Command-M is "Curves"

[Australian Zoomer]

Pressing command-M adds "curves" to the document.  I found this out by mistake when I hit command-M for about the 99th time today and got curious as to why my document window didn't minimize.

 

In the OS X HIG, Minimize = command-M is listed as an "Expected" menuitem: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/MenuBarMenus.html

 

"Some menu items are marked as expected, which means that you should include them in your app, unless it’s impossible to support them."

 

and

 

"When there’s an appropriate keyboard shortcut for a menu item, it is listed. In general, enable the appropriate keyboard shortcut for every expected menu item in your app."

 

"Curves" is a perfectly good feature, but there's really no reason to steal command-M for it.  There's no mnemonic association between "M" and "Curves".  It's not the keyboard shortcut for that feature in Adobe Illustrator, so there's no historic justification (and in fact, Illustrator correctly uses command-M for Minimize).  There are other free keys available for this feature in Affinity Designer, such as "command-K" = kurves (a mnemonic for which there is much precedent, e.g., command-K is Konnect, in the Finder).

 

Please, support the standard Mac keyboard controls!

[Hokusai]

Australian Zoomer,

There are already customizable keyboard shortcuts so you can change them to whatever you like, including "command - M".

 

Hokusai

[Hokusai]

Australian Zoomer,

Sorry, you can change "command + m" to be something else but what is missing is a menu option to minimize and so even though you can change "command + m" you can't (as far as I can tell) change it to minimize because there isn't an option to minimize. Maybe a better request would be to see if the developers would add "minimize" to the menu so that it could be selected as an option for those, like yourself, that want it. 

 

Just a thought,

Hokusai

[Fixx]

Cmd+M is for Curves in PS, I suppose that is the reason for it. Me likes.

[anon1]

The issue is that even when you disable cmd + m for curves, AP still does not allow the OS X cmd + m shortcut to kick into action.

PS has a preference to choose whether cmd + m / cmd + h triggers a PS shortcut or Mac OS X (macOS) shortcuts.

 

Personally I don´t mint because I just always use cmd + h anyway and that works in AP.

[Hokusai]

I just ran into a problem that I think could cause some pretty big head aches for people involving the "command + m" shortcut. I was working on a completely vector file, I accidentally hit "command + m" and it brought up the Curves palette (I meant to hit command + n). I didn't want it nor did I need it so I just closed it. I didn't make any adjustments or anything. My file didn't contain any rasters, no effects, nothing that would be rasterized at all. I exported my file as a PDF and it keep coming up rastered. I couldn't figure out why until I saw that even if you accidentally bring up the curves palette, even while working only in the Draw Persona, it will level a "Curves Adjustment" in the layer stack and that will cause it to be rasterized. Now that I know about this, I can avoid it but for many users it would be tough to figure out. I would think that Curves shouldn't be able to be activated in the Draw Persona. If you want to use curves, your work is going to be rasterized anyways so why make the curves available in the Pixel Persona only (much like the current Eraser tool)? 

 

Hokusai

[Andrew Tang]

Hi all,

 

Fixx is correct and that it was a conscious decision to moved the Cmd+M shortcut to Adjustments > Curves.

 

However, you can reassign this back to Minimise. The Minimise menu item is under Window for the Mac OS and is available in the MAS version.

 

AndyT

[Hokusai]

Andrew,

 

Thanks, I looked for minimise but for some reason I couldn't find it. I love that there are so many shortcuts that we can set but there are so many that sometimes I can't find what I'm looking for :D . Can you explain the rationale for being able to bring up curves when in the Draw Persona? 

 

Hokusai

[Australian Zoomer]

I feel like everybody is missing the point here.

 

There are already customizable keyboard shortcuts so you can change them to whatever you like, including "command - M".

 

True.  With enough work, it's possible to beat any app into something usable.  Back before the Mac, that's what we all had to do.  It sucked.  The reason Apple has been so successful over the years is that they have Human Interface Guidelines, so us users don't have to learn how to do the same exact thing in every new app.  Open is always command-O.  New is always command-N.  Everybody is better off because of standardization.

 

You don't sell a car with the brake pedal in the glovebox, and then tell customers they can get the wrench out of the trunk if they want to change it.

 

Cmd+M is for Curves in PS, I suppose that is the reason for it. Me likes.

 

Well, I'm not a Photoshop user, but Affinity Designer is more like Adobe Illustrator, and command-M is not "Curves" in Illustrator.

 

It's also not an Adobe product, at all, so I'm not sure why this is relevant.  Is it trying to be a good Photoshop clone, or a good Mac application?  There's gobs of other Photoshop keyboard shortcuts that it doesn't support at all.  Instead of "F" to go full-screen, Affinity Designer uses the Mac standard command-control-F.  That's a good thing!

 

Fixx is correct and that it was a conscious decision to moved the Cmd+M shortcut to Adjustments > Curves.

 

Again, not sure why you're bringing this up.  Nobody ever questioned that it was a conscious decision.  Clearly, keyboard shortcuts don't just get assigned on accident.

 

I stated that it was (1) non-standard, (2) frustrating, and (3) unnecessary.  I never said it was an accident.  It's your application, and it's your prerogative to make the app behave weirdly if you want, but I think you're underestimating how much this is hurting your users.

 

 

Since apparently the Photoshop converts love customization so much, why not use the Mac standards as the default, and have a set of "Photoshop" keybindings that Photoshop people can use?  Or at least go the other way, and give us a set of "Mac" keybindings?  I really don't want to have to dig through all these keybindings to make it work like a normal app.  Especially since half the keybindings just show up as the question-mark-in-a-box that's used for missing characters -- apparently nobody bothered to test this feature!

[Australian Zoomer]

I re-assigned command-M to "Minimize", in the Window menu.  It doesn't work right at all: this minimizes every window!

 

(No, not even Photoshop does that.)

 

It's getting pretty ridiculous, the pure number of features I've tried to use in AD that are simply broken and unusable.  It's becoming clear that AD has only a few happy paths, and so it's a great app if you happen to use it exactly the same way that the AD programmers do.

 

I wouldn't have thought that "command-M = minimize" would be a feature that differentiates applications -- it's a default when you create a new empty project in Xcode!  I switched to AD, not long ago, because it looked like a better Mac app, and here I am on the verge of switching again.

[Hokusai]

 

I stated that it was (1) non-standard, (2) frustrating, and (3) unnecessary.  I never said it was an accident.  It's your application, and it's your prerogative to make the app behave weirdly if you want, but I think you're underestimating how much this is hurting your users.

 

Australian Zoomer,

 

While you may not be a Photoshop user many people who come to Affinity are coming from the world of Adobe. So it makes sense to cater to Adobe switchers seeing how Adobe is the dominate player in the graphics software market. Yes, it might seem odd that they have followed a Photoshop shortcut when Designer is more like Illustrator but that is the beauty of Designer, while it is mainly a vector app, it does some raster stuff too. I think that they mentioned that it was a conscious decision to illustrate that it there was a good reason behind the choice that they made. Customization, in this case, is the best solution because it allows everyone to decide what works best for them. Most people like to have choices. To say that they are "hurting users" is being a bit over dramatic don't you think? Have some patience, Designer has come a long ways in a short amount of time and it will only get better. 

 

Hokusai