P: Allow for keyboard shortcut customization

[Guest]

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?

[chrisoaten]

Yup. TWO new versions of LR and still no keyboard customisability. This is what you call listening to your customers, Adobe?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

There SO MUCH this kind of things that prove us Adobe has focus on consumers, not professionals. STILL no way to customize keyboard shortcuts for non-US keyboards after YEARS. But they had time for a totally new, consumer focused LR. I don’t like their business decisions.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Besides, maybe it's not a change so complicated to implement in the software code! Pls Adobe consider that this customisation is important! Many functions need some shortcuts too!

[tjeerd paulj59535807]

It seems to me that Adobe thinks every professional photographer LOVES the mouse.
Clicking , dragging , moving is easy and visually but also very primitive and slow.
Keyboard shortcuts are not just quicker, they prevent RSI. If you do suffer from RSI you realize how terrible the mouse can be. 

As paying subcribers of professional software we should be able to map our keyboard shortcuts if we want to,
Dear Adobe, Stop thinking that you know what is best for your professional users. You don't.

If you call something Quick Develop but then all you can do is use a mouse only to add exposure or contrast then you are missing insight. 

You want me to double click the word EFFECT all day to reset my adjustment brush? 
Yes you can create a preset, so then i would have to click and drag all day to get simple behaviour you should be able todo with 1 keystroke on your keyboard.
The time it takes to use a mouse action vs a keyboard command times 1000 images.
Go calculate that.

I should be able to set a default size radial, and have a shortcut to add this radial to my image.
Yes you can create a develop preset for that, but i can't map a keyboard shortcut.
Command Option drag your mouse to duplicate a radial is NOT a shortcut. 

Obviously the people that are designing this product are not professional photographers that have long editing sessions.

And i don't need any tips about Better Touch Tool, Pfixer, Midi2lr etc which are all fantastic tools that make Lightroom actually usable. But these are all created because Adobe fails its paying professionals on a very basic level. 

[Nick_13]

Just when are Adobe going to give us the vastly superior and more rapid to use customisable keyboard shortcuts in Lightroom.  It would make so much difference to so many photographers - speeding up workflow immeasurably

[tjeerd paulj59535807]

It seems to me that Adobe thinks every professional photographer LOVES the mouse.
Clicking , dragging , moving is easy and visually but also very primitive and slow.
Keyboard shortcuts are not just quicker, they prevent RSI. If you do suffer from RSI you realize how terrible the mouse can be. 

As paying subcribers of professional software we should be able to map our keyboard shortcuts if we want to,
Dear Adobe, Stop thinking that you know what is best for your professional users. You don't.

If you call something Quick Develop but then all you can do is use a mouse only to add exposure or contrast then you are missing insight. 

You want me to double click the word EFFECT all day to reset my adjustment brush? 
Yes you can create a preset, so then i would have to click and drag all day to get simple behaviour you should be able todo with 1 keystroke on your keyboard.
The time it takes to use a mouse action vs a keyboard command times 1000 images.
Go calculate that.

I should be able to set a default size radial, and have a shortcut to add this radial to my image.
Yes you can create a develop preset for that, but i can't map a keyboard shortcut.
Command Option drag your mouse to duplicate a radial is NOT a shortcut. 

Obviously the people that are designing this product are not professional photographers that have long editing sessions.

And i don't need any tips about Better Touch Tool, Pfixer, Midi2lr etc which are all fantastic tools that make Lightroom actually usable. But these are all created because Adobe fails its paying professionals on a very basic level. 

[Stephen Newport]

How is this still not implemented??

[chrisoaten]

It’s one of life’s great mysteries.

[stylish_mindset15A7]

Open Letter to Adobe

Dear Adobe Management

The request in this thread is now 7 (seven!) years old now and still you keep ignoring it. Even more frustrating you force non US-Keyboard users into not working Shortcuts which are not even consistently localized or just faulty.

It is about time to help making you understand one tiny little thing in the relation between you and the subscribers of the CC (formerly known as "customers"). Let me explain.

Years ago, we just could decide if we liked the program and its functions and consequently buy it or not.  It was known to us what we well get as a customer before buying. And we had to beg for a function, see if you implemented it or not then decided whether to buy the next release or not. So far so good. A fair game.

But then, you, Adobe, decided to change the game. You forced us into a subscription model. As a user this means not being anymore able do buy something we know in advance what it might look like. We have to subscribe and sit and wait for which weird experiments you would abuse us to your Product Managers delight  (And you keep adding silly functions rather than solving the real issues). You chose this pace, you named the game. But the biggest decision you took when acting so was possibly not understood by your management: With this model you made silent and passive customers to STAKE HOLDERS which you can consider being the same as a share holder (You need to earn every single month our trust again so we decide every month to pay your fee).

And as we are your stake/share holders we do not want to beg anymore. We do not ask anymore and we do not want to be overheard anymore. We will just demand and you will have to deliver. That's what you chose, not we.

I strongly invite you to think about this. I am one of these, your, stake holders and I really would appreciate to get finally an answer to this topic. Any stake holder wants to know where the money he invests will go to.

I wish all of you a very calm easter period and and a little time for some reflections about how you could satisfy us users not your own product managers. We do not demand fancy consumer functions (again it was your decision to create the LR cc Branch of Products for this which I appreciate). So for LR classic this more then ever means: We expect you to finally deliver. A rock solid and fast production tool is what we expect from you. Time is up. Our patience also.

Make us happy again and deliver. This will keep us financing your company.  BTW: these days finally there is real and eye level competition out there, and I can tell you from personal experience: They DO listen to customers.

Best Regards
Martin 

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Bear in mind they have stats from when they did it for Photoshop - both on how long it took to do, and how many people actually bother to use it. That will no doubt influence their priority decisions.

[stylish_mindset15A7]

Victoria, thanks for yor comment. I woldn't even complain if there were just default shortcuts which at least would work. Trouble is they are simply not working for many localisations. Not even the most basic ones like resizing the brush are useable in some localisations. My complaint is far away from a convenience wish. Its about basic features simply not working excluding whole countries from a normal and efficient workflow. Yes I know Switzerland is small... but they keep us punishing with much higher fees compared to e.g. Germany (same language but different kb lsyouts). And guess what is their explanation for that price premium? Exactly the explanation that localisation for small countries is costly... Still I feel being a surcharged customer of 2nd class.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

> Trouble is they are simply not working for many localisations

IMHO, that's the argument that needs shouting about, as it holds a lot more weight than simply "I want to be able to pick my own shortcuts".  For what it's worth, this may help with your localization shortcuts in the meantime How do I change or create keyboard shortcuts?

[stylish_mindset15A7]

Dear Victoria
Don't get me wrong. I am not just a shouter. I tried it all. File it as a bug, write them, contribute to Beta testing filing this... for years now. Never ever got any response from them. Te only reaction once was some guy sending me a link to the adobe help pages where they have the (also buggy!) list of german shotcuts. Of course I answered the support guy, again explaining exactly what I mean, showed every step to reproduce. No reply, case closed and "solved". Believe me, I tried it all. Can't remember how many times.

I would even take all the work and would clean this up for Adobe if only they would let me contribute.

And Yes, of course, I know all about the shortcuts. Even have bought KB Tamer, which also has many drawbacks. I really almost scientifically dismantled TranslatedStrings.txt and KB Tamer. Even if you directly parse, sort and edit the .txt you will not succeed. Many of this settings you can edit there will also not show the intended effect.

So my simple wish was :
1) Make Adobe aware that there are many countries out there which although they shre the same localisation language they have different KB layouts, so that not even basic keys like #, /, ... can be accesssed wit hone stroke. Let me tell you my case: I use a swiss german keyboard which differs from german-german keyboards. So the german language indended keys just are not there. The same problem seems to exist with french and spanish and swedish localisations. They also seem to be used by users in different countries which have the same language but not same  keyboards.
2) Make them take care of their official shortcuts lists on the help site which (at least in german) not even correspond to what I see when I look into the TranslatedStrings. It is indeed very messy done. Even the structure of the content in Translated Strings is unbelievably inconsistent and messy. So just a matter of Software quality in my eyes.

KB Tamer also cannot solve this mess, uses admin rights and many a time an Adobe update just wiped my thouroughly and carefully built custom file silently from the disk replacing it again with the messy stock files. That's why this is als no solution.

I hop you understand now why I finally just somehow tried to be heared. At least I could now get your attention, maybe Adobe also finally will her us. It's not my private convenience problem its a real showstopper for hundreds of thousand users out there.

So far so good. You don't have to fear that I as a long term subscriber of you will stain your reputation when you write comments on me. I am just so sick and tired that I needed to get somewhat loud eventually.

Thanks for your attention ann have a nice easter holiday time! 

[johnrellis]

I agree with Martin Hopf's observations about keyboard shortcuts for non-English languages.

Adobe invests very little in this. For starters, there appears to be a complete lack of quality assurance, with elementary editing mistakes in other languages' TranslatedStrings.txt frequently released. For example, a quick search reveals this partial list:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/x-keyboard-shortcut-is-assigned-to-two-functi...
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/x-keyboard-shortcut-is-assigned-to-two-functi...
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lr-2015cc-8-short-cut-x-to-reject-an-image-in...
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-shift-x-no-longer-does-reject-and-n...
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-classic-cc-keyboard-shortcuts-for-r...
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lr-classic-on-windows-the-shortcut-panel-in-d...
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/incrementtargetadjustmentvalue-does-not-work-...

These bugs, though they're trivial mistakes, typically take two or more release cycles to fix. Most recently, it took five months to fix the broken rotate-photo shortcuts. And even then, Adobe neglected to fix the list of Library shortcuts in the Help menu, even though that was explicitly called out in the bug report.

Ways that Adobe could improve the situation:

1. Invest more in product management, documentation, and quality assurance of non-English shortcuts. This requires engaging experts knowledgeable in the supported languages and countries and their corresponding keyboards and then building an engineering process for maintaining and testing shortcut definitions, which Adobe apparently lacks. (TranslatedStrings alone is hardly sufficient.)

This alone won't address the needs of languages used in multiple countries with differing keyboard layouts.

Over the years, Adobe has not been able to implement solution 1 at an acceptable level of quality. It would be significantly cheaper for them in the longer run to simply improve the infrastructure for customizing keyboard shortcuts and rely on the user community for maintaining a diverse set of shortcut definitions for each language/keyboard combination. 

A few simple, incremental, inexpensive steps would go a long way:

2. Ensure that every keyboard shortcut is defined in a configuration file that can be edited by users, e.g. TranslatedStrings.

3. Clean up the internal organizational mess in TranslatedStrings to make it easier to maintain. It currently looks and smells like a teenager's bedroom.

4. Allow keyboard shortcuts to be defined in a config file separate from TranslatedStrings. This would make it easier to maintain and allow the community to more easily share shortcut definitions and avoid the accidental overwriting of the config files by LR updates. It would also allow the automatic generation of authoritative, complete documentation of shortcuts, which Adobe currently doesn't provide.

5. Allow plugin keyboard shortcuts to be defined in the config file.

6. Provide a GUI user interface for editing the config file.  Or just rely on plugin developers to provide such a utility (e.g. the next release of KB Tamer).  

This combination of a clean config infrastructure, community-maintained keyboard layouts, and plugin-provided GUI would be a huge improvement over the current situation and would kill two birds with one stone: let users customize their shortcuts and provide much better support for non-English languages.  Faster, cheaper, better.

[chrisoaten]

Apple can do it (Aperture’s keyboard customization is excellent) but Adobe can’t/won’t. It’s pathetic.

[tjeerd paulj59535807]

You can remap anything in Lightroom in OSX keyboard or using keyboard maestro, Better Touch Tool, Karabiner.
You can always create macro's to compensate for the failures of companies like Adobe.

This thread is not about custom keyboard shortcuts alone. It's about the current state of Adobe in terms of software development. 

My current solution is the following:

You uninstall Lightroom. 
Cancel your subscription.
Buy or Subscribe to Capture One.

This software actually uses 2018 computer code and hardware and the color tools are amazing.
You can even customize your food in it...
Capture One will develop this software because it's all they have. ( and care about it and their customers )

Adobe will never listen anyway, because they simply don't care. 
Their stockholders and marketing department have their asses up in the cloud. 
I will stop wasting my time and money on this company. Good bye.

[johnrellis]

"You can remap anything in Lightroom in OSX keyboard"

Macos Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts can only assign shortcuts to menu commands, and unfortunately, there are a number of LR keyboard shortcuts that don't correspond to menu commands.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

And, you can’t assign one-key shortcuts.

[tjeerd paulj59535807]

True, that's why i mentioned keyboard maestro or better touch tool.These tools can map anything to anything on a application or global level.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Yeah, well, when talking about Adobe’s efforts on serving their customers it’s crazy that some non-English keyboard users are given shortcuts that simply do not work and require separate paid apps to function properly.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

I understand the frustration Martin, especially when it comes to the translations. You're not the only one frustrated by that, for sure.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

> Provide a GUI user interface for editing the config file

I could see this being done via Lightroom Web much more easily than integrating into Lightroom itself. Enter your desired shortcuts and download a config.lua file it outputs.

[J453]

John, as always, thanks for taking the time to clearly order stuff. I've shared this with the Lightroom team.

[PatBranch]

7 years and this is still not a feature... This should have been in version 1.

[PhilBurton]

John,
The proper role of product management is only to specify which languages/keyboards etc need to be supported.  The focus of product management should be on the choices of which languages/keyboards to support, and which not to support.