, and /Local/viewers/schematic respectively. Any hotkey found in /Local/viewers will be inherited by these two sub domains. This is what we call hotkey sharing.
Toxik introduces a new Hotkeys Catalog concept. Catalogs are place holders for user defined hotkeys. In other words, when a user modifies a hotkey through the Hotkey Editor, the hotkey entry is added to the active Catalog, keeping track of all customized hotkeys.
Catalogs are stored in the Hotkey Catalogs subfolder of the user home folder. Catalogs can be subsequently moved to the /Project folder and shared with other users. Like Color Palettes, only one Catalog can be active at any time. The active Catalog can be chosen through the Hotkey Editor. When modifying hotkeys, if no Catalog exist for the current user, a new Catalog will be created automatically.
When starting Toxik, the default hotkeys are registered in the hotkey registry and organized into the specified domains. If you have a Hotkey Catalog active, the hotkeys in the registry will be overwritten by the hotkeys found in the Catalog. When resetting a hotkey or a hotkey domain, Toxik will remove these hotkeys from the active Catalog, and reset the hotkeys to the Toxik defaults from the default hotkeys resource file.
Creation and deletion of Catalogs can be done through the Hotkey Catalogs subfolder of the user home folder found in the Library Browser. However, deleting a Catalog will not automatically reset all the hotkeys in the registry. Remember that a Catalog is simply a place holder of your user defined hotkeys.
Also, like any other database objects found in the user home folder, you can move Catalogs around, copy them, and archive them for sharing.
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The Hotkey Editor allows you to modify all the hotkeys described in the default Toxik hotkey resource file.
The Hotkey Editor is a browser displaying all the hotkeys grouped into domains. Domains act as folders, and hotkeys as leafs of these domains.
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The hotkeys displayed are those found in the default Toxik hotkeys resource file and the current active Hotkey Catalog--see Hotkey Catalogs.
The active Hotkey Catalog is displayed in the Catalog menu at the bottom of the Hotkey Editor.
Note: You can manage the Catalogs from the Library Browser in the hotkeys subfolder of the user home folder, which is similar to how Color Palettes work.
The browser section of the Hotkey Editor is composed of four columns.
Name -- Represents the name of the domain or the hotkey action. This cannot be modified.
Value -- Represents the keystrokes composing the hotkey. This can be edited by clicking the cell or by typing F2 after selecting the row.
Type -- Represents the type (Press/Release) of the hotkey. This can be edited by a right-click edit option on the cell or by typing F2 after selecting the cell.
User -- Indicates if a hotkey has been user defined. This would be indicated by a mark icon which is read only.
The Hotkey Editor can be accessed through the global hotkey Ctrl + H, which may also be changed by the user. The Hotkey Editor can also be accessed through the Toxik menu bar (Edit > Hotkeys).
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Editing hotkeys can be done two ways.
Do one of the following:
Clicking on a VALUE cell representing the hotkey.
Clicking F2 after selecting the row representing the hotkey.
Either way the Hotkey Editor will switch to "Learn Mode". Every key pressed will be part of the new hotkey, see Hotkey Format, for the hotkey rule formats.
Note: If the user tries to set a hotkey that already exists in the current domain or in the "Global" domain, they will be notified with a warning. The hotkey will be set, but remember that a local hotkey has precedence over a Global hotkey.
Conflicting hotkey rows in the Hotkey Editor are displayed in red.
Right-click a conflicting hotkey to see the "Go To Conflict" option.
Choosing this option on the menu, or pressing the F3 hotkey will take you to the conflicting hotkey, select it, then turn the learning state ON. This allows you to edit a conflicting hotkey on the fly.
Toxik has a hotkey format standard that needs to be followed in order for a hotkey to be valid. When creating and editing hotkeys, the following keystroke conventions apply:
All modifiers Ctrl, Alt, and Shift must come before any other keystrokes.
Modifiers must be entered in the above order.
A hotkey can be composed of one to three modifiers and one normal key.
You are limited to four keystrokes per hotkey operation.
Key strokes in a hotkey operation are pressed at the same time.
You cannot use a combination of keystrokes more than once.
The formatting will be handled by Toxik automatically, meaning that as soon as you release the last key, the hotkey string is automatically generated, and entered in the value editor.
Right-click a hotkey in the Hotkey Editor.
Select Reset.
This will reset to the Toxik default and remove the hotkey entry from the active Catalog.
Right-click a hotkey in the Hotkey Editor.
Select All.
Select Reset.
All Toxik hotkeys are reset and hotkey entries are removed from the active Catalog.
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