Option for note duration from keypad

I am running 4.5.2 on Win 10 and have the problem that I cannot set note durations from the number pad. Cannot this be set in a Preferences dialog rather than having to try to edit XML values? I am not anxious to get into editing XML when it seems the code could be updated to either make the default to use either top row numbers or the number pad or at least have a preference to set which to use without having to edit XML.