Useful keyboard shortcuts for common workflow tasks

Question

Hi,

I started getting back into my Kyma system recently and I've started to re-teach myself Kyma... however, I keep finding myself tripping over not knowing simple things like keyboard shortcuts for things. When I went to search for them, though, I didn't find there *were* any for some things.

Like... something i often do is open a sound, make some changes, and then close it without saving changes. I don't know how to open a sound or prototype using just the keyboard. I was expecting cmd-enter or enter to open it up (not to compile-load-and-start, but to edit, I mean — same with if a control surface for a sound is open, then I can't quickly keyboard-shortcut switch to the edit window). Then, to close it, obviously I can use cmd-w as per normal, but to select "No" I can't do CMD-N as per normal OSX apps. Obviously "Yes" is Enter, and "Cancel" is the standard ESC, so that's good.

Curious if there's a keyboard shortcut cheatsheet for power users.

Answer 1

one shortcut i'd love to have is unlock/lock the vcs to open thte VCS editor

 

otherwise, a good way to add shortcuts to Kyma menu items in MacOS is to use the System Preferences/Keyboard preferences/Shortcuts

Comments

Yeah, that's a good suggestion. I've seen you making it around the Q&A section before... unfortunately it won't work in the case of *buttons*, I don't believe — it only works for features of the software that have menu items. Selecting certain buttons, or opening prototypes (or other sounds) into their edit window — well, neither of these particular features actually *have* a menu item to add to the shortcut feature of MacOS unfortunately.

Answer 2

Here's how to create a keyboard short-cut to open the VCS editor (on a Mac):

 

The lock/unlock button is in the same place relative to the top right corner of the window. This will help us!

I'm using BetterTouchTool which allows you to create keyboard shortcuts and one of its action types is mouse movements. 

I've created an action that moves the mouse relative to the top right corner of the window and clicks on the unlock button. Note that the normal "Left click" mouse action doesn't seem to work for some reason but the "Custom mouse click" does. 

I've mapped this to a keyboard shortcut ("powerclaw H", ctrl-alt-cmd-h).

 

 

Comments

The thing I haven't worked out how to do yet is to click on the "Accept" button in the Flow editor's Sound parameter pane. That button moves around depending on the size of the window and pane. It's a shame that button isn't in the bottom right corner.

Also I'd love to be able to open a Sound as Julian mentioned in his question, either in a Sound File window or to open the Sound's parameter pane in the flow editor.

I don't see how a basic macro editor like BetterTouchTool could do that because it would require knowledge about the currently selected Sound. I've tried creating clicks relative to the "Currently selected element" but kyma windows don't seem to have any elements recognised by the operating system (or at least by BetterTouchTool).

The "Accept" button doesn't seem to declare itself as the window's "default" button either, which would make it scriptable.

Let me know if you can think of any ideas around this.

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Thanks for your comment Alan, but I don't really see this as a solution because it's likely to stop working whenever either Symbolic Sound, or Apple change some aspect of their UI.

I'd rather a first class solution, though I realise it's difficult for the developers because they're no doubt developing in a SmallTalk image that doesn't allow the level of control and flexibility Apple's native developer tools give (and is most likely not native to that degree). What it does give, though, is cross-platform compatability, so swings and roundabouts :)