Participant

Question

Down one row using arrow keys

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
March 9, 2010
4 replies
1688 views

Is FrameMaker capable of navigating up/down one row by using the arrow keys? This seems such a basic functionality but I can't do it? I'm using v7.0 (the company is cheap and won't upgrade). Alternately, is there a third party keyboard utility to get around this limitation?

This topic has been closed for replies.

L

Lynne A. Price

Inspiring

No need to use a plug-in or scripting language, or to use the existing shortcuts if you prefer something else. FrameMaker shortcuts and menus can be customized to your convenience.

For details, see the "Customizing Frame Products" manual. In 7.0, this PDF book is in the $FMHOME\OnlineDocuments where $FMHOME is your main FrameMaker directory, probably something like c:\Program Files\Adobe\FrameMaker7.0.

While you can use a different file, one way to make your change is to create or edit $FMHOME\fminit\configui\customui.cfg. This is a plain text file that you can edit with Notepad or any other plain text editor (if you use FrameMaker make sure to save the file as text and put the filename in quotes in the Save As dialog box so that FrameMaker does not assign a .txt extension).

Suppose you want to use the up and down arrow keys to move up and down one cell. You probably do not want to disable the usual functionality assigned to those keys--moving up and down a line in text. You might therefore want to use Shift-Up Arrow and Shift-Down Arrow. In customui.cfg all you need is:

Here, + indicates use of the Shift key.

C

CK_2013

Participant

Hi Lynne. I found your reply as I was looking for a solution to this problem (keyboard navigation up and down rows in tables) in FrameMaker 10 and was wondering if you/anyone knew of an updated solution if you were now using FrameMaker 10.

For example, in FM 10, I'm assuming the file to update now is cmds.cfg because I couldn't fine customui.cfg (e.g., it's now under C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\AdobeFrameMaker10\fminit\configui)?

Next, I opened this file, but it's a mass of text w/o any space breaks. Would I just paste the move code you listed above into the end of that file (i.e., before the *** End of Commands *** closing text/tag), or does that code have to go in a particular location? If it's the latter case, is there a way to make that text legible, or is there text to search for that could bring me to the proper location?

I tried using the Esc t m d (as per http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FrameMaker/10.0/Using/WSd817046a44e105e21e63e3d11ab7f7862b-7f82.html) and it just doesn't function. Hence, looking for another solution because I need to update a number of tables and it's maddening not to be able to quickly move through cells using my keyboard keys.

Anyway, hope you/someone can help. Thanks!

C

L

Lynne A. Price

Inspiring

C,

A few things:

1. FM does not provide a file called customui.cfg. If you need it, just create it with your favorite text editor. It can go in ...\fminit\configui. Alternatively, you can create the file elsewhere and/or name it something else. Just find the line in maker.ini that says:

ConfigCustomUIFile=fminit\configui\customui.cfg

and specify a different filename. Relative pathnames are relative to the FM installation directory (within c:\Program Files), but you can specify an absolute path.

Remember that there are two copies of maker.ini--one in the FM installation directory and one in your user area (such as \users\<your userid>\appdata\roaming\adobe\FrameMaker\10).

2. The ability to specify a custom config UI file is provided specifically so you do not need to edit cmds.cfg.

3. If you want to inspect cmds.cfg, there's an easy way to make it more readable, even if the contents are still somewhat obtuse. There are various conventions for representing line breaks on different computer systems and the cmds.cfg convention is different than the most common Windows convention. Just open the file in FM, which recognizes the line breaks correctly.

4. Starting with FM 11, each workspace has its own menus. While maker.ini can still specify a customui.cfg, it's not very useful. FM does process any such file when it starts up, but as soon as you open a document all the menus and shortcuts are replaced by those specified in the .cfg file associated with the current workspace.

--Lynne

J

JohannesKrueger

Inspiring

If you are using FM on Windows but don't have FrameScript, you could use AutoHotkey, which is a very versatile, macro interpreter for Windows under GNU license (i.e. free to use).

In contrast to what a FrameScript could presumably do, AutoHotkey won't recognize whether the cursor is within a table or not, but as the FM key sequence is unambigious, that doesn't do any harm.

Your AHK macro could look like this:

#IfWinActive ahk_class FrameFamily7.0MdiFrame
Down::SendInput {ESC}tmd{Down}
Up::SendInput {ESC}tmu{Up}
#IfWinActive

The first line is specific to FM8 (although it says "FrameFamily7") and restricts the hotkeys to apply only in FM.

M

Michael_Müller-Hillebrand-basb

Inspiring

If you want to use the arrow keys you have to capture the keyboard event and move the cursor via API programming. There is a free script available that does this, if you have the FrameScript plug-in.

- Michael

F

FieryPantone

Legend

I'm delighted to be able to say ... FM 7.0 has just what you're looking for! the key-sequence is Esc, t, m, d - probably a fossil of command-mode, table, move, down.

And because I've briefly reverted to 7.0 while waiting for a new 9.0 licence, I've been able to check and can confirm you get the full set: up and down, plus next (for right) and previous (for left). I'm not sure these actually made it through to 9.0, which is strange.

Have fun keyboarding round tables <g>

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