CLOSED - Keyboard Shortcuts for more than just commands

[keqingsong]

Last summer we introduced custom keyboard shortcuts for all commands in the toolbar. We wanted to provide this functionality for a long time, and the number of votes that have accumulated in the IdeaStation reflected the need for this from the community.

Now that we have this, we’ve been hearing requests to expand on the ability to have shortcut keys for other areas of the software, such as Viewcube views, browser > isolate component, etc. What are your top 3 areas of Fusion 360 you’d like to have a shortcut key for? Do you agree with this priority? 

Priority 1: Arrow keys for Viewcube views and shortcut for Home view

Priority 2: Component/body Isolate and Unisolate from Browser

Priority 3: New document creation

[hpekristiansen]

Fusion 360 is completely missing keyboard navigation found in most other high end software. Tab(shift+tab) for next(previous) input field. Arrow keys to navigate browser or lists. Enter(return) for edit/rename selected browser/list item.

Specific for mac, there are some very essential(/nice) shortcuts missing:

Command-Comma (,) : Open preferences.
Command-A : Select All objects.
Command-N : New design.
Control-Tab or Shift-Command-] : Make the next tab the active tab.
Control-Shift-Tab or Shift-Command -[ : Make the previous tab the active tab.
Command-1 to Command-9 : Select one of your first nine tabs.

The list follow normal rules for mac shortcuts, found in: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236 and https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/keyboard-and-other-shortcuts-cpsh003/mac

[keqingsong]

Thanks your comment. Keep in mind that Fusion 360 have many different workspaces and context environments that we need to think about and how keyboard shortcuts interact when switching. Apple guidelines may be the standard for Safari but may not always be the right solution for a product development platform. 

Also, fyi, you can toggle between document tabs with ctrl+shift+tab or ctrl+tab.

[hpekristiansen]

I appreciate that implementing working consistent keyboard navigation is not simple. I am happy, that the Fusion team is aware, that users want/need this.

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The most important one as I see it is: tab for next input field in any dialog.

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There are some shortcuts, that might be simple to implement (and they are not just specific to safari, but general to many mac applications)!?

Command-Comma (,) : Open preferences.
Command-N : New design.
Control-Tab AND Shift-Command-] : Make the next tab the active tab.
Control-Shift-Tab AND Shift-Command-[ : Make the previous tab the active tab.

[adamwoster]

Customizable keyboard home view shortcut is definitely number one. The last two... meh. Customizable keyboard shortcuts for the different viewcube views would be nice. 

[Anonymous]

Having view cube shortcuts would be great. In that same vein, I think having timeline shortcuts would be awesome, I toggle through the timeline constantly, and it's always a pain going all the way to the bottom left corner. It's also really annoying when I hit the wrong button. 

The shortcut for the timeline could be Control + Shift + > and Control + Shift + <, for forward and back respectively. 

[maruska]

In addition to the ones already mentioned (Command-Comma (,) : Open preferences, and Command-N : New design.) which are more system wide than just Safari, I'd like one for Look At (Maya uses F, Alias uses alt-A) and Last Tool Used/Repeat... (Maya uses G or Y depending of tool)

[keqingsong]

Creating new document and timeline makes sense - but how often do you open preferences that you need a shortcut key for it? 

[hpekristiansen]

@keqingsong 

It is not a matter of how often - it is to make Fusion 360 behave like the professional tool it is - also on a mac.

In Safari, Mail, Notes, Calendar, ... and third party programs Chrome, Cura, Acrobat reader, Libre Office, ... - in all of them, there are preferences in the main menu(the menu with the same name as the application).

In Fusion 360 it is hidden - not in a menu, but under your name 'tab'. -and normal keyboard shortcut will not work. It makes you wonder, if it is really difficult to implement, or if Autodesk just do not care.

[keqingsong]

Thanks for your comment @hpekristiansen - I understand where you're coming from. My question was an attempt to dig deeper into user behavior, rather than suggesting that we won't do it because we don't think it's valuable. Every project needs to be scoped, and everything needs to be prioritized in an order of importance, and even importance itself can be interpreted differently based on who you talk to. We are gathering requirements from a variety of sources (forum, face-to-face, phone calls, usability studies, internally), and because we care, we want to make sure we have our priorities right. That's why some projects may take a while to see the light of day. 

[hpekristiansen]

@keqingsong You are right, that in the sense of usability, it has very low priority. 

I do not know at all, but I imagine that some shortcuts are easily implemented (compared to making improvement in some complicated math, or graphics engine). I therefore believe that it anyways has merit to give these 'small' improvements high in priority.

It has high value to give new users the experience "This program I just download to try is working brilliantly as expected - I saw a youtube video about a preference setting, and I immediately found where to do it"

and old users will be telling "Ok - now it seems like Fusion 360 is finally woking on a mac - you should try it"

[maruska]

If I recall, before prefs were sync'd in the cloud, the Mac version had Preferences... in the Application Menu with the Cmd-comma shortcut. It was only after it got moved into the Profile Menu that things got alien. I can't quantify how often I go into that dialog - but it's probably more often than you'd think.

[SolubleSpork]

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@keqingsong wrote:

...

What are your top 3 areas of Fusion 360 you’d like to have a shortcut key for? Do you agree with this priority? 

Priority 1: Arrow keys for Viewcube views and shortcut for Home view

Priority 2: Component/body Isolate and Unisolate from Browser

Priority 3: New document creation

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Top 3 areas for shortcut keys:

1. Tab to jump to next input field in any dialog/Shift+tab to jump to previous.  Frankly still confused why this is even still up for discussion.
2. Customizable shortcuts for view orientations.  This not only would include front, left, right, top, bottom, and back (mandatory), but also home (probably a necessity), and "look at".  Usability wise, "look at" would be improved by flipping the part 180 degrees to see the back of the current view and if "look at" could be enhanced to where I select two faces to "look at - with orientation" (first face is what I want to look at, second face is the face I want at the top of the screen) that would be great, but that might be a bit off topic and is, in my opinion, lower priority.  Also on this list, but probably lower or mid-tier priority would be the manipulation of these views, i.e. rotate 90 degrees clockwise or counterclockwise, rotate part to the view left, right, above, or below the current view (currently the arrow buttons in the view cube).
3. I think a tool toggle shortcut should be implemented as third priority.  For example, if I map a shortcut to the "center diameter circle" tool, I don't REALLY need to map a shortcut to the "3 point circle" as well.  I mostly end up using the "center diameter circle".  But if I want the "3 point circle" tool, or any other sub-definition of circle tool, give me a map-able shortcut function that allows me to first select my shortcut for "center diameter circle" and then this special shortcut toggles between the different methods of circle definitions in the dialog box.  Solidworks uses this functionality and it is immensely helpful.  "c" starts my most commonly used tool, then "a" allows me to alternate between center diameter, 3 point, 2 tangent, etc.  This "a" key also works for other classes of geometry.  "r" for 2 point rectangle, then "a" toggles between that and center rectangle or 3 point rectangle.
   
   

Continuing on to answer the questions from the original post and ask my questions in return, "do I agree with this priority?" - Not really, of the three you have listed, priority three reminds me that I can't honestly think of any other program I have ever used where CTRL-N (or mac equivalent) does NOT create a new document.  Literally every other piece of software I use that creates files does this basic (and I really do mean basic) functionality.  Honestly, this shouldn't be on a priority list, it should already have be done.  Years ago.  Isolate/Unisolate and (not listen) activate would definitely be usable but I manipulate my view 100s or 1000s of times for every time that I isolate/activate/etc.  That being the highest of the three priorities listed is fine with me.

The main question I have from the actual ideas listed is this:
For "Priority 1: Arrow keys for Viewcube views and shortcut for Home view", does this mean that viewcube views (front, left, right, etc) would be hard-locked to the keyboard arrow keys as shortcuts? - I do not like that idea.  Or does it mean that the arrow buttons around the viewcube (rotate left, right, up, down, cw, ccw) would be shortcut-able?  Or is it a combination of both as I have described in my 3 priorities?  Shortcut for home - like I mentioned, good idea, probably necessary.

[Intuos5]

I am baffled by the priority list posted, only the isolate and new document shortcuts are helpful, but do these small tasks really require user input? These are just common sense, right? As a dedicated user of keyboard shortcuts I especially value being able to customise my shortcuts to improve my workflow, here is my list of what I would improve: 

1. My first priority is to add tab to cycle through command inputs, see: Ideastation. I am surprised this isn't even on the first 3 priorities! 
2. Common CAD workflow: Spacebar to execute last command.
3. My main eyecatcher and workflow improvement would be to have a keyboard shortcut editor, since like @keqingsong mentioned, the different workspaces complicate the shortcuts experience. With that said, shortcuts for commands in the modeling workspace can be accidentally overridden in the sculpt workspace without a warning message (despite the existence of warnings for duplicate shortcuts within a single workspace). My primary example of a proper shortcut manager is 3ds Max, it allows users to save, export and load configurations and most importantly search through commands AND assigned shortcuts with several parameters. Fusion 360's workspaces could easily be managed with a workspace dropdown search parameter. For more info see: 3ds Max Hotkey editor. 
4. This is the point where I would add shortcuts for view navigation, visibility/ display settings, constraints, sketch palette, browser navigation, timeline navigation and all other areas requested by users. This is because at this point, there is an easy way to customise shortcuts throughout Fusion as a whole. There no longer is a need to add clutter to the interface, just to be able to assign shortcuts in the tedious way that is currently used for assigning shortcuts to commands....
5. Fourth, I would reduce the amount of reserved shortcuts dedicated to default commands in the sculpt workspace, as these disable the user to customise their workflow (across workspaces). See Ideastation.  Basically, it boils down to minimising the amount of hardcoded, reserved, hotkeys. When the user is able to customise shortcuts for all commands, in the 3ds Max manner, this issue is resolved. 
6. In addition context sensitive shortcuts could be used more extensively, think of a single shortcut for extrude that works based on the workspace the user is in. In modeling workspace it is a solid extrudion, in the surface workspace it creates a surface. The smarter the context sensitivity, the more productive the user is. 
7. Although some strides have already been made for navigation with modifier keys and the mouse, these are non-customisable. I would prefer to set navigation to what is used in Revit, I especially value zooming with control + middle mouse button since this improves navigation when using a drawing tablet. This would consolidate navigation across other Autodesk packages. Please look at 3ds Max and/ or Mudbox (don't bother with Mudbox' editor though) and see: Ideastation. 
8. "The look at" mentioned above, is called orient to plane in Revit and is really useful as shortcut when creating and modifying sketches. In general Revit's viewcube is much more elaborate in functionality for navigation: 
   
   
   Add some arrows if you feel like it. 
9. Revit is based on alpha-numerical shortcuts, could be helpful to have this added in the mix as the commands are more memorisable. See Ideastation. 
10. To top it all off, Archicad has al sorts of functionality for type-in commands with distances for lines. I couldn't find an example straight away, but it's neat nonetheless. 

Please don't pour energy into features that barely contribute to the user experience, because this delays those requests that take more time but definitely have a much larger impact on the end user. I am also afraid that requests such as those on Ideastation will be even less likely to reach the developers when they end up in generic topics on the Feedback Hub. Anyways, keep up the good work!

[hpekristiansen]

My priority list

0. Command+N (Windows: Ctrl+N) for new document. Command+, for preferences. It is very strange that it is not just working - hence priority zero.

1. My first priority is to add tab to cycle through dialog inputs.

2. Arrow keys for navigating lists - e.g the browser. Down arrow to select next e.g. component in the browser. Right arrow to dive into that component by unfolding the three. Enter(Windows: F2) for rename.

[Anonymous]

I want shortcuts for the following:

Show-Hide Components 

Show- Hide Sketch's 

Show-Hide Bodies

Never do I use view cube, I use "Look at" would like shortcut or mouse gesture for that 

[hpekristiansen]

@Anonymous Fusion 360 already has the requested shortcut: v

[Anonymous]

@hpekristiansen  Separate Shortcuts so I can just hit and will hide the sketch, component or body without clicking around 

[hpekristiansen]

@Anonymous What do you mean, when you write "Sketch's" or "the sketch"?

It would be possible with this sugestion:

"Arrow keys for navigating lists - e.g the browser. Down arrow to select next e.g. component in the browser. Right arrow to dive into that component by unfolding the three. Enter(Windows: F2) for rename." 

and the Visible shortcut.

[Anonymous]

@hpekristiansen  horrible workflow