Pen tip shortcuts

[steven lees50590297]

Ancient history:
Pen tip short cuts had been clustered in the lower left hand corner of the keyboard, combinations of command, option, control, shift, z, and x. Very very easy.

Drawing with a tablet was fast. The keyboard hand could rest in one position using muscle memory to change pen tip function. The drawing process was not interrrupted and attention did not have to shift away from the work.

They changed the keyboard commands moving from V6 to V7, scattering the short cuts all over the place. Howls of protest brought a quick update to restore the commands to their original positions.

Somewhere between CS5 and CS 6 they did it again. But this time, no one seemed to care?

Now in CC 2021 the pen tip controls sometimes require moving your keyboard hand all the way across the keyboard to p, - , or + and looking down at the keyboard as you move your hand. Or also moving the mouse or tablet hand to select a different tool from the tool bar. This creates an annoying break in work flow attention that happens several times a minute. Kind of a prgrammatocal water torture.

To add crazy-making to annoying, shortcuts change depending on what mode you are in! No matter, no one, single mode allows all of the changes!!!!! In one mode, an awkward control-shift-C contortion is required to access just one tool, the all important bezier control carrot.

IIllustrator allows customization of keyboard shortcuts but will NOT accept all of the necessary chnges. Once again, in any solution I can find, the drawing process must be interrrupted to focus on moving the cursor off the drawing and over to the tool bar or moving a hand over to the other side of the keyboard or you are forced to squinch your left hand into uncomfortable contorsions.

Is there a way to restore complete control of pen tip functions with a small cluster of key commands as it was originally in earlier versions of the program?

[Monika Gause]

Can you please give some exact step by step instructions of what you are referring to?

The modifiers for the pen tool functions have not changed in ...  ages?

[steven lees50590297]

Thank you,

The first paragraph explains the history.

Yes it has been "ages" Pre CS.

A colleague pointed out a generation difference, CS and CC users may not know how easy the pen tool was to modify on the fly in earlier versions. Most current users never drew with Adobe Illustrator 6.

I've been asking Adobe for solutions, the closest thing to an answer is the one posted by Simmert but it does not allow certain changes.

Adobe decided to reassign one of the commands to some other program function. As I wrote, they did this back in the 90s, the community screamed bloody murder then and Adobe put it back. But at some point in transition to CS pre-CC, they changed it again.

If you know how to draw, cycling through all pen tip modifications, without moving your keyboard hand, from a rest position and without taking your mouse or stylus hand away from the drawing line, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE MAKE A VIDEO AND POST TO YOUTUBE!

[Monika Gause]

Please describe the workflow you cannot do.

If you've been using Illustrator since the beginning of time you should know all those modifier keys so I'm really not sure what is not possible for you.

[steven lees50590297]

15 years is not the beginning of time. They will pass for you faster than you think.

Setting the age prejudice aside, which I know you didn't mean:

In drawing with a wacom tablet.

Anchor the keyboard-hand, palm on desktop, fingers hovering over the lower corner of the keyboard.

Draw a bezier line with the stylus-hand on tablet.

Cycle through all pen tip modification short cuts with tablet hand, without looking at the keyboard, and without lifting your hand to access another location of the keyboard, or straining your fingers to reach keys, or without using your stylus hand to select a tool change. The stylus (or mouse, or touch pad hand should do nothing but draw, select, edit, and click points.)
You casn't do it. You haven't been able to do that for a while. 15 years.

Currently, in drawing with the pen tool (P) selected you can access the point tool (Option) or the add point tool (command option) but you can not access the delete point tool. A curious ommission making sense only in some crazy programming world. You CAN get there but you must access that tool by disengaging from your art in one of two ways, both requiring a redirection of attention and or physical movement.

All other CC pen modes behave in this manner, allowing some but not all modifications without a break in drawing flow.

Am I making this clear?

I am coming to understand those not having drawn with pre-CS issues may not know how much faster (and more fun) drawing was.

To me drawing with Illo CC2021 is like digging a trench with a teaspoon and getting laughed at when you ask co-workers "Where are the picks and shovels?"

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

If you uncheck: Disable Auto Add/Delete in your Preferences, you don't need any shortcuts for adding or deleting points.

Direct Selection tool: Cmd

Select the whole object: Cmd Alt

Anchor Point tool to switch curves/corners: Alt

All modifiers in the same left hand corner.

[steven lees50590297]

Now THAT is fukking helpful!!! Danke Ton!

I've been asking this question for a decade.

Now, here's another, who shot John Kennedy?

[Ton Frederiks]

Glad that helped, Steven

I am afraid that you need to google your second question yourself 🙂

[Monika Gause]

15 years is not the beginning of time. They will pass for you faster than you think.

Setting the age prejudice aside, which I know you didn't mean:

By @steven lees50590297

I have been using Illustrator for 15 years. 15 years ago it was version CS2. And BTW: I have been using FreeHand before that. For 15 years. So I know what 15 years mean. I guess the zebra makes me look like a 12 year old.

So you prefer using the actual tools to just working with modification keys? And also you don't like the pen tool automatically adding points on your paths?

When I am drawing paths I tend to set my points where I need them on the inital drawing process. I rarely even need to add or delete points and if I do, I'm using the automatic add/delete option for the pen tool. I feel that drawing is very fun and very fast. Actually changing tools (even with shortcuts) would make me feel like digging a trench with a teaspoon.

[steven lees50590297]

Tun got it. Than you for reponding though. A simply preference change. Egg on face!

[Simmer1]

Hey,

I see what you mean. 

I think you might benefit from customizing your keyboard shortcuts:

Edit> Keyboard Shortcuts

Let us know if that helps.

Sim

[Ton Frederiks]

What is different?, the same as in the oldest version I can check CS4

[steven lees50590297]

Thank you. You will find that the full reset to the older command set is not possible using ths method.

[steven lees50590297]

Thank you. You will find that reassigning the full set of pen tip modifocatios, using combinations of command, option, control, shift, z, x, is not possible using this preference sheet.

At least I have not been able to do so.

[steven lees50590297]

Sorry Ton tis rsponse was meant for Simmert.

[Simmer1]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

What I meant was if you would like your Pen Tool shortcuts to be in the left corner, try selecting shortcuts keys in that location to help speed up your workflow.

[steven lees50590297]

Yes got it. I have tried this in the past. I'll try this again. One of the commands, command shift X. I think, is not available. Perhaps I overlooked a work around. I'll try again. There doesn't seem to be any other option.

Thankyou simmert.

[Ton Frederiks]

Steven, what you are wishing for is to put the shortcuts back to those in Illustrator 6, when Illustrator had many different shortcuts compared to Photoshop.

Andrei Herasimchuk, the lead interface designer at Adobe at that time changed the ui and the shortcuts for Illustrator 7.0 in 1997 and Photoshop in 1996 to make it easier to work with those programs together.

I am still glad he did it, you have to learn one set of shortcuts for the pen tool and use them in both applications.

[steven lees50590297]

YES!!! And the user community howled in complaint. You may remember? Adobe put them back, and left them until some point in CS. Then changed them again.

I don't mind the change. I can relearn. The current set is not ergonomic, it's slower and more combersome. Not to need to move the keyboard hand around nor shift your attention back and forth between drawing and input device is better. Don't you think?

You have given me some detail about who and why, thank you.

HOW to make it possible to draw fluidly, with as little physical keyboard hand repositioning as possible, or NO repositioning is the question!

Can I get that old keyboard set back or is there a CC equivalent? Its about Ergonomic efficiency.

[Ton Frederiks]

I remember that time very well.

I had to demo version 7 during the launch in Germany in a big planetarium like movie theatre.

Studied hard on the new shortcuts, checked the computer the night before.

During the session the next day I found out that they switched the keyboard to a German one.

When that was fixed, they turned off all the lights when I started to demo 😞

All that was not very helpful when showing new learned shortcuts. (They got me a table lamp).

I am afraid you are a little too late with your request (and I don't have a workaround for you).

[Ton Frederiks]

Andrei has some interesting articles about that time:

https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/andreiherasimchuk?trk=author-info__article-link