Hotkey Editor problems

[zsomborAFFE3]

Hi,

I've just installed update1 for Max2020 and I've noticed a couple issues with the new Hotkey Editor:

- first of all it ruined the current hotkey settings! I guess it reverted all settings to default. I have many custom hotkey, so a warning before installing the update or an automatic conversion of the old hotkeys would be appreciated.

- usually when I do any change in the UI I save it through the 'Save Custom UI Scheme' menu, because it saves most part of the UI. So now when I noticed that my previous hotkeys are lost, I tried to reopen from the save UI scheme and I realized the 3ds max 2020 no longer saves the keyboard with the other settings! So the new update clears the current hotkeys and the Save UI scheme no longer saves it... nice... Luckily I ve found a months old save so I was able to recover it.

- I do save the UI with increments to my raid drive (R:). I wanted to do the same with the new hotkey system and it always points to the same directory on drive C: ( .../Autodesk\3ds Max 2020\User Settings). It would be nice if the 'Save as' window would remember the previous save location, because now I always have to locate the folder manually.

That is all for now, if I encounter any other issue, I will let you know.

Zsombor

[zsomborAFFE3]

Yeah, there is one more thing:

- Every time I restart 3ds max, it forgets to load the hotkeys for my custom quad menus (button '0' and 'Shift + 0')

[brentscannell]

Hi @zsomborAFFE3

I'm sorry that the update experience wasn't as smooth as it could have been for you with our new hotkey system. I hope that I can get you back on track.

A few things to note:

-3ds Max 2020.1 has a revised version of the default keyboard shortcuts. A visual map of the default layout can be found here:

http://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2020/ENU/?guid=GUID-6D38579A-C018-47F6-AC57-2578CF903F2D

Not specific to your issue here, but I want to take every possible opportunity to make the community aware of this.

-The Custom UI Scheme function had an large amount of feature overlap with the Workspaces function, and it is embarrassingly confusing and buggy. We opted to try and simplify the whole thing by removing Hotkeys from the equation in both, however you're certainly not the only one to make this observation about the UI scheme. We do have plans to reunite all the user settings, and Hotkeys was only the first step. You can configure the "User Settings" folder via the Customize menu->Configure User and Systems Paths and point it at the directory of your choice. This is the default path that the "Save-As" workflow points to.

-Have you tried the "Import Legacy Hotkeys" command in the hotkey editor? What this function will do is let you load in a keyboard shortcut file (KBDX format) from older versions of 3ds Max, compare that set with the default to extract YOUR changes, and store those changes as a set of user settings. More on that on the point below:

-The idea with the new user settings system (only used for Hotkeys, for the moment) is that your changes are stored separately from the defaults and are applied as an override over the defaults whenever conflicts occur, permitting updates to the defaults without loosing your own customization. The import legacy command is designed to give you a head start, but ideally the customization that you make in the new Hotkey Editor will be persistent and portable forever, regardless of what we do with the defaults.

-With respect to your quads, are those quad menus actually being loaded when Max starts? Do they show up in the Customize User Interface->Quads tab without you loading in an MNUX file or a custom UI scheme?

[zsomborAFFE3]

Hi @brentscannell ,

Thank you for your answer!

Yeah, there are some issues, otherwise I am quite excited about this new feature.

- the Visual map for the hotkeys looks nice! It is great that the changed hotkeys are marked too. One note: when there are more keyboards under each other in a category, it took me some time to figure out that the differences are the variations with Alt, Shift. Ctrl, etc. keys. You should make an indication about this above each keyboard visual map so it is easier to understand.

- changing the "User settings" path under the path settings is not a flexible solution, but will do the job, thanks!

- yes, I used the "Import Legacy Hotkeys" feature, that is how I was able to get my hotkeys back after the update. But again: you should consider deleting all the previous custom hotkeys without any warning as a serious issue, since it is not a good user experience!  If this is really the default behavior, you should change it!

- yes, the quads are loaded and are there in the customize quad tab menu, only the related hotkeys are lost. So the problem could be recreated if you set up a custom quad menu, set a hotkey to it and restart 3ds max. The hotkey should be lost.

- a new bug that I encountered: I cannot assign hotkeys to ALT + <numbers> (like: ALT+0, ALT+1)

- one more thing: now at the old place of the keyboard settings there is a note that it has been moved to an other place. A button would be nice that opens the Hotkey Editor right away.

Thanks,

Zsombor

[brentscannell]

Thank you for your feedback, I'll pass along the documentation ideas to the team that publishes and maintains them.

Can you share a bit about how the path customization for user settings could be more flexible?

Regarding the upgrade of existing hotkeys, this was definitely something that was considered however I will say that we faced a few technical obstacles to detect and migrate existing customizations during the update install process, like some other applications do.  Its something that we want to do in the future, when the foundation for the entire experience is ready to make it a smooth journey. I am curious if you have some ideas about how we could have better messaged this change, however.

For the hotkeys on your custom quads, were the shortcuts for these in the  KBDX file that you imported or were they applied fresh from the Hotkey Editor? I wonder if the conversion process failed on the quad menu items...

Regarding Alt+ numbers, I assume that you mean number pad entries? As far as I know, Alt+ number on the upper keyboard work, however Alt+Numpad keys don't and haven't in prior versions of 3ds Max either. There is a technical reason behind it, but I don't recall it off the top of my head and will have to ask one of the developers..

And finally, for the placeholder tab in the CUI, it was a actually deliberate design to not include a button. Our original design had a shortcut button in there, but what we observed during prototype testing was that users were not learning where the new hotkey editor was. We tried out a "teach someone to fish, instead of catching them a fish" strategy here, and I'm sorry if it's created an inconvenience. Rest assured, it wasn't an oversight and we acted with what we felt were the best intentions towards our users.

Looking forward to hearing from you about those quads, I'm sure we'll get it sorted out!

[zsomborAFFE3]

Hi @brentscannell ,

Thank you for you answers. I tested a couple days more, so now I can give a clearer feedback.

Saving the User settings would be more flexible if it should not be "hard coded" to the user paths (but keeping this as an option as well), but it just simply remembers the location of the last save. Or the save window would have a History dropdown list at the top, the same way as we have at the Save Custom UI Scheme window now.

Since the new Hotkey Editor resets the previous settings, a good solution would be a popup message right after running the update file that "This update will reset the keyboard settings. You can save the current settings under the Customize User Setting/Keyboard menu and import it as a legacy hotkey file. Are you sure you want to continue?".
Or the update does this automatically. Saves a legacy hotkey file and imports it.

The shortcut for the custom quads was saved in the legacy KBDX file, but I also tried to delete and set again in the new Hotkey editor and it is still not working.

To explain it better: among the quad menus we have 2 custom quad menu. I customized these and set the hotkeys '0' and Shift+'0' for opening them. After the update every time I restart 3ds max, these hotkeys are not working. If I open the Hotkey Editor they suddenly start to work (and it is enough just opening the Hotkey Editor, I dont have to change anything and even if I just close it or Cancel, my custom quad hotkeys are working again). I am curious if you can reproduce this.

Regarding the Alt+numbers issue those were the numbers under the Funcion keys (so not the numpad numbers), but restarting solved the problem and I did not encountered with this since then.

Thank you,

Zsombor

[brentscannell]

Hmm that certainly seems odd and it's not something that I can reproduce on my end, but I wonder if it might be something specific to your custom quads. I will reach out via private message to see if we can get a copy of your files to run some tests here with the developers.

[brentscannell]

Hi @zsomborAFFE3 

I've just realized that you were referring to the 2 "Custom" quadmenus included with the default menu set. Using these quads, instead of quads that I've authored myself from scratch, do I indeed reproduce the issue that you described requiring you to open hotkey editor at least once in a session to activate the shortcuts assigned to them. 

There is something special about these 2 "custom" entries because they contain hardcoded mouse button shortcuts by default. We've renamed these to User Defined 1 and User Defined 2 to make them easier to locate in the hotkey editor, but it seems we missed something there when it comes to how they are treated when they are first loaded. I've logged a defect and the devs will investigate asap.

In the mean time, I would ask that you see if you have the same issue using user-created quad menus (by clicking the "new" button). If yes, a potential workaround could be to re-create your quad menu entries inside of a user-created quad menu instead of one of the default "custom" quad menus. 

[zsomborAFFE3]

Hi @brentscannell ,

Thank you for spending time with this issue.

Ah, yes, those were not newly created quad menus, but I customized the built in quad menus with the name "Custom" (there is 2 of them).

Actually I already tried to create a completely new quad menu with the New button and I assigned a hotkey to it, but I got the same result: the hotkey for the quad menu is not working until I open and close the Hotkey Editor.
I wonder if this is working the same way on your side as well?

Thank you!

Zsombor

[brentscannell]

Hmm I think that we've unearthed a deep bug that may have been in 3ds Max for at least a few releases already..

If you assign a keyboard shortcut to a quad menu (using either the old or the new tool), and that quad menu exists in the default factory menu file (in program files installed directory), then the keyboard shortcut works. If the quad menu definition does not exist in the default menu file, but exists only in a user saved menu file, then it will not work until the shortcut system is refreshed (such as: by opening hotkey editor in 2020.1).

Since we renamed the "custom" quad menus to "user defined 1" and "user defined 2" in 2020.1, there are no longer any "custom" quad menus in the default menu file in program files, and it's failing for you. The devs think they know how to fix it, but I expect it will be a bit of time before it makes it's way through the release pipeline into a potential update. In the mean time, the workaround that I can potentially offer is that you download the attached DefaultUI.mnux file, and swap it out with the one in your C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2020\en-US\UI folder (please make a backup of the original by renaming it). You'll need to unzip it after downloading.

What this modified mnux file contains is a rename of the 2 default custom quad menus back to "custom" so that your previous menu files loaded in match the names in the default file.

[zsomborAFFE3]

Hi @brentscannell,

Yes, it is working now. Thank you!

First I tried to rename the two "User defined" lines to "Custom" in my current Default.mnux and the quad menu still did not showed up to its hotkey, then I overwrote it with your file and now it is fine. The shortcut for the quad menus are loading properly!