Firestorm: change menu shortcut key bindings

[Judy Hynes]

I am trying to change a couple of default key bindings for menus in Firestorm.  In particular, I don't need Ctrl+2 (Move Tool) and Ctrl+3 (Edit Tool) and would rather free these key combinations up for use by gestures.  I have done this before but I can't for the life of me find the file I edited to accomplish this.  I think I vaguely remember the file I needed to change has "xui" in the name, but I'm unable to find any file with this in its name.

To be clear, I DON'T need to change the default keybindings as found in C:\Program Files\Firestorm-Releasex64\app_settings\key_bindings.xml.  I'm looking to change (in fact remove) the two menu shortcuts I listed above.  I did it before somehow on my old computer but can't figure out what file I changed.

 

[Judy Hynes]

Figures I give up trying to find it and post my question, then I discover exactly what I need right after.  For the curious, here's the answer.

The file controlling menu shortcuts is this one:

C:\Program Files\Firestorm-Releasex64\skins\default\xui\en\menu_viewer.xml

Although if you use a different language you'll want to go to that language's directory and not "en".  Before changing anything, exit Firestorm and make a backup copy of this file.

Now you can edit the shortcuts (and lots of other stuff) presented in the menus.  Here's an example entry I changed: the Move Tool menu item.

Original entry:

<menu_item_call
            label="Move Tool"
            name="Move"
            shortcut="control|2">
           <menu_item_call.on_click
              function="Tools.SelectTool"
              parameter="move" />

Modified entry:

<menu_item_call
			label="Move Tool"
			name="Move">
           <menu_item_call.on_click
              function="Tools.SelectTool"
              parameter="move" />

So you can see I removed line 4, "shortcut", and placed the closing angle bracket on line 3 above after the "name" entry.  This removes the shortcut entirely; I could instead have changed the shortcut to a different key combination by editing "control|2" to something else.  (I have no idea what happens if you accidentally change it to a shortcut that's already in use, so be careful.)

Happy editing!

 

[Rowan Amore]

2 hours ago, Judy Hynes said:

Figures I give up trying to find it and post my question, then I discover exactly what I need right after.  For the curious, here's the answer.

The file controlling menu shortcuts is this one:

C:\Program Files\Firestorm-Releasex64\skins\default\xui\en\menu_viewer.xml

Although if you use a different language you'll want to go to that language's directory and not "en".  Before changing anything, exit Firestorm and make a backup copy of this file.

Now you can edit the shortcuts (and lots of other stuff) presented in the menus.  Here's an example entry I changed: the Move Tool menu item.

Original entry:

<menu_item_call
            label="Move Tool"
            name="Move"
            shortcut="control|2">
           <menu_item_call.on_click
              function="Tools.SelectTool"
              parameter="move" />

Modified entry:

<menu_item_call
			label="Move Tool"
			name="Move">
           <menu_item_call.on_click
              function="Tools.SelectTool"
              parameter="move" />

So you can see I removed line 4, "shortcut", and placed the closing angle bracket on line 3 above after the "name" entry.  This removes the shortcut entirely; I could instead have changed the shortcut to a different key combination by editing "control|2" to something else.  (I have no idea what happens if you accidentally change it to a shortcut that's already in use, so be careful.)

Happy editing!

 

There's also the control option in preferences now...

This feature is new as of Firestorm 6.4.21. It allows you to set custom controls (a.k.a. key bindings or keyboard shorcuts). You can use either keyboard or mouse button inputs.

[Anicha Heartsong]

Judy, thanks for the tip, I didn't know this was possible and it is working well so far.

Do you have a strategy for preserving the changes you've made through FS updates? One obvious option is to keep a copy of the customized menu_viewer file and swap it back in after an update. But that might miss any changes made by the Firestorm team.