Assignable Keyboard shortcuts CC BB DD etc...
Love UU. Love EE. Quick easy and no playing twister with your keyboard. What's easier than double tapping a key. Why not make double tapping assignable? Triple tapping? Too easy and logical to ignore.
Craig Swanson
shared this idea
3 comments
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TaranVH
commented
@Tim
Curse you, Tim, and your logical explanations!!
The only issue I have is that AE's default key bindings are not, themselves, logical.
In premiere, I've been able to rebind my most commonly used keys all to be under my left hand on the keyboard.
In After Effects, my most commonly used keys are spread out all over the keyboard, because I can't rebind all of them, for reasons like this.
It makes me a sad panda.
however, I am not skilled enough in AE just yet to be able to make any intelligent recommendations for how else the shortcuts in AE should be laid out.
However, now that AE has the visual keyboard shortcuts mapper, using AE has gotten a LOT easier, as the shortcuts are significantly more "discoverable" as you say. So thank you for that! -
Craig Swanson
commented
Tim love your very thorough replies to my suggestions. I can be rough around the edges and didn't mean to imply it's easy and logical to code double taps. Actually I don't know any other software that uses double taps as shortcuts other than after effects. I think it's genius for doing that. I just envisioned / fantasized double tap keyboards shortcuts as I was customizing my keyboard last night. Even attempted to try it in case I was missing something!
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Thanks for posting your idea.
I agree that double-tap keyboard shortcuts are easy and useful. There are, however, some challenges:
1. They're not discoverable. When you're new to an application and trying to learn how it works, keyboard shortcuts are actually one of the best ways to hide application functionality. The functionality, at the very least, needs to be discoverable via a different method and keyboard shortcuts should only be a time-saving method. However, that still leaves them farther up the learning curve. Personally, I'd prefer to design an application that is discoverable and intuitive.
2. They're difficult to implement in code. Not impossible, just difficult. The double-tap (or triple-tap, as you suggest) require specific code to capture the timing of the keyboard input. This is different from single keyboard presses where existing, OS-provided event listeners can be used; much simpler. Additional code is required if the double-tap shortcut is going to be customizable separate from the equivalent single-press keys: the customization code needs to be able to capture that difference.
I'm not saying that we couldn't ever do this in After Effects, and I look forward to seeing who else will vote on or comment on this idea. I'm just pointing out some of the challenges that we face as application developers. What seems easy and logical on the surface is not always simple when you start digging into the details of implementing that idea in code.
