Saturday, October 24, 2009

Keyboard Shortcuts - New User Interface

One of the items introduced to Revit 2010 as part of the Subscription Advantage Pack is a Keyboard Shortcut editor.


The first compelling reason to use this? You can edit them in your current session and the changes take effect immediately. No more closing and re-opening Revit to get to use them! I've recorded a video to describe using it more efficiently than writing about it here.

You can start the Keyboard Shortcut Editor with three methods:
  • Application Menu > Options > Keyboard Shortcuts
  • View ribbon > Windows Panel > User Interface > Keyboard Shortcuts
  • Use a Keyboard Shortcut
A couple constructive comments for improving it:
  • Show me Duplicate entries - Add a filter
  • Promote a Shortcut setting - Up/Down
The Shortcut Highway product (which doesn't appear to be available anymore) had/has the ability to show me duplicate values and I found that compelling and useful. We can assign alternative shortcuts to the same tool. It would be nice be able to move the one we want to be the primary shortcut to the top of the list. Why? That's the one that appears on the tips inside the Revit interface when we hover over a tool.

I should mention that the new keyboard shortcut file format is XML, no longer .TXT. If you want to import a previous keyboard shortcut file you can only do so from a 2010 version. Remember the ribbon development created a significantly different shortcut file so this makes some sense to me.

Here's an embedded version of the video to listen and watch.



8 comments:

Rod Howarth said...

Do you know where the actual file is that you can overwrite on each individual users machine?? the keyboardshortcuts.txt file was pushed out automatically in our office.

I noticed you can import manually, but I dont want to trust all our users to do that...

saso said...

about the improving comments:

1. Absolutely agree with you on the duplicate entries I am wondering however (since I don't have the subscription to test it) if it is not possible to do it (or at least as a workaround) by sorting the "Shortcuts" column?

2. While I understand your point on the promote Shortcut setting, personally I must say if I would be the developer I would probably not add it, since the basic functionality to achieve the goal is there and it is not that kind of task which you would have to do it every day all day long :)

Haden said...

I would like to see a report function added so that we could spit out the entire current list of shortcuts to a file for editing or printing.

Unknown said...

If you export the shortcuts (xml file) and open this in excel it will provide something like the report. It even created filters for me.

PatrickS said...

Just change the filter in the dialog box to All Defined, then click the Shortcut column header to sort by Shortcut, ascending or descending. It's pretty easy to see where your duplicate shortcuts are, if any.

Christopher Hubbard said...

Erik,

We did that as well and it really worked well.

I know you can select the shortcut column and sort, but we missed a number of duplicates that can with Revit we wanted to reassign.

We already have a find duplicates formula in Excel so it was easy to link the xml file to Excel and the results display Red and green when correct or duplicated.

Still no word on where the file is initially stored, must be hidden wall as I searched for all xml files in the Revit directory, no luck.

Steve said...

Thanks for adding the path to the xml file. I kept getting distracted and forgot to come back to do it.

I realize that I can click on the Shortcut column to sort alphabetically. I still want a filter that just shows duplicates. I don't want to have to scan a list and "see" repeats. After seeing it in Shortcut Highway for several years I WANT IT, I WANT IT NOW! 8-)

A report function...as mentioned earlier is..Export.

Frazier said...

I've lost the 'shortcuts' column in my keystroke editor somehow. This annoying bug has left me without the ability to change or delete any settings and the ability to see what is assigned. Any thoughts?
I haven't dragged it to the side or anything.