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Keyboard shortcuts for layers


spe

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Please add keyboard shortcuts (or at least the option to define them) for all the layer commands. When I say, "all the layer commands", I mean a keyboard shortcut to do anything you can do with the mouse in the Layers window. 

Specifically: 

Select Next / Previous Layer (or some set of commands to navigate layers.) 
Move Layer Up / Down, 
Toggle Layer Visibility, 
Select Next / Previous Visible Layer could be nice too. 

This thread from 2006  and this from 2011 asked for similar features.


Please implement these shortcuts. Having to grab the mouse to do simple layer operations feels awkward and breaks my flow. 

Edited by spe
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Spe, if you want to think on shortcut keys to suggest for layers, here is a great list of paint.net 3's shortcut keys. 

http://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/KeyboardMouseCommands.html

I don't think it includes paint.net 4.0 though, so if you don't have 4.0 yet, try installing it and finding all of it's shortcut keys, to see if you can come up with keys that are still available.

Edited by Cc4FuzzyHuggles
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I like how MS Visual C handles command key combinations.There you are pressing first a command key like CTRL+L to enter a command group and second a single letter to execute a command in the group. In the menu entry the shortcut shows both keys separated by a comma. This opens a wide range of new shortcuts.

 

An example for the layer command group starting with CTRL+L:

Ctrl+L,N: New Layer

Ctrl+L,Del: DeleteLayer

Ctrl+L,D: Duplicate Layer

Ctrl+L,M: Merge Layer Down

Ctrl+L,Up: Move Layer Up

Ctrl+L,Down: Move Layer Down

Ctrl+L,Shift+Up: Move Layer to Top

Ctrl+L,Shift+Down: Move Layer To Bottom

Ctrl+L,L: Import from File

Ctrl+L,H: Flip Horizontal

Ctrl+L,F: Flip Vertical

Ctrl+L,Z: Rotate

Ctrl+L,I: Properties

Ctrl+L,V:Visibility

Ctrl+L,P:Paste into New Layer

 

But I'm a developer so this may be too complex for users (also to support).

 

Or just improve the current mechanism using Alt+L to open the layer menu and then ALT+key for the underlined entry.

More difficult to support in other UI-languages.

midoras signature.gif

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So for the future maybe the leadin Ctrl+L could already be reserved now.

 

I implemented this once with some small differences to MSVC:

- ESC has been used to cancel a started chord.

- Repeating the chord leadin char has been ignored

- After pressing the leadin and a certain timeout a shortcut menu showed the possible continuation keys.

- The statusbar told which chord group was active.

 

In my list above I missed the layer commands to change the selected layer up/down/top/bottom.

 

My favorite missing shortcut is to open the last used effect dialog. Maybe Ctrl+E (which would require to change paint.net search to let's say F2 ;-)

 

One addition could be to allow the user to assign commands to Ctrl+F1 to Ctrl+F10.

  • Upvote 1

midoras signature.gif

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(which would require to change paint.net search to let's say F2 ;-)

F2 is well known to mean "New," like F1 is the well-known "Help" and F5 the well-known "Refresh."  F3 is usually search.

 

The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
Amy: But how did it end up in there?
The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.
River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him.

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F2 is well known to mean "New," like F1 is the well-known "Help" and F5 the well-known "Refresh."  F3 is usually search.

 

Thanks David. For sure I had F3 in mind and not F2.

And you reminded me that F5 to reopen the active image is on my list.

midoras signature.gif

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That could be dangerous.  Reopening the active image would essentially wipe the entire history and clean every dirty tool at best (and lose all changes at worst).  Especially since I don't see much more than a niche use for it, I'd prefer to leave F5 part of the 4-finger salute (toolbox, colors, history, layers).

 

The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
Amy: But how did it end up in there?
The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.
River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him.

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I like Midora's suggestion that Ctrl+E (or whatever) reopens the last plugin dialog. That would be useful!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Spe, if you want to think on shortcut keys to suggest for layers, here is a great list of paint.net 3's shortcut keys. 

http://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/KeyboardMouseCommands.html

I don't think it includes paint.net 4.0 though, so if you don't have 4.0 yet, try installing it and finding all of it's shortcut keys, to see if you can come up with keys that are still available.

 

Thanks, but unfortunately there is no shortcut for changing the current layer. =(

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I think you missed my point. I gave that link partly because it is a collection of Paint.NET's shortcut keys, which is nice, but I mainly gave it to you based off of Rick's question.
Rick asked, what keyboard keys would you suggest to be used as the shortcut keys for the layers? The list is a list of the keys that are already in use (it may be out dated though), if you can figure out which keys are not already in use, you can suggest the unused keys as shortcut keys for the layers. Then, you can hope that the shortcut keys that you, or someone else, suggests will be added in later versions of the program.

 

Sorry the shortcut keys you want aren't in Paint.NET yet, but maybe with time, someday they will be. :)

Edited by Cc4FuzzyHuggles
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In version 4.0x you can drag layers with the mouse.  Rick has some really nice animations to accompany these actions.

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