Available shortcuts?

• Sep 2, 2017 - 09:33

When creating a shortcut, deciding on a convenient and easily-remembered combination of keys to use can be offputting. Perhaps the user could be offered the option of being able to view a list of available shortcuts?


Comments

How do you see this differ from Edit → Preferences → Shortcuts and then clicking on the Shortcut header to sort the list?

In reply to by geetar

The "problem" with listing those, is that could be quite a long is, as you can create shortcut(combo's) of up to 4 keystrokes. For example, I've changed the shortcuts for grace notes to all require you to first press U and then a different key to add one (&, é, " respectively depending on the length of the grace note, which on my azerty keyboard matches also the top numbers row).

In reply to by jeetee

It's much simpler to pick from a list of available shortcuts than to scroll through a /long) list of unavailable shortcuts to find a free one. Sorting by shortcut key does not work - multiple shortcuts for one action only sort according to the first shortcut entered (so Numpad shortcuts end up under Shift-...)

As I have written before, MS could use some logic behind the shortcuts. Being able to define multi-key shortcuts would help tremendously (so C-x ...) could be reserved for user-defined shortcuts.

In reply to by rmattes

"Being able to define multi-key shortcuts would help tremendously"

You can us multi-key shortcuts. I have my accidentals defined that way. You can use up to 4 keys per shortcut, and everyone of them could have any combination of ctrl, alt and shift that you like. Generating such a list and working through it is far more difficult than looking at the use shortcuts.

I print my shortcuts to a PDF file and bring it up on my screen when I decide I want to add a shortcut, that way I know what's already been used. I find navigating a PDF musch easier than scrolling through MuseScore and I have the added benefit of having my shortcuts saved so I can reenter them if necessary for some reason.

In reply to by rmattes

The point I am making is that the list of available shortcuts would be a lot longer than the list of unavailable shortcuts.

Being able to define multi-key shortcuts would help tremendously (so C-x ...) could be reserved for user-defined shortcuts.
As my post just above yours, and mike are pointing out; this is already the case currently. You can define those multikey shortcuts and the defaults do not define any.

I find it frustrating every time I have to use it. I want to be able to change existing bindings every once in a while (what, "Ctrl-F frobnicates my gnorps Never use those, i want that to furb my noobs)."?
You get notified if you try to enter an already used shortcut, is that what frustrates you? Would you really find scrolling through a very long list (even if multikey shortcuts aren't included) more handy than simply performing/typing the wanted shortcut?

As mike said, you can simply clear out shortcuts you won't use and free them up for reassignment to actions you will use.

Power to the user!
Exactly.

Just as a sidenote; I also believe work has been done to allow saving your shortcut configuration as a separate file for musescore 3.0. So that in the future you can easily share it with others as well as have a better way to restore your list after software updates (if it doesn't get handled automatically by then).

In reply to by jeetee

Good to hear that multi-key shortcuts are possible - the documentation seems a bit unclear about that ("up to four keys" can be understood as up to four simultanous keys (ctl-alt-shift-a) or a sequence of keys).
To be really useful certain prefixes should be reserved for user-defined key bindings (like, for example emacs does with ctl-c ...).
What frustrates me? The fact that I can't overwrite the existing binding. And thank's to the modal dialog, getting back to the list of shortcuts (to manually remove the existing binding) means I have to cancel the current dialog. Oh, and then there are per-mode/context bindings. You can remove them but you can't create per-context bindings. I'm working a lot with (lute) tab and want 'x' to enter 'Add fret 10' but can't because it conflicts with 'flip direction' which doesn't even make sense in tablature.

BTW, glad to hear that bindings can be exported in MS3, that makes live as a sysadmin much easier.

Sorting by shortcut seems a bit odd to me. Do you sort by the letter, then the modifying keys or do you sort by modifying keys then letters. It just seems it just make people unhappy about the sort results.

The shortcuts does give you feedback if you create a duplicate and won't allow it. I know this leads to a bit of trial and error, but the current way seems sufficient to me.

This is just my opinion, others are welcomed.

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