P: Allow for keyboard shortcut customization

[Peter_Law]

Customizable keyboard shortcuts in Lightroom would be great. I just find it so confusing that crop and brush tools and things like that have such odd keyboard shortcuts in Lightroom. I understand that changing that all now would be awful for many existing users, but being able to override them like I can in Photoshop would be helpful. Doesn't anyone else out there find they use to wrong keyboard shortcuts in the wrong program?

[Diko.bg]

I need that SO MUCH!!! Especially the custom presets.

[Diko.bg]

THANKS! However it is a work-around and NOT the solution. Adobe... do you hear?

[Diko.bg]

That is my issue as well.

[Diko.bg]

And if any of you had seen the Shortcutkeys in Adobe Illustrator... Man even in PS they still have to implement that button for "Jump to the conflict key" that is AWESOME...

Otherwise as I can see for a couple of years no change even here. Please Adobe go google LR Paddy and check it. Then remember PS and AI and implement that all in LR. 😉

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Photoshop has custom keyboard shortcuts.

Please add them to Lightroom already! v5 and still not there? Ridonkulous

[Mattias Thuvander]

This is needed because some keyboard shortcuts in Lightroom is created for English keyboards only. Some shortcuts doesn't work at all when you use for example, a Swedish keyboard.

"Rotate picture" and "Hold to view before/after" is two shortcuts that doesn't work for me and that I really would like to use.

[Risto Les]

As tablets are becoming more and more frequent in photo editing it would be most useful to be able to assign personalized short cuts to LR menu items in the same way as in PS. E.g. Photo>Edit in> (different options for external editing). At the moment there is a shortcut only to open in PS, but e.g. not to open in PS as smart object....

[johnrellis]

Risto wrote, "At the moment there is a shortcut only to open in PS, but e.g. not to open in PS as smart object...."

I agree that LR would benefit from a general facility for assigning shortcuts. However, on Mac you can assign shortcuts to nearly all of menu commands using OS X's built-in facility for assigning shortcuts. For example, I just assigned F4 to Photo > Edit In > Open as Smart Object in Photoshop:

[Risto Les]

As a windows user that doesn't make me feel much better... :-/

I did some search and it seems to me that windows does't have the capability to assign keyboard short cuts within other than MS office applications.

That leaves windows users with some plugins that are either as expensive as LR itself or are not properly supported....?

To me that confirms that there is a huge need for this capability natively within LR...

[areohbee]

Here is an auto-hotkey script which allows Lr-in-Windows users to configure any key to do whatever they want (assuming said function is available via the keyboard) - for free.

http://www.robcole.com/LrForumSupport...

It requires editing a script text file, but most of the hard work is already done.
Here's an example "script-let" which assigns F4 to 'Open as Smart Object in Photoshop':

/*
Lightroom
F4 -> Alt-peo (Open as Smart Object in Photoshop)
*/
F4::
lr_win_id := GetLightroomWindowID()
if (lr_win_id <> 0) {
Send {Alt down}p{Alt up}eo
}
return

Instructions:
* Download 'LrAutoHotkey.zip' (from link above) and save file inside zip with the name 'AutoHotkey.ahk' in the root of your documents folder.
* Append the above "script-let" to the end of the file.
* Download and install Auto-Hotkey (e.g. from autohotkey.com).
With Lightroom running, press F4. If all went well, it should open selected photo as smart object in Ps.

To add more mappings, copy/paste and edit the scriptlet - you'll need 3 pieces of info to get the job done:
1. The keystroke sequence in Lightroom.
2. How to specify the key being assigned.
3. How to specify the keys to send when the key being assigned is pressed.

The first you can get using the Lightroom UI.
the second and third require auto-hotkey help doc.

I realize it's more work than you'd like, but it gets the job done - can also be used for mouse clicks and other things..

Cheers,
Rob

[johnrellis]

Risto wrote, "As a windows user that doesn't make me feel much better... :-/"

I'm sorry, I incorrectly assumed you were on Mac. On Windows, you can use the standard Windows keyboard accelerators to access all the menu items. So to open a pic as a smart object in photoshop, you'd type ALT-P E O.

Three keys aren't quite as good as a single key, I agree. But when working on Windows on repetitive tasks, I do like the a ability to access every menu command from the keyboard instantly.

[Risto Les]

Hi John!

Finally a ray of hope to windows users 🙂 I almost started considering changing the platform.

Using keyboard short cuts especially together with Wacom tablet is of great help, indeed (even though Wacon driver for windows environment seem to have quite a few bugs...) .

I did some search about programming keyboard shortcuts in windows environment but I didn't find other that some instructions for MS office applications. Where can I find e.g. that ALT-PEO? There certainly are many other short cuts I would like to implement besides that open as smart object.

Thanks for your help!

BR
Risto

[areohbee]

Lightroom supports keyboard accelerators for most functions on both platforms - no extra charge.

Just press Alt-p-e-o and you'll see.

To see all Alt- possibilities, just press Alt.

To see all alt-photo-menu possibilities, press Alt-p.

etc.

Lr help may also list all possibilities - dunno.

PS - most possibilities are evidenced by an underlined character but some are active even without the underlined character, in which case the active character is the first one, e.g. on Scripts menu (which is only visible if scripts are present).

[Risto Les]

Hi Rob

Thanks to your answer as well (see above).

I'm using a wacom tablet, so probably I would rather assing the valid keystroke strings to various short cut triggers in the tablet which is quite easy to do

The main problem for me is to know what are those strings (your point 3), where could I find the relevant documentation? I did some google search previously but didn't find anything useful.

(E.g. concerning this particular string - do I need to hold ALT pressed when typing all 3 characters, or just when typing P...from the script it seems that the latter is the case. How about any other command strings?)

Thanks for your help!

BR
Risto

[areohbee]

There is a list in Lr help (e.g. press 'F1' key), I found here:

http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/help...

Also, you can get a list of Library module shortcuts from the help menu whilst in Library module, similarly for Develop..

[Risto Les]

Hi Rob

Thanks again for your help.

I checked the help documentation of LR, but those Alt+ shortcuts, e.g. that ALT+PEA, do not exist there... I wonder why those are hidden... Where did you find that command or did you just have a try?

BR
Risto

[areohbee]

Hmm.. - anyway, yeah, I press Alt-p and see what's underlined, then Alt-p-e..

The help document seems pretty good, but has some holes you may need to fill in the hard way - screenshots may help.. - sorry.

[Risto Les]

Does Mac version have underlined letters in menu items ?

Windows version doesn't....so I guess one has to do it with trial & error... should I make an improvment proposal or a bug report?

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

This is just standard OS menu functionality - it's not specific to Lightroom

[areohbee]

In Windows, if none of the characters are underlined, then it's the first character.

[Risto Les]

In many cases the first letters are the same, e.g. Photo > Edit > open as smart object vs open as layers...

[areohbee]

Indeed, so for example "Open as Layers in Photoshop.." is:

Alt-p-e-o-o

Try it!

[Risto Les]

Thanks Rob, I certainly like it, easy to assign Wacom short cut to it. The thing is that there is no way I would have fould that combinaison by trial & error before my tablet would have crashed to the wall out of frustration ... 😕 (why not e.g Alt p e o l?)

If in mac version those letters are underlined is there any possibility to get screen shots, otherwise I' ll be asking those short cuts separately to each menu item....

Victoria: thanks for your comment. Could you be more precise, which OS and which functionality?

Thanks for you help!
BR Risto

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

BR Risto, google "windows Underline keyboard shortcuts and access keys" for more info. That'll give you the blurb on those Alt menu letters functionality for Windows. On a Mac, you can assign custom shortcuts to any menu command.

[Risto Les]

Hi Victoria
Thanks for your help, now I know that I have that option in Windows to display (or not) those accelerator keys.
However, this doesn't seem to completely work with Lightroom. Ironically enough, for the two example commands that I gave: open as smart object and open as layers in Photoshop my windws 8.1 pc does not show any underlined characters... I do see those for commands for which there is a documented short cut (e.g. open in photoshop), but only thanks to the kind responses I've received on this forum I know that Alt+peo is the short cut for open as a smart object.

Any additional advises?

I don't understand why Adobe has not documented ALL short cuts they have implemented in the sw.

I guess this also leaves me without a solution for shortcuts for commands that are opening photos in external programs other than photoshop...