TranslatedStrings trouble

[Per Berntsen]

I've been using a TranslatedStrings_Lr_en_US.txt file since February without any issues.

It sets the shortcut for the Masking panel to Shift + Z, and Redo to Ctrl + Shift + Z, instead of the awkward Ctrl + Y shortcut.

"$$$/AgDevelop/Menu/View/Mask/Key=Shift+Z"
"$$$/Application/Menu/Edit/RedoWin/Key=Ctrl+Shift+Z"

After installing version 11.5, both shortcuts stopped working.

By removing the first line, I was able to use the default shortcut, Shift + W, for Masking, which I can live with, but I would prefer Shift + Z.

Having to use Ctrl + Y for Redo is harder to live with.

[Per Berntsen]

Problem solved.

Changing uppercase Z to lowercase z fixed it.

[johnrellis]

"Changing uppercase Z to lowercase z fixed it."

TranslatedStrings is messy.  One of the warts is that capital letters are interpreted differently on Mac than on Windows.  Another example:  Open Catalog is assigned "Cmd+O" in TranslatedStrings rather than "Cmd+o". On Windows, that is interpreted as Ctrl O, but on Mac it is interpreted as Cmd Shift O.   It's clearly a typo, since the convention in TranslatedStrings is to use lowercase letters and since Cmd O is the conventional Mac shortcut for opening files.  But that mistake has been present in LR for so many years that is now considered "as designed".

[Per Berntsen]

John, I've been reading some of your recent posts on TranslatedStrings, and understand that it's far from perfect.

It seems that something changed in 11.5, since uppercase Z stopped working.

[johnrellis]

Hmm, in my LR 11.5 / Windows 10 and Windows 11, using uppercase Z worked:

"$$$/AgDevelop/Menu/View/Mask/Key=Shift+Z"
"$$$/Application/Menu/Edit/RedoWin/Key=Ctrl+Shift+Z"

Ditto for LR 11.4 / Windows 10.

I'm guessing the different behavior you're observing has to do with the weird behavior of Z and Shift Z.  Z is assigned to Toggle Zoom (toggles between Fit and the last-selected percentage zoom), while Shift Z is assigned to New Depth Range. 

If you're editing an image that has a depth map, then Shift Z invokes New Depth Range. But if you're editing an image without a depth map, New Depth Range is greyed out in the Masking panel, and Shift Z invokes Toggle Zoom.

There may be some kind of race condition in LR's initialization that's causing this nondeterministic behavior of Shift Z.  You could test this hypothesis by using these lines in TranslatedStrings:

"$$$/AgLibrary/Menu/View/ToggleZoomView/Key="
"$$$/AgDevelop/Menu/View/DepthRange/Key="
"$$$/AgDevelop/Menu/View/Mask/Key=Shift+Z"
"$$$/Application/Menu/Edit/RedoWin/Key=Ctrl+Shift+Z"

(I can't test this, since uppercase Z works correctly on my systems.)

[Per Berntsen]

My shortcuts stopped working yesterday, out of the blue. So I tried changing z back to Z, didn't work.

I also tried the lines you posted above, didn't work either.

Both shortcuts now invoke Live Loupe.

So I tried this (with both z and Z), but still getting LiveLoupe.

"$$$/MultiMonitor/LiveLoupeShortcut/Win="
"$$$/AgLibrary/Menu/View/ToggleZoomView/Key="
"$$$/AgDevelop/Menu/View/DepthRange/Key="
"$$$/AgDevelop/Menu/View/Mask/Key=Shift+z"
"$$$/Application/Menu/Edit/RedoWin/Key=Ctrl+Shift+z"

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

Interesting. I poked around some more on both Win and Mac and found more evidence that Z and Shift Z are weird.  This reinforces my guess that Z is hardwired into some parts of LR and there's a race condition when the app starts about which part of the code gets assigned Z.

Shift Z on Win correctly toggles between Loupe - Live and Loupe - Normal. But Shift Z on Mac toggles between Loupe - Live and Loupe - Normal exactly once, and then it stops working until you restart LR.

But on neither Win nor Mac does Shift Z open the Secondary Display window, as Shift E (Loupe - Normal) does, even though the menu command Window > Secondary Display > Loupe - Live opens the window.

Maybe you'll have to give up on Z and use some other letter.  My recently released Any Shortcut plugin makes it much easier to assign shortcuts and see which shortcuts are currently being used.

[johnrellis]

Another anomaly: Loupe - Live has a TranslatedStrings entry but Loupe - Normal and Loupe - Locked don't.  That means Loupe - Normal and Loupe - Locked are definitely hardwired into the app, and probably Loupe - Live is too.

[Per Berntsen]

Hi John, I managed to create some easy-to-use shortcuts with your plugin.

I first tried Shift X for Masking, which took me to Crop, then Shift A, which did something with image brightness with no entry in the History panel, not sure what it was.

I ended up with Ctrl >, which is convenient – on a Scandinavian keyboard the > key is located between Shift and Z.

For Undo, I first tried Ctrl Shift Z, which took me to Live Loupe as before.

Ctrl Alt Z worked. Using the Shift key seems to be problematic.

[johnrellis]

Shift A is Crop To Same Aspect Ratio:

[johnrellis]

I filed two bug reports about Shift Z:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/shortcut-shift-z-loupe-live-doesn-t-work-on-ma...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/duplicate-assignment-of-shift-z-to-new-depth-r...

[Shining Star Studios]

Not sure where to post this...

How is trans strings working now on the most recent LR versions?  I have been trying to get it to work in LrC (build 230410) and nothing seems to work.  I changed languages to verify that it worked and it did (I assigned purple a hot key of Ctrl+9).  When I switched back to the EN version, it does not work.  I have the folder and file in the correct place (...Lightroom/Resources/en and TranslatedStrings_Lr_en_US.txt).  I notice that ther is a META-INF folder and mimetype file in the other language folders in Resources.

What am I missing?

Here is the string "$$$/AgLibrary/Menu/Photo/Label/Toggle5Shortcut=Ctrl+9"

[Shining Star Studios]

Update to the above...

Restarting the comp seems to have solved the issue.  Perhaps Adobe needed to fully shut down in order for the strings to take effect.