Cannot locate mouse or key shortcuts for all tool elements?

[ChrisJS]

So - I have a new TourBox (search that, you will get a good hit) that is widely praised as an add-on controller for doing graphic design work - and all the built-in presets are for those really expensive tools, for which we substitute Paint.NET.

 

The Console software for this controller lets you create profiles for any piece of software, and users have even created profiles for things like Firefox, so this is not limited to just design software. The biggest advantage of this controller is when the mouse is elsewhere on screen - you can use this controller to alter other settings without moving the mouse back and forth to the toolbar.

 

I am trying to create a profile for Paint.NET; the TourBox has three rotary controls - the Scroll, the Dial, and the Knob which I am looking to connect to the control elements on the common tools in Paint.NET. But I ran into difficulties when looking for shortcuts for all the control elements of the Tools. The best example is the Brush tool. I can set up one controller element (the Scroll) to control the image zoom, and I can set up the Dial to control Brush width. I also want to set up the Knob to control Hardness - but after much searching, finding the documentation on key and mouse shortcuts, and checking everything I could find, it appears there are no shortcuts, either key or mouse, for the Hardness control. It also does not appear to be in the list of features under consideration.

 

Am I missing something, or is the only way to adjust the hardness with mouse clicks on the the + or -, or by directly clicking on the % hardness bar?

[TrevorOutlaw]

The shortcut key for accessing brush is 'B' and the short cut key to increase the size is the brackets '[ ]'; unfortunately, there's no shortcut key for the hardness, and I checked the Help file.  Hopefully a future iteration would include shortcut key for the hardness because I think that would be very handy.

 

https://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/Paintbrush.html

 

[ChrisJS]

Thanks for that - I didn't think I had missed anything, so the confirmation is appreciated.

 

Based on what I saw in all of the documentation, I would suggest that whenever there is a "percent bar" in the tool bar, the keys "{" and "}" could be bound to controlling it.

 

On many keyboards they are the shift up of the square brackets that control the width, so even for keyboard control, that should make it easily memorable. And - also important - I could not find anything indicating that they were already bound to anything else.

[Rick Brewster]

Awhile ago I looked into adding this and there just weren't any keys left to bind these to. You can't just have conditional shortcuts in this case because that would make it difficult for a tool that wants to have both of those sliders. The Recolor tool, for instance, has both Hardness and Tolerance.

 

Choosing letters for the shortcuts, e.g. J and K, doesn't work well on non-QWERTY keyboards.

[TrevorOutlaw]

38 minutes ago, Rick Brewster said:

Awhile ago I looked into adding this and there just weren't any keys left to bind these to. You can't just have conditional shortcuts in this case because that would make it difficult for a tool that wants to have both of those sliders. The Recolor tool, for instance, has both Hardness and Tolerance.

 

Choosing letters for the shortcuts, e.g. J and K, doesn't work well on non-QWERTY keyboards.

That make sense. Thanks for looking into it and explaining. 

[Rick Brewster]

Hopefully I'll get back to it at some point.

[TrevorOutlaw]

Not sure if it’s already a done deal, but would a combo of Alt + mouse wheel work?

 

Or what about Alt + bracket? Just spit balling and I’m sure some consideration has been researched.

[Rick Brewster]

Alt is problematic because when not pressed exactly in the right way it triggers the menus.

Mousewheel is already used for zooming and scrolling, and I'm not keen to overload it for other things.