Quick reference

Suggestions, Wishes, Ideas
#1

Hi

I have a suggestion based on aseprite. They provide a handy overview of the most used keys and mouse actions.

I would like to ask this for pro motion (for the basic operations) because it’s great for beginners but also can be used by advanced users who don’t want to remember all actions (there is a lot in pro motion)

#2

You mean something like this?
https://www.studocu.com/ph/document/sti-college/multimedia-arts/aseprite-quick-reference-cheat-sheet/38126304

#3

woops, yes, the link I posted didn’t work. It was this link I wanted to show.

#4

In the mean time, here’s a hint of most commonly used functions in PMNG. Well, for me, actually. And this is just the map for drawing/painting focused projects.

  • It’s a cheat sheet i made just in case i forget the shortcut i mapped for this particular macro keypad on a layer.
  • It’s really just a hint. It doesn’t have the shortcuts in the graphic. I know a lot of my shortcuts are non-standard though so this is better.
  • There are a lot of placeholder tiles bec. i haven’t updated this in a while (a.k.a. I’m lazy. lol). These keys are usually experimental and i keep on changing them.

Cheat sheet layout

  • top right: layer fxns.
  • top left: brush & other misc fxns.
  • bottom left: generally project fxns.
  • bottom mid: Mainly Mode fxns. Then half of it are canvas fxns.
  • bottom right: PMNG tools.

pmotion
pmotion1830×912 269 KB

This is way out of scope from the topic (as if this entire reply isn’t borderline already) but:
If you’re curious about the macro keypad it has -

  • 24 keys
  • 5 layers

Setting this up is a bit more extensive than just baking the kb shortcuts into the layer. e.g. the bottom right real keys are F13-F24, as well as Ctrl+Alt+Shift+1-7. But it’s set so F16 will execute a “b” kb shortcut in PMNG instead, for example.
I’d be happy to discuss it in another topic if you’re curious/interested in setting up something like this yourself.

P.S.
Btw, you’re coming from Aseprite, right? Bec. i interchange using PMNG with Ase sometimes for some projects, one thing i did was to remap all Ase shortcuts into the shortcuts i use in PMNG. I got a 90% cohesion right off the bat. But got it to 100% with my extensive setup. You could do something like this too.

#5

An UI With All Key-Bindings Instead?

I think that it might be more useful to have a dedicated window in PMNG that shows all the various key-bindings which are associated to what, discerning between default bindings and user-defined ones (e.g. via different colors).

The reason this might be more useful is because key-bindings notoriously fail to work as expected in different keyboard locales — e.g. I have an Italian keyboard and some default keybinding simply don’t work for me, either because I don’t have certain keys (e.g. tilde ~ and backtick ` are not available on Italian keyboard) or because they key is present but emits a different key-code than the standard US keyboards).

I’ve seen similar UI for key-bindings in various software, and they don’t just act as reminder to associated keys but also allow testing the key-binding (pressing them highlights the associated binding) and (re)define them.

Such windows tend to require large space, having to show the keys and their associated “commands”, but they can (and usually are) presented in multi-page, where you can navigate to the next/previous page, where usually each page deals with specific functionality groups.

#6

This exists! Help → Find Shortcuts

afbeelding
afbeelding671×823 29.6 KB

It would be cool if:

  • a color is used to see difference between default bindings and user-defined ones
  • export/import feature is made so you can save the key-bindings to a file (see Aseprite)
#7

For your 2nd bullet point, try this:
File > Keyboard Shortcuts...

image
image290×557 9.34 KB

In the popup window, you’ll see this:
image

PMNG v.8

#8

Ase shortcuts
@cageburner Would you share your Ase shortcut file for PM?

Markers for default shortcut changes
I could add a different color, but what is it useful for? Wouldn’t you want to see the original value also? Should I add the “default” to the hover text of an entry?

#9

yes, i think that’s better then colors.