Why are some keyboard shortcuts on macOS unassignable?

[Juhani]

If I try to assign Control-Option-M as a keyboard shortcut for Median Filter it does not work. Cmd-Option-M works just fine, as does Cmd-Shift-M. But whenever I use the Control key it stops working. The same is not true with other commands. For instance, Control-Option-G for Gaussian Blur works just fine. Why is that?

Since Cmd based shortcuts have already been taken up by other commands it would be great if I could dedicate Control-Option for regular filters and Control-Option-Shift for live filters.

[R C-R]

 Control-Option-M as a keyboard shortcut for the AP Filters > Blur > Median Filter or for the Layer > New Live Filter > Blur > Median Filter menu item works fine for me, but of course I can only use one or the other.

What Mac OS version are you using?

[MikeTO]

This key combination will work outside of a text object but not when the cursor is placed in text. There could be other circumstances where it doesn't work.

IIRC, Ctrl+M is the old shortcut for a carriage return and for whatever reason, pressing Ctrl+Option+M in Affinity enters a carriage return, so it's probably this old standard. I don't know if this is something that could be changed but I suggest picking a different key combination.

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

This key combination will work outside of a text object but not when the cursor is placed in text.

OK, I see the same thing, but I cannot think of any reason I would want to invoke that filter while in text edit mode.

[Dennison]

Is it possible to assign a toggle on/off shortcut to turning snapping on/off?

[MikeTO]

4 hours ago, Dennison said:

Is it possible to assign a toggle on/off shortcut to turning snapping on/off?

No, but you can hold Option while drawing, dragging, scaling, or transforming to temporarily disable snapping until you let go of the key.

EDIT: yes, there's a Snapping control (the Magnet icon) in the main toolbar.

Edited September 1 by MikeTO
Corrected

[carl123]

49 minutes ago, Dennison said:

Is it possible to assign a toggle on/off shortcut to turning snapping on/off?

Yes, it's in the shortcuts, defined currently as a semi-colon    ; 

 

Windows 11

 

[walt.farrell]

[MikeTO]

3 hours ago, carl123 said:

Yes, it's in the shortcuts, defined currently as a semi-colon

Thanks, I didn't know that. I should have known this though because there's a Snapping control in the main toolbar and I just wrote about it a few weeks ago for the next version of my manual. It's not a feature I use much so I forgot about it already. 🙂 

I find it odd that there isn't a menu command for this. There are menu commands for minor things like Move to Next and Previous View Point, presumably just to make it easy to assign shortcuts. If we're going to clutter up the View menu with those it seems like space could be found for Toggle Snapping.

While I was looking at this Miscellaneous category, I noticed that on macOS there is a duplicate Insert Hyperlink shortcut (it's also in Text) and two Switch to Next View shortcuts.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

While I was looking at this Miscellaneous category, I noticed that on macOS there is a duplicate Insert Hyperlink shortcut (it's also in Text) and two Switch to Next View shortcuts.

Obviously, this applies to APub ... & what's weird for me is with Insert Hyperlink set to CTRL+H in the Text section in the Misc section it shows a warning triangle with the tooltip "Insert Hyperlink..." -- indicating it is conflicting with the Text one.

[Dennison]

Brilliant thank you.

 

[Juhani]

19 hours ago, R C-R said:

 Control-Option-M as a keyboard shortcut for the AP Filters > Blur > Median Filter or for the Layer > New Live Filter > Blur > Median Filter menu item works fine for me, but of course I can only use one or the other.

What Mac OS version are you using?

I'm using the latest macOS Sonoma 14.6.1 and I think I got it working now but not sure why or how. Anyway, thanks all for your input.