Maya Hotkeys - Bane of my workflow.

Andr · Aug 2012

Hello,

I am wondering if anyone knows why many custom assigned Maya hotkeys stop working in many cases when I'm in the middle of my workflow... restarting maya works (but I don't want to keep doing that over and over...)

Am I touching some sort of hotkey override which is hidden out of view?
Is there a workaround or plugin which does some kind of uber-ultimate override of the maya hotkeys, which actually makes the hotkeys stable?

The only conclusion I can make is that the hotkey editor is broken (which I've heard from numerous sources already)

I've been having this problem for ages!
Please post if you have a solution, to end my pain!

- Andr

lysaara · Aug 2012

Maya's user hotkeys are kinda broken. If you're trying to rebind keys that are normally used by other functions in Maya(for example, I rebound 1-4 as subselection masks to emulate my old XSI hotkeys), it will often just reapply the default bindings, apparently at random. Frustratingly, I use exactly the same userHotkeys.mel at work and at home - at work it's fine, but at home it's constantly being ignored. Write-protecting the file doesn't work as Maya will just overwrite or simply ignore it anyway.

I have no solutions, only sympathy. Maya is such a jerk sometimes.

Toast · Aug 2012

maybe save all your bindings to a mel script and just execute the mel script when your hotkeys decide to break.

lonelysquare · Aug 2012

Same exact boat, a few posts down... How did I miss this in all my searching?

Frustratingly, I use exactly the same userHotkeys.mel at work and at home - at work it's fine, but at home it's constantly being ignored.

Same here, that is what is so maddening about all this to me. I plan on asking around a bit today and hopefully can get an answer.

Andr · Aug 2012

Didn't mention it, but I have the same concern as you guys. Let us know if you find a solution! 'GOD SPEED'!

throttlekitty · Aug 2012

I've answered this very question in two threads recently, one just last night.

lonelysquare · Aug 2012

Your answer, sadly, was not a fix.

matt luxton · Aug 2012

caps lock on?

Froyok · Aug 2012

Toast wrote: »

maybe save all your bindings to a mel script and just execute the mel script when your hotkeys decide to break.

I do that, best solution I guess.

throttlekitty · Aug 2012

That's probably best if it works.
I did a bit more searching now, someone made the connection between menu accelerator hotkeys and this issue.

Using shift-A for a marking menu, it works, until the Window menu is pulled up, which lists "Frame in All Views" = shift-A. Even re-binding within this session fails.

Commenting this keybind out in hotkeySetup.mel prevents this behavior in this case, and Window menu no longer lists an accelerator for "Frame in All Views".

Looking into the hotkey editor mels now...

lonelysquare · Aug 2012

Yea, I read that too actually. Got confused and gave up and drank. You made more sense of it to me. Thanks

lonelysquare · Aug 2012

I believe that did it, nice find Throttle.

comment out '//' the default hotkey you don't want to be used in the hotkeysetup.mel in the maya installation directory.

throttlekitty · Aug 2012

I'd like to just kill off the part that appends the hotkey inside the menus, but can't find that part so far. Assuming that it's in the scripts and not code. It only does this for default keys marked as NamedCommands.

Cool it worked for you square.

throttlekitty · Aug 2012

Ok, icky fix, but it works. It was in the first place I looked, it just seemed like it was a bad idea.

There are 26 named commands that get treated special and have their default hotkeys listed in menus, such as "File>New Ctrl-N" in Maya 2012. These are the hotkeys that will revert back to default behavior if you have defined that key to do something else, and have entered one of these menus (such as clicking on the File menu).

This fix is for the following hotkeys only, and involves writing over a default Maya script, seems harmless as far as I can tell, the menu items still function as normal.

NewScene		ctrl-n
OpenScene		ctrl-o
SaveScene		ctrl-s
SaveSceneAs		cmd-shift-s (mac only)
ArchiveScene		not set
Import			not set
CreateReference		not set
Quit			ctrl-q
Undo			z, ctrl-z
Redo			shift-z
RepeatLast		g
SelectAll		not set?
DeleteHistory		not set
Duplicate		ctrl-d
Group			ctrl-g
Parent			p
UniversalManip		t
HideSelectedObjects	ctrl-h
HideUnselectedObjects	alt-h
ShowLastHidden		ctrl-shift-h
ShowSelectedObjects	shift-h
FrameSelectedInAllViews	f
FrameAllInAllViews	shift-a
AttributeEditor		ctrl-a
SetKey			s
SetFullBodyIKKeys	d

Not all keys are affected, but this makes for an easy reference.

Maya\scripts\startup\namedCommandSetup.mel
Starting on line 157 is the script that adds the hotkeys to the menus, and there are three sets in a row. In the case of ctrl-n, we have:
"File->New Scene",
"NewScene",
"NameComNew_File",
commenting these three entries out, saving and launching Maya, ctrl-n is no longer listed as a hotkey inside the menu, and clicking the file menu no longer overrides a custom hotkey set for ctrl-n.

(and i just learned shift-g: repeat last action at cursor location).

Maya Hotkeys - Bane of my workflow.

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