[Wontdo] Keybinds: allow single-key chords with palette

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es
Posts: 114
Joined: Sun Dec 04, 2022 6:24 pm

[Wontdo] Keybinds: allow single-key chords with palette

Post by es »

You have ~9 nice small informational windows in the Editor (Toolbox, Navigation, Information, Detail, etc.)
I'd like to be able to quickly switch them on/off whenever I need it.
However, having memorable keybinds is close to impossible (if combined with many other commands), and picking from the top menu is too slow.
The best way here is to have a single shortcut that shows a palette with all the 9 commands grouped together, then each command is
  • visible, so you don't have to remember all of them
  • can have your most frequently needed at the top for better visibility
  • can have single-key keybinds because they'll never conflict with anything else, so you can use the most simple keybinds possible
Currently I can achieve something similar via Keyboard Maestro by binding "uncomfortably" long keybinds to each of those windows and then invoking a KM palette via the first chord-key and then typing the second chord-key to send those keybinds (when GC is running):
palette.png
palette.png (61.41 KiB) Viewed 23185 times
So, for example, ⌘L then T would toggle the toolbox on/off, easy to remember (one keybind ⌘L instead of 9), pretty fast to invoke

However, two things are missing in this approach:
  1. I can't limit the list to only show Editor-specific keybinds in an Editor and Browser-specific keybinds in a Browser. Only GC has this kind of information.
    ↑ this can be solved if GC could add an option to allow me to insert a special printable symbol to the title of the Editor and a separate on to the title of the Browser, I could then pick it up in Keyboard Maestro as a condition
  2. It doesn't allow for the first key in the chords to be a single key as that would break typing (again, only GC is aware whether any text box is currently active to disable any single-key keybinds
    ↑ don't know how to solve this one, don't think there are Mac APIs that allow you to track whether a text editing is active
  3. It's missing a delay before showing the palette — if I toggle the toolbox very frequently, I'll remember the ⌘L, T combo and wouldn't need any guidance, so I'd prefer the palette to only appear after, say, 0.5s when no other key is pressed, that means I don't remember and need help
    ↑ don't know how to solve this one either
  4. the icons differ from the native ones ;)
  5. Maybe some other issues I can't recall right now that usually happen when you chain tools together :)
I understand it might be complicated to add natively, so would you maybe at least add an option to change GC's windows' titles separately for each of the modes?
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Re: Keybinds: allow single-key chords with palette

Post by forum_adm »

The very common palettes information, toolbox and layer can be toggled with a click into the icon in the footer of the image window.

So, you need only a few shortcuts for the other palettes.
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