[X11] Changing Select Objects Keybinding

[BWoods]

I'm working in Chief Architect Premier X11 on Windows 10. I want to swap the function of the space and escape keys as I am used to AutoCAD and hitting Escape when I want to deselect everything and go back to my default selector tool. I went into the keybinding changing dialog but can't figure out how to set a function to the escape key. Instead of putting Esc in the box where you apply the key bindings, it just closes the window. Is there a way I can change this? Or am I stuck having to use something other than escape? 

[Alaskan_Son]

I would suggest you don’t do what you’re trying to do even if there is a way.  The Escape key and Select Object are 2 entirely different tools with different functions.  If you really want to get efficient with the software, you don’t want to use the 2 interchangeably.  The escape key will cancel the operation which is a great function, but it’s terribly inefficient to switch to Select Objects every time you want to cancel out of an operation.  
 

Having trained and coached many many users over the years, I can tell you the probably the single most common time waster I see is ineffective selection of objects and one the biggest offenders is constantly switching to Select Objects (number one is probably improper/untimely use of right vs. left mouse button and double click vs. Open Object).  Might click on the Select Objects tool and open the Help files.  Read up on selecting objects.

[Kbird1]

Each to His Own .....

 

Not sure why you are having an issue switching them, if you want too , seems to work for me .....

 

Type Space in the Show commands box at the Top > (1) select Select Objects in the List.... (2) backspace out Space on the Assign Text Area at the Bottom and hit Esc Key then (3) hit Assign.

 

Chief will warn you about an overwrite > OK ...move on ..... then do the opposite for the Esc Key.

 

M.

 

 

 

 

 

[Alaskan_Son]

3 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

Each to His Own .....

Yes, but also very much no, not if the person isn't doing what they think they're doing.  The OP wants Chief to mimic his or her AutoCAD experience but their suppositions are totally flawed. Select Objects is NOT equivalent to the Escape key.

The escape key functions as an actual escape (i.e. "I need out of here").  It cancels the current operation no matter where you are.  In addition, hitting it multiple times will cycle back through your previously active tools. Basically, it just keeps escaping you further and further back. 

The space bar (Select Object) does something entirely different.  It doesn't actually escape anything.  It just changes you to the Select Object tool.  This means it's totally useless as an "escape" if you're in a data entry field or in an open dialog box.  This could get very confusing and a person would be misleading themselves to rearrange the keys for the reasons given. 

 

At the end of the day, switching to the Select Objects tool with a hot key might feel like its doing the same things as the escape key, but it absolutely is not.  You would get nearly the exact same result by assigning the Base Cabinet tool to that hotkey.  Only difference?  You would only be able to select Base Cabinets and Full Height Cabinets.

[Kbird1]

Well I read it as he/she wants to swap the Keys due to muscle memory, I see no issue with that, and assumed he/she knew what he/she was doing..... the fact that a True Escape is now done with the Space bar instead is a personal choice as I see it, as long as he/she can remember that he's done it .... and uses it as needed.

 

M.

[Ridge_Runner]

May be a foolish question, but does changing the function of the spacebar not cause a conflict when in a textbox? Or does CA switch its function when in a textbox already?

[Alaskan_Son]

40 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

Well I read it as he/she wants to swap the Keys due to muscle memory, I see no issue with that, and assumed he/she knew what he/she was doing..... the fact that a True Escape is now done with the Space bar instead is a personal choice as I see it, as long as he/she can remember that he's done it .... and uses it as needed.

 

M.

 

Ya, I get it.  I just think a person should be properly informed first since the 2 tools are very different.  On a side note though, it seems Chief (or Windows) recognize the potential for damaging consequences in this area and as such the behavior of the escape key reverts to normal in dialogs where conflicts would exist (most notably in data entry fields where a True Escape is still done using the Escape key) so it may not be a huge deal to switch them.  I still think its a mistake though.  Muscle memory or not, the OP isn't actually doing the same thing they were doing in AutoCAD.  In Chief, its commonly a lot more efficient to stay in the current tool and simply escape the operation.  

[Alaskan_Son]

6 minutes ago, Ridge_Runner said:

May be a foolish question

 

Not a foolish question at all.  See my last post above.

[rgardner]

On 2/7/2020 at 3:52 PM, Alaskan_Son said:

double click vs. Open Object).

Can you explain this part?  What is the difference between double clicking on an item vs. opening an item?  It seems they both open the DBX.

 

Personally I am in the CMD E mode to open most items but see a lot of people use the double click method.  

[Alaskan_Son]

Just a quick example of why I think switching the keys is such a bad idea.  I find myself hitting the Escape key all the time when I've accidentally started dragging an object, resizing an object, maybe dragging the wrong corner, or activating Resize edit mode instead of Concentric, etc..  Either way, I simply want to escape out of the operation.  Switching to the Select Objects tool though, doesn't just escape out of the operation.  It drops the current tool and loses the selected object(s) entirely.  This means in many cases you're forced to reactivate a tool and/or re-select one or more objects.  Very inefficient.  Much more effective to learn to select and edit objects as Chief intended. 

 

My suggestion for most people would be to learn about left click vs. right click, to read up on Contextual Menu options (first item in Preferences), and to get into the habit of selecting objects without always switching to the Select Objects tool.  You end up switching tools a lot more often than you really need to. 

[Alaskan_Son]

6 minutes ago, rgardner said:

Can you explain this part?  What is the difference between double clicking on an item vs. opening an item?  It seems they both open the DBX.

 

Do they though?  What if you are trying to select an object in a crowded area, you finally get it (either using Select Next or by luck), and then your double click grabs another object instead?  Or what if you have multiple objects selected?  A double click anywhere other than an edit handle will drop the selection and pick up on any other eligible single object at that location.  I've probably spent hours of my life watching these types of scenarios play out.  Its not just the flawed operations that cause problems either. People lose out on progressing because they never learn to get past that point...never learn to properly select and edit multiple objects at the same time, never learn to effectively select and edit objects in crowded areas, etc. 

[rgardner]

4 minutes ago, Alaskan_Son said:

 

Do they though?  What if you are trying to select an object in a crowded area, you finally get it (either using Select Next or by luck), and then your double click grabs another object instead?  Or what if you have multiple objects selected?  A double click anywhere other than an edit handle will drop the selection and pick up on any other eligible single object at that location.  I've probably spent hours of my life watching these types of scenarios play out.  Its not just the flawed operations that cause problems either. People lose out on progressing because they never learn to get past that point...never learn to properly select and edit multiple objects at the same time, never learn to effectively select and edit objects in crowded areas, etc. 

Okay now I understand what you are saying.  As I mentioned I use CMD E 90% of the time and really only use double click myself on opening rooms (when they are large and you can select it without selecting other items.)  I try to learn as much as possible from others and have watched all of the Chief videos and lots of youtube videos by other power users and have seen many of them use the double click (lots of times struggling as you mentioned) and seeing the issues has always translated for me into use the open item shortcut.  

 

Thank you for the clarification on what you were talking about! 

[BWoods]

On 2/8/2020 at 5:31 PM, rgardner said:

As I mentioned I use CMD E 90% of the time and really only use double click myself on opening rooms (when they are large and you can select it without selecting other items.) 

Apologies for the late replies everyone. Forgot to turn on notifications. 

I didn't know CMD+E allows you to open objects. I will definitely start using this as keyboard short cuts are much more familiar to me than having to click on the interface. When I previously used ACAD, almost every single function I used regularly was on a keybind. Coming into chief and having barely anything be on keybinds by default has been tough to get used to. 

 

On 2/8/2020 at 4:35 PM, Kbird1 said:

Well I read it as he/she wants to swap the Keys due to muscle memory, I see no issue with that, and assumed he/she knew what he/she was doing.....

This is correct. Essentially, all I'm looking for is to be able to hit escape and not take me to a previously used tool. If there's a better solution to this than swapping the keybinds for space and esc, I'm all ears. 

 

On 2/8/2020 at 5:08 PM, Ridge_Runner said:

May be a foolish question, but does changing the function of the spacebar not cause a conflict when in a textbox? Or does CA switch its function when in a textbox already?

This is a good question I hadn't thought of. I would assume that Chief keybindings only change how they function within the drawing area, and not within dialogue boxes. 

 

On 2/8/2020 at 5:19 PM, Alaskan_Son said:

Switching to the Select Objects tool though, doesn't just escape out of the operation.  It drops the current tool and loses the selected object(s) entirely.  This means in many cases you're forced to reactivate a tool and/or re-select one or more objects.  Very inefficient.  Much more effective to learn to select and edit objects as Chief intended. 

I have been in this situation for sure. 

 

On 2/8/2020 at 5:19 PM, Alaskan_Son said:

get into the habit of selecting objects without always switching to the Select Objects tool.  You end up switching tools a lot more often than you really need to. 

This is where I'm a little confused. For example: Lets say I'm drawing a bathroom. I currently have the cabinet tool selected and click to place a cabinet where I want it. After placing it, I can see that a door I've already placed is in the way and needs to be moved. With the cabinet tool selected, trying to select anything other than a cabinet will just place another cabinet instead of selecting the door. Hitting space (to go back to select objects tool) will allow me to select the door. Hitting Escape once MIGHT take me back to select objects, but it also might take me to a different tool that still won't allow me to select my door (depending on what tool I was using previously of course) leading me to have to hit escape again until I get to the select objects tool. Maybe my mindset or the way I'm thinking about it is wrong? Let me know. 
 

On 2/8/2020 at 5:19 PM, Alaskan_Son said:

My suggestion for most people would be to learn about left click vs. right click, to read up on Contextual Menu options (first item in Preferences)

I'll look into this. 

Thanks for the replies all. 

[Alaskan_Son]

On 2/10/2020 at 9:08 AM, BWoods said:

If there's a better solution to this than swapping the keybinds for space and esc, I'm all ears. 

My suggestion is that the better way is to just adjust your habits.  Get used to just using the space bar and/or use right click.  For your bathroom cabinet and door situation for example...
 

If you either turn off Contextual menus or require 2 clicks, you could leave the cabinet tool activated and still easily select the door using a right click.  You can even leave contextual menus on.  It’s just a little problematic in my opinion having the contextual menus pop up automatically.  I personally don’t like it.  

[BWoods]

1 hour ago, Alaskan_Son said:

If you either turn off Contextual menus or require 2 clicks, you could leave the cabinet tool activated and still easily select the door using a right click.  You can even leave contextual menus on.  It’s just a little problematic in my opinion have the contextual menus pop up automatically.  I personally don’t like it.  

I'll try this out, thank you.

[Kbird1]

37 minutes ago, BWoods said:

I'll try this out, thank you.

 

This is also how I do it , with 2 clicks or OFF set......

 

PS if you are on a PC ( not is your signature) it is Ctrl-E (Default Hot Key) not CMD-E ( Mac Os) to open Objects

 

You can print a list of Current Hotkeys to an HTML File from the Tools Menu too , and  it is highly customisable for HotKey People....

 

M.

[BWoods]

Just now, Kbird1 said:

PS if you are on a PC ( not is your signature) it is Ctrl-E (Default Hot Key) not CMD-E to open Objects

 

Yes PC, sorry I will add that to my signature. And yea, just said CMD for clarity's sake. 

 

1 minute ago, Kbird1 said:

You can print a list of Current Hotkeys to an HTML File from the Tools Menu too , and  it is highly customisable for HotKey People....

I will look into this, thanks. 

[Kbird1]

7 minutes ago, BWoods said:

10 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

You can print a list of Current Hotkeys to an HTML File from the Tools Menu too , and  it is highly customisable for HotKey People....

I will look into this, thanks. 

 

good start......but look at Ref. Manual too. ( Toolbars are customisable too except for a couple of hard-coded ones Chief installs.

 

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00238/customizing-hotkeys.html

 

 

[DzinEye]

I assigned escape to the space bar because I use it frequently and it's right there easy to reach without moving my hand.  I left the regular Esc key alone and assigned a different hotkey combo to Select Object.  Note that you'll need the normal escape key anyway as the re-assigned escape will not escape you out of menus/dbx's. 

 

As Michael and Mick suggested you can right click to select an object even though your window tool (or whatever other tool) is in use, but note that your cursor won't APPEAR as the Select Object tool, yet it still works.  

As for contextual menus, I like them, but I do wish I could customize them and adjust how far they pop up from the cursor and how they justify in relation to it.

[Ebb001]

To anyone from the future checking this thread out, the ancient thoughts in this post are outdated and remapping to the Escape key isn't a problem. It's the exact same thing if you're in the middle of an operation and hit Escape it'll cancel whatever operation is happening and switch to the select tool which feels way more intuitive. A software should work with the user not the other way around. I remember people used to get software training in the 1980s but come on now there's such a thing as UI design and human interaction designers that make more intuitive software

On 2/7/2020 at 12:52 PM, Alaskan_Son said:

I would suggest you don’t do what you’re trying to do even if there is a way.  The Escape key and Select Object are 2 entirely different tools with different functions.  If you really want to get efficient with the software, you don’t want to use the 2 interchangeably.  The escape key will cancel the operation which is a great function, but it’s terribly inefficient to switch to Select Objects every time you want to cancel out of an operation.  
 

Having trained and coached many many users over the years, I can tell you the probably the single most common time waster I see is ineffective selection of objects and one the biggest offenders is constantly switching to Select Objects (number one is probably improper/untimely use of right vs. left mouse button and double click vs. Open Object).  Might click on the Select Objects tool and open the Help files.  Read up on selecting objects.

Such an ancient way of thinking. Software shouldn't need training.