[chimerax-users] Hotkeys?

[Tom Goddard]

Hi Oli,

  I used keyboard shortcuts in Chimera 1 very often, but since there are many actions the shortcuts are 2 keys like “ol” for open last file, or “se” for silhouette edges or “ha” for hide atoms (selected ones).  I think I am nearly the only one who used this.  It is a pain to use both the command-line and shortcuts.  There is a shortcut to return to typing commands (cl), and a command to start typing shortcuts (ac, for “accelerators”).

  The same system is in ChimeraX, you turn on keyboard shortcuts with command ks, and return to commands with shortcut cl.  I didn’t make nearly as many shortcuts in ChimeraX because I tend to use the toolbar icons instead — so in fact I haven’t been using the shortcuts much at all.  It would be easy to make the ks command allow you to define a new shortcut key sequence to run a specific command.  I haven’t pursued it because it seemed not at all used in Chimera 1.

  Maybe you had in mind shortcuts with “control” characters.  This would greatly limit the number of shortcuts — many control characters already do specific things like ctrl-a to move to the beginning of the command-line, ctrl-e move to end, ctrl-k delete to end, ctrl-p show previous command, ctrl-n show next command, ….  So you don’t really have many ctrl characters left to assign.  Also these are used for invoking many entries on Windows (or Command-key on Mac).

  At any rate, my experience has been that shortcuts and a command-line don’t mix well enough for anyone to use them.  Perhaps a better implementation would change this, but I don’t know what the better implementation would be.  A basic problem is that shortcuts are hard to remember unless you are a very heavy user of the program.  Also you can mistype and cause havoc.  Sometimes I think I am typing a command and end up invoking 5 random shortcuts before I see I am in shortcut mode.

	Tom



> On May 6, 2017, at 10:01 AM, Oliver Clarke wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Loving ChimeraX! It has got a lot faster on Mac with integrated graphics than the last time I tried it, and I *love* the curved helices and ambient occlusion lighting!
> 
> UI seggestion: Would it be possible to allow users to define custom hotkeys to execute particular functions? E.g. swapping between preset display settings, adjusting the contour level of a selected volume, switching the view, etc? Hotkeys have an advantage over command line entries that they are faster and can’t be mis-typed. 
> 
> This idea would require a slight tweaking of how the command line works, such that you can only enter commands when the command line is active, but I  don’t think this would be such a bad thing. One could also have a hotkey to activate the command line (e.g. Tab or Ctrl-T). I feel like this would allow expansion and customization of the interface in useful ways.
> 
> With regards to the command line, would it be possible to add in tab-completion of commands, like one has in a bash shell? Although the documentation is extensive, I feel like this might improve the discoverability of various commands, and would certainly make them faster to type.
> 
> Keep up the good work, looking forward to seeing what’s coming next!
> 
> Cheers
> Oli
> 
> 
> 
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