Changing Keyboard Shortcuts for the Paint Brush Tool / Color Replacement Brush Tool (+Erasers)

[vampirecheetah]

I'm a bit baffled, and admittedly a little at the end of my rope. I'm hoping to get some answers.

A little basic info first. I've been using Adobe Photoshop 7 (from early 2000s) since 2005 for digital illustrations. Over the last decade I've seen this program struggling in some areas, leaving me to worry about the program's usability as newer versions of Windows get released.

For that reason I've been trying to find a suitable replacement program, or at least a fallback program once the inevitable happens.

I'm nearing the end of my trial version of Affinity Photo. I would be using AP for illustrative work, I realize that is not the intended purpose of this program. The reason I opted to try AP first was because if seemed logical to download the program that would more likely match the workflow I have with PS7.

With that said, I understand that a lot of my usability/ui hangups boil down to the simple fact that this program is not intended to do the things I want to use it for. I've done my best this trial period to come up with creative work arounds for a lot of those hangups.

Except this one. I typically use the keyboard shortcuts to switch between using the paintbrush and the eraser tools. In PS7 it's pressing B or E depending. However, I realized that when trying to switch from the Eraser to the Paintbrush, I began toggling through other Brush tools that I have no intention of ever really using.

I went into the keyboard shortcuts menus and began to remove any tool related to the B shortcut, hoping to remove this cycling through brushes. The thing is, despite that, AP will always cycle through between the Paint Brush and the Color Replacement Brush. Those two tools seemed linked together, and I could not find a way to define a different shortcut for each (again, hoping to remove that issue.)

While doing more testing, I realized the same occurs with E, where AF cycles through several tools linked together with the Eraser.

On one hand, I can fully understand why this feature is there. It streamlines access for all of those tools. The downside, for me, is half the time I don't even know what Tool I'm on any more, and it's not easy to tell at a glance.

Is there anyway to change the shortcuts for each of these tools individually (unlinking them) so that I only get the tool I want to be selected?

[lepr]

In the Tools section of the app preferences, enable the option for tool cycling to require the shift key, and then you won't get the cycling when repeatedly pressing a key.