"Toggle Transform Direct Manipulation" Keyboard Shortcut Inconsistency

[ThioJoe]

I'm not sure if this is a problem with my environment or what, but I'm having trouble with the "Toggle Transform Direct Manipulation" and "Toggle Crop Direct Manipulation" keyboard shortcuts apparently when assigned to specific keys.

If no one else can reproduce it then it's probably something on my end 🤔

TL;DR: Basically the "G" key without modifiers (not sure about any other keys) doesn't seem to work to toggle direct manipulation modes from the timeline - the program monitor panel must be active for it to work. See screen recording below for better example of what I mean.

What does not work (specific details):

• With either the "Toggle Transform Direct Manipulation" or "Toggle Crop Direct Manipulation" keyboard command assigned to the "G" key with no modifiers, if I try to use the shortcut specifically with just the clip selected in the timeline (so the program monitor isn't active), it doesn't toggle the direct manipulation mode.
  • However either command (transform or crop toggle) DOES work if it's assigned to G with a modifier like Shift+G

What does always work:

• Clicking the actual "toggle" button in the program monitor panel, not using the keyboard shortcut, always works
• With the program monitor panel active / selected, the keyboard shortcut always works, regardless of the assignment (whether the key is assigned with modifiers, or not)
• If the command is assigned to seemingly most other letter keys such as I or O
• If either command is assigned with a modifier, such as Shift+G, it does work.

Below is a screen recording. Here's some notes on what I'm showing at different parts:

• 0:00-0:05: Pressing the "G" key with the program monitor active/selected, and the direct manipulation mode toggles as expected
• 0:05-0:10: With the clip selected in the timeline, but the program monitor not active, I'm again pressing the G key but it is not doing anything.
• 0:17 - 0:022: Showing the G key assignment to Toggle Transform Direct Manipulation
• 0:25 - 0:27: Showing that I also have the I and O keys assigned to the same command for the next demonstration
• 0:29 - 0:34: Pressing the I and O assignments DO work, unlike the G key for some reason

These are my assignments to G:

And as you can see there's no timeline panel specific assignment to G:

System Info:

• Premiere Pro Version 25.0.0 (Build 61)
• Sequence Settings: Doesn't seem to matter, it happens regardless of sequence settings
• Windows 11 24H2 (Build 26100.2161)
• System Hardware:
  • CPU: Intel 12900K
  • GPU: Nvidia 4090 FE
  • GPU Driver Version: 565.90 (Current latest studio driver)
  • RAM: 128GB
  • Storage: NVMe SSD - Optane 905P 1.5TB

[Rach McIntire]

Hi @ThioJoe  ,

Welcome to the Premiere Pro forums! We are glad to see you here. You've given us a lot of great information.  We need a few more details to try to help with the issue. Please see, How do I write a bug report?

Thanks for submitting your bug report. I hope we can help you soon. Sorry for the frustration! 

Thanks,
Rach

[ThioJoe]

Ah right, I forgot to include the info about the system. I've added that to the bottom of the post.

[ThioJoe]

Ok I actually figured out the problem and was able to fix it (it had to do with a problem with my .kys keyboard shortcut file), and I think I even know the root cause. And it does indeed appear to be a bug.

Summary of the bug and cause (full details after):

For context, I previously had the G key bound to the previous equivalent of the direct manipulation command in Premiere version 24.0 (where it would activate the transform controls in the program monitor). This command, the "cmd.timeline.show.direct.clip.manipulation" entry in the .kys file, appears to have been migrated from being a "timeline" context control in Version 24.0, to a "global" control in 25.0. But the timeline-level bind in the kys XML file doesn't seem to have been removed during the upgrade, and I guess that timeline context command doesn't do anything anymore. Since any more specific context overrides the global, that means that the non-functional timeline command would appear to block any command, even itself assigned at the global level!

------------------------------------------------------

Investigation - How I Figured It Out:

• First through some testing, I realized that if I set the Keyboard Shortcuts profile/preset to the default one (called "Adobe Premiere Pro Default" in the preset dropdown in the "Keyboard Shortcuts" menu), if I then set the same 'G' key to the direct transformation command, it worked fine! When switching back to my custom profile, again it wouldn't work.
• So to remove all doubt, I installed Premiere Pro on an absolutely fresh Windows virtual machine, with no extensions or anything. The 'G' key would work fine when bound to the direct transformation command, so then I copied over my seemingly-problematic .kys profile to the VM, and set that fresh install of Premiere Pro to use it, and same exact problem!
• I also realized that when setting the 'G' key to other commands like 'Audio Gain', that would also not work, so it wasn't just the manipulation commands.
• So clearly the problem was with the .kys file itself somehow

The Fix:

Looking in the .kys file, i found that the command in question was "cmd.timeline.show.direct.clip.manipulation". And I could see that the command appears in two places (like many commands do in the .kys file) in two "contexts", one for 'global' and one for 'timeline'. Below is those entries isolated to show the contexts they're in, but in reality the kys file has many entries for keys above and below each.

<context.global Version="1">
			<item.611 Version="1">
				<virtualkey>2147483719</virtualkey>
				<modifier.ctrl>false</modifier.ctrl>
				<modifier.alt>false</modifier.alt>
				<modifier.shift>false</modifier.shift>
				<commandname>cmd.timeline.show.direct.clip.manipulation</commandname>
			</item.611>
</context.global>
			
<context.timeline Version="1">			
			<item.77 Version="1">
				<virtualkey>2147483719</virtualkey>
				<modifier.ctrl>false</modifier.ctrl>
				<modifier.alt>false</modifier.alt>
				<modifier.shift>false</modifier.shift>
				<commandname>cmd.timeline.show.direct.clip.manipulation</commandname>
			</item.77>
</context.timeline>

(For those curious, the virtual key value of "2147483719" corresponds to the G key. If you convert the number to hex, it is "80000047", where the 'high bit' of 47 corresponds to the "virtual key" hex code for G, which is 47. Not sure why some keys are stored like this and others just have the exact virtual key hex number).

I then compared those entries to another Test kys profile that was working with the 'G' key bound to the command, and in that working one, the entries looked like this:

<context.global Version="1">
			<item.608 Version="1">
				<virtualkey>2147483719</virtualkey>
				<modifier.ctrl>false</modifier.ctrl>
				<modifier.alt>false</modifier.alt>
				<modifier.shift>false</modifier.shift>
				<commandname>cmd.timeline.show.direct.clip.manipulation</commandname>
			</item.608>
</context.global>


<context.timeline Version="1">				
			<item.76 Version="1">
				<commandname>cmd.timeline.show.direct.clip.manipulation</commandname>
			</item.76>
</context.timeline>

The Solution: I simply removed the following 4 lines only from the "timeline" context entry of the 'bad' kys file, so it looked like the working one (So only the 'item' and 'commandname' lines were still there):

<virtualkey>2147483719</virtualkey>
<modifier.ctrl>false</modifier.ctrl>
<modifier.alt>false</modifier.alt>
<modifier.shift>false</modifier.shift>

After that, where the "global" context entry was the only one, and the "timeline" context entry was empty, now the command worked as expected. It also fixed the behavior of any other command assigned to that key. 

The Cause:

I then had a hunch, where I went on the virtual machine where I copied the 'bad' kys file, tried removing the 'G' keybind for the bad profile, and realized Premiere was not removing the "timeline" context entry for the manipulation command, only the global entry. It also appears that the manipulation command ID "cmd.timeline.show.direct.clip.manipulation" is the same as what it was in version 24.0, and G is the key I had that command assigned to, which must not be a coincidence. I believe in the process of 25.0 upgrading the .kys file, it probably didn't remove the "timeline" context entry for the command, which was meant to be migrated to the global context. But since the now-non-functional timeline entry was still there, it was blocking the global version of itself.

[Rach McIntire]

Nice job @ThioJoe .  Glad you found the solution.  Thanks for using the the Premiere Pro Forums.

[ThioJoe]

Right but to be clear it's still apparently an actual bug in Premiere that needs to be addressed.

Because anyone who had the keybind assigned in version 24.0 won't be able to use that key as a keybind in version 25.0.

What I posted is more of a workaround, not sure it should be tagged as "fixed".

[BrianLevin]

Thank you for noticing and addressing this, I have a similar bug report out there about a global key for Toggle Direct Manipulation, which no longer works unless the Program monitor is active. Pretty annoying, breaks a lot of workflow stuff I had going prior to 25.

[BrianLevin]

If you wish to upvote:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-ideas/toggle-direct-manipulation-pauses-playback-and-can...

[Stan Jones]

@BrianLevin's post here got me back to this thread.

It's better if @ThioJoe and I don't post our tomes in the same thread: we may exceed some maximum number of characters/post criterion! At least I'm too lazy today for screenshots!

I cannot find any detailed information about the new toggle direct manipulation in the Program Monitor. I think it was introduced with PR 25. Here's what I am seeing.

Function/Shortcut History

In PR 2024, the direct manipulation keyboard shortcut was in the timeline section and was an "activate" option. As soon as playback started, it turned off. It was called "Activate Direct Manipulation in Program Monitor," and in .kys was:
cmd.timeline.show.direct.clip.manipulation.

In 2025, two options were added in the Application-wide section as "toggle" options. When playback is started, the option remains on.

One option is "Transform," which toggles on the transform direct manipulation function in the Program Monitor, transform being the function used by the 2024 shortcut. It is now called "Toggle Transform Direct Manipulation," and in .kys, it uses the same commandname as the 2024 shortcut, but moved to the application/"global" section:
cmd.timeline.show.direct.clip.manipulation.

The other option is "Crop," which toggles on crop handles in the Program Monitor, which I assume was a new function. It is called Toggle Crop Direct Manipulation, and in .kys, also in the application/"global" section, its commandname is:
cmd.monitor.toggle.crop.dm.

If a 2024 .kys file is copied to the 2025 location, PR does not "see" that a shortcut is assigned, and will assign the same key to another shortcut. If the shortcut is not otherwise assigned in 2025, it simply does nothing (in the Program Monitor or timeline). If the shortcut is assigned to the new function, it works only in the Program Monitor.

I do not know if or how PR checks for issues in custom .kys files that are added to a newer version by copying to the custom location. But here, it seems to cause trouble.

How does direct manipulation in the Program Monitor and the new shortcuts work?

If a clip is selected, the icon/button (tooltip "Toggle Direct Manipulation") appears in the Program Monitor, with a drop-down arrow (tooltip "Choose Direct Manipulation") that allows choosing between Transform and Crop. Depending on the selection in the drop-down arrow, the icon is the Transform or the Crop icon.

It is counterintuitive to me that no clip selected means the visual cues are missing (icon is not there; no visible frames), but the function may be on. Select a clip, turn Transform on, deselect the clip, indicators are no longer visible. Start playback, select a clip, indicators appear/transform is on, and playback stops. If transform is off, playback will continue when a clip is selected - the icon appears, but is off.

Also note that if a clip is selected and transform or crop is on, the handles in the Program Monitor are only present if the playhead is over the clip.

Graphics text is only subject to Transform, not Crop. If the state is Crop (on or off) and graphics text is selected, the Icon/state changes to Transform and toggles off. If it is Transform/on, it remains on. (This appears to be true for shapes in graphics layers.) The "Transform" function (in Effect Controls) that text appears to be using is Vector, not the text layer transform functions.

Caption text ignores these settings, and selecting one or more captions and then a clip or graphics text does not change the toggle state.

The shortcuts work, I think, as expected from these functions. In the default set, these shortcuts are unassigned. For this test, I assigned Ctrl+Y to Transform and Ctrl+U to Crop. With a clip selected, Ctrl+Y turns on Transform. If Transform is on, Ctrl+U changes to Crop and leaves it On. If it is Crop and on, Ctrl+U turns it off, etc. These are active when the Timeline, Program Monitor, and Properties panels are in focus. They are not active when the Project Panel, Effect Controls, or Source Monitor are active.

Playback is interrupted if Transform or Crop is On and another clip is selected.

The "old" activate direct manipulation (which then turned off when done) had some advantages. See @BrianLevin's post here:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-ideas/toggle-direct-manipulation-pauses-playback-and-can...

In hindsight, I suspect keeping the old shortcut as timeline/activate and making a new global transform/toggle commandname would have been better.

@AnnikaKoenig 

Stan

[Tom_edit]

This is definitely a bug that needs to be sorted out in some way; the same thing happens if you update from a version below 25.2 to a version greater and you had;

<commandname>cmd.monitor.output.zoom.fit</commandname>

set to something within the program monitor scope;

<commandname>cmd.program.monitor.zoom.fit</commandname>

That hotkey is now;

<commandname>cmd.program.monitor.zoom.fit</commandname>

within the global scope. but if you don't remove the old entry your new hotkey will no longer work while the program monitor is selected.
It's unfair to expect users to generate completely fresh keyboard shortcut files for each update just incase a hotkey has changed scopes, especially not within the same year cycle.

Edit: this was meant to be a reply to the whole thread, not to you individually, my apologies~!

[ThioJoe]

Turns out this is also the reason the F5 and F6 keys don't work for many people either 😫 - There's leftover commands "cmd.file.capture" and "cmd.file.batchcapture" which were once defaulted to F5 and F6. I made a post in the related thread for those keys.

I think the keyboard shortcut assignment GUI in Premiere should at least show some kind of indication if a particular key is assigned to a no-longer-existing command. This bug keeps coming up!

[Tom_edit]

Yeah, funnily enough seeing your original post is what made me check myself for this specific issue. Definitely think something should be done to address it, seems super hand wavey to pass the problem onto the user as if most people are even going to know how to dig into the mess of an xml file that makes up prem hotkeys