Hi Oli, I used keyboard shortcuts in Chimera 1 very often, but since there are many actions the shortcuts are 2 keys like “ol” for open last file, or “se” for silhouette edges or “ha” for hide atoms (selected ones). I think I am nearly the only one who used this. It is a pain to use both the command-line and shortcuts. There is a shortcut to return to typing commands (cl), and a command to start typing shortcuts (ac, for “accelerators”). The same system is in ChimeraX, you turn on keyboard shortcuts with command ks, and return to commands with shortcut cl. I didn’t make nearly as many shortcuts in ChimeraX because I tend to use the toolbar icons instead — so in fact I haven’t been using the shortcuts much at all. It would be easy to make the ks command allow you to define a new shortcut key sequence to run a specific command. I haven’t pursued it because it seemed not at all used in Chimera 1. Maybe you had in mind shortcuts with “control” characters. This would greatly limit the number of shortcuts — many control characters already do specific things like ctrl-a to move to the beginning of the command-line, ctrl-e move to end, ctrl-k delete to end, ctrl-p show previous command, ctrl-n show next command, …. So you don’t really have many ctrl characters left to assign. Also these are used for invoking many entries on Windows (or Command-key on Mac). At any rate, my experience has been that shortcuts and a command-line don’t mix well enough for anyone to use them. Perhaps a better implementation would change this, but I don’t know what the better implementation would be. A basic problem is that shortcuts are hard to remember unless you are a very heavy user of the program. Also you can mistype and cause havoc. Sometimes I think I am typing a command and end up invoking 5 random shortcuts before I see I am in shortcut mode. Tom

On May 6, 2017, at 10:01 AM, Oliver Clarke wrote:

Hi all,

Loving ChimeraX! It has got a lot faster on Mac with integrated graphics than the last time I tried it, and I *love* the curved helices and ambient occlusion lighting!

UI seggestion: Would it be possible to allow users to define custom hotkeys to execute particular functions? E.g. swapping between preset display settings, adjusting the contour level of a selected volume, switching the view, etc? Hotkeys have an advantage over command line entries that they are faster and can’t be mis-typed.

This idea would require a slight tweaking of how the command line works, such that you can only enter commands when the command line is active, but I don’t think this would be such a bad thing. One could also have a hotkey to activate the command line (e.g. Tab or Ctrl-T). I feel like this would allow expansion and customization of the interface in useful ways.

With regards to the command line, would it be possible to add in tab-completion of commands, like one has in a bash shell? Although the documentation is extensive, I feel like this might improve the discoverability of various commands, and would certainly make them faster to type.

Keep up the good work, looking forward to seeing what’s coming next!

Cheers Oli

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