Is there a keyboard shortcut file I can load so that Affinity Designer has the same shortcuts as Adobe Illustrator?

[mvaneijgen]

Within the Settings > Keyboard shortcuts there is a load option and I did some googling to see if someone has already created a shortcuts list that they copied from Illustrator. I don't use Illustrator myself, but find most design tools I use, use the same scheme as the Adobe programs and I want a colleague to start using Affinity products, but If the keyboard shortcuts don't match they will not be happy with it.

Does something like this already exist or do I need to create it myself.  

[Dan C]

Hi mvaneijgen

Unfortunately there's no presets built into Affinity for keyboard shortcuts - other than the default layout. You can of course import your own or others keyboard shortcuts, but these aren't provided by Affinity.

I've searched the forums but I can't find any users who have provided a file that has these set, so you will need to manually change these within the app, my apologies.

Once you're done you're welcome to post the exported settings into Resources for other users to download if you wish

[FORMERxZOMBIE]

I'd love to know if there is a file for this too by now?! That'd be great!

[mqudsi]

I'm fine with most keyboard shortcuts the way they are, but for the life of me I can't get used to the discrepancy when it comes to zooming: the Affinity suite zooms with ctrl+scroll and uses alt+scroll to rotate an object about its axis, while Illustrator zooms with alt+scroll and just scrolls left/right with ctrl+scroll. (Also, is rotating the selected object used so commonly that it merits the very coveted ctrl+scroll shortcut? I wish Serif just used both alt+scroll and crtl+scroll to zoom instead).

Anyway, I can't seem to find a way to change this in the keyboard shortcuts section. Is it possible?

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, mqudsi said:

Also, is rotating the selected object used so commonly that it merits the very coveted ctrl+scroll shortcut?

I am on a Mac so it may be a bit different but what I think is the equivalent of ctrl+scroll on Windows is on Macs CMD+scroll. That does not rotate objects; it rotates the view of the canvas, not the canvas itself.

[mqudsi]

Thanks, I stand corrected. In all cases, is it possible to change this?

[Suomy]

I went through and made a shortcut preset file for Affinity Designer, attempting to map its functions to my best-guess equivalents for Illustrator. I didn't really spend all that much time on it, and I am very new to Affinity Designer. So frankly, I'm not sure it's the best, or going to help much. I think there are a non-trivial number of differences between the apps, such that a mapping between them creates a Frankenstein-ian problem: the set of shortcuts is neither Illustrator, nor Designer. It's a hybrid.

You're likely transitioning between Adobe and Affinity for good, so it might make more sense to just learn the way Affinity does it. 

But here are some of the wins as I see it – items that activate more closely to key functions in Illustrator (as of CC 2021):

• File
  • Package
  • Place
  • Export
  • Document Setup
• Edit
  • Duplicate
    • Illustrator uses CMD-J for "join paths" and CMD-D for "transform again." Affinity Designer contains its "Transform Again" feature as a subordinate function of Duplicate. And some other apps use CMD-D for duplicate. So it seemed to make the most sense to me for this shortcut to map this to CMD-D in Affinity. It's less of a hurdle for me since I use duplicate and Transform again a lot, and they are related functions.
• TextV
  • Show Paragraph (panel)
• Layer
  • Create / Release Compound
    • Beware: compound paths behave a differently in Affinity than Illustrator. You can achieve the same thing, but there is an extra step to get Illustrator's default behavior. Make a compound, and then select "subtract" in Affinity's layer palette for the item you just compounded. 
    • Note: I have only tested this for very basic compound paths. YMMV
  • Lock / Unlock All
  • Hide / Show All
  • Convert to Outlines
• Select
  • Deselect
• View
  • Actual Size
  • "Panels"
    • Brushes
    • Color
    • Layers
    • Stroke
    • Symbol
    • Transform
  • Full Screen Mode
• Tools
  • Artboard Tool
    • Does not respond to Shift-O like Illustrator. It is just bound to "O" and toggles with the Contour tool
  • Ellipse Tool
  • Point Transform
    • Toggles with the Node Tool using the "A" key 
  • Crop tool
    • This is not a standard tool in Illustrator or a conventional reassignment in Affinity; but I seem to be bringing a lot of pixel images onto my canvas and want to crop them. So I made this respond to the "C" tool, and disassociated the corner tool.
  • Node Tool
    • CMD-J is now Join Paths

NOTE 1: Anywhere the Illustrator Equivalent was mapped, the default Affinity Designer shortcut may have been affected or removed.
NOTE 2: I may come back and actually write in the shortcut keys here for reference. For now you just have to know Illustrator CC 2021
NOTE 3: The biggest disappointment for me: Hide edges. Can't find an equivalent for it in Affinity. Seems blue outlines are going to render for the path elements of objects any time they are selected.

IllustratorShortcuts-FEB2022.affshortcuts