Use After Effects' Shortcuts with non-English Keyboards
Frustrated about not being able to maximize AE panels with the ~ shortcut, since your keyboard doesn't have the tilde character? The same goes for many of the most useful shortcuts that don't work on many non-English keyboards. However, there is a relatively easy way to fix this before a future version hopefully ships with the nice shortcut editor found in Photoshop CS2.
Update: Thanks to Nils Fridén for providing the OS X procedure!
Update 2: Added the paths for After Effects CS3 and a link to a script for AE CS3 that will let you edit the keyboard shortcuts easier, but you'll still have to find the Unicode for all those non-English keys.
How to map the "Maximize Current Panel" shortcut to the same key on a foreign keyboard
Update: Thanks to Nils Fridén for providing the OS X procedure!
Update 2: Added the paths for After Effects CS3 and a link to a script for AE CS3 that will let you edit the keyboard shortcuts easier, but you'll still have to find the Unicode for all those non-English keys.
How to map the "Maximize Current Panel" shortcut to the same key on a foreign keyboard
- Step 1: Locate the text file Adobe After Effects 7.0 Shortcuts.txt (Adobe After Effects 8.0 Shortcuts.txt for AE CS3.)
On Windows XP and AE 7.0 you can find it in the folder
C:\Documents and Settings\XXXXXXX\Application Data\Adobe\After Effects\7.0
...and with AE CS3 it's:
C:\Documents and Settings\XXXXXXX\Application Data\Adobe\After Effects\8.0
Replace XXXXXXX with your current username, for example "jessica".
On Mac OS X and AE7.0 you will find the text file in:
User/Library/Preferences/Adobe/AfterEffects/7.0/
...and on Mac OS X with AE CS3 you will find the text file in
User/Library/Preferences/Adobe/AfterEffects/8.0/ - Step 2: Create a backup copy of the file, just to be on the safe side...
- Step 3: Open the original file and search for the word "maximize" and you will find the row where it says
"ToggleTabPanelMaximize" = "(`)" - Step 4: Now comes the tricky part; you have to find out which character is actually sent when you press the key you want to map the Maximize command to. I chose the same key as is used on English keyboards, above the Tab key, which on Swedish keyboards sends the § character. However, AE doesn't recognize this character, so we have to find out the Unicode code and enter that instead.
- Step 5: On Windows XP, choose Run... from the Start menu (or simply hit your Windows key and the R key) and type charmap and hit Enter. This brings up a small utility called Character Map.
On Mac OS X you start the utility Character Palette.
Write, drag-and-drop, or copy characters to the search field.. - Step 6: Find the character that is sent when you press the correct key by pointing and clicking on it. When you've found the character, hover the mouse pointer over it to get the Unicode which in this case is U+00A7, and switch back to the text file.
- Step 7: Change the text between the parenthesis to the code you just wrote down, but relace the "-" (dash) with a lower-case "x".
- Step 8: Save and close the file and then make sure you restart After Effects so it can load the changed shortcut.
- Step 9: There is no step 9! ;-)
Just pray that Adobe makes it easier in upcoming versions. My preference would be that pre-configured shortcut files where automatically installed for the most common non-English keyboard layouts.
Labels: AfterEffects, TopPosts
25 Comments:
The Mac procedure is very similar:
1. "Adobe After Effects 7.0 Shortcuts" is located in User/Library/Preferences/Adobe/AfterEffects/7.0/
Edit it using TextEdit.
2. Activate and/or open Character Palette.
Write, drag-and-drop, or copy characters to the search field.Then hoover over them to get the unicode ID.
3. Add Ux before the unicode ID from character Palette an use this code to replace characters in
the shortcut file.
/Nils Fridén
By
Anonymous, at Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Thanks Nils, I've added your procedure to the post!
By
Jonas Hummelstrand, at Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Hey - Cant seem to find the file ... I have version 7 and Ive even tried other computers..
HELP!
By
Jesper, at Tuesday, November 28, 2006
AHH! I figured it out.. I hadnt turn off hide system files and folders .
Thanks for the great tutorial .
By
Jesper, at Tuesday, November 28, 2006
dude!!!
you rule!! :)
thanks a lot!!!!!
By
Unknown, at Wednesday, February 07, 2007
thanx a lot. I was searching for ages..
By
Anonymous, at Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Hi Jonas,
i know this does not really belong to Shortcus in AE but somehow i does.
Do you know how i change the language in AE on a Windows machine completely from German to English?
I´ve figured out how to change the target AE app. Path from start menue access to the AE´s languages folder shortcut path for English.
but if i doubleklick my project files in explorer window as i regularly do, the app. then still opens in german opens.
How can i connect my project files to the English AE app. shortcut in the languages folder for ever?
Help very appreciated. Thank you very much.
Peter
By
Anonymous, at Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Thanks Jonas, you save me a LOT of time, twice, because I had to change twice the shrtcts,due to cs3 instllation...thanks again!
Arthur
By
Anonymous, at Thursday, August 09, 2007
Brilliant. I have a danish keyboard and I configured it to be the ½-key instead (Ux00BD)since the "§" didn't work for me
By
DefCon2 Graphix, at Wednesday, August 29, 2007
have you find the solution for the version cs3?
By
Rmax, at Monday, October 15, 2007
Thomas,
I've updated the post to cover AE CS3 as well; all you have to do is to replace "7.0" with "8.0" in the path and the file name.
Also, check out Jell Almasol's script "KeyEd Up."
By
Jonas Hummelstrand, at Monday, October 15, 2007
Thank you very much, it works perfectly.
The Belgian keyboard types ² instead of the ` used by After Effects, so Belgian users should change the value to Ux00B2.
By
Wout, at Thursday, October 25, 2007
Hi, what is the approach to enable the tilde key on a UK keyboard? (has got tilde but doesn't do anything, running CS3).
Thanks.
By
Anonymous, at Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Anders,
You have to find the character that is produced when you press the key you want to use. If entering that key in the text file doesn't work (remember to restart AE) you have to find the Unicode code for that key and enter that acording to the instructions in the original blog post. Let me know if it doesn't work!
By
Jonas Hummelstrand, at Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Hi!
Thanx for excellent tips and information here!
I´m converting the ae shortcuts to swedish keyboard, but somehow i can’t get the swedish "å" (Ux00E5) to work as the original "["
"TimeSetIn" = "(Ux00E5)"
The other bracket "]" works perfect. Anybody else who had similar problems - should i find a different key to put it under?
Best,
Paul / Fellow Designers
By
Anonymous, at Monday, May 12, 2008
Hi, how are you?
I have Windows Vista (yes I know, sorry) and i don't found the path for locate Shortcuts.txt. Maybe you know. Thanks.
By
ZoiX, at Friday, December 12, 2008
Me again.
C:\Users\ZoiX\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\After Effects\9.0
I am very blind xD
I put just "|", the symbol appear when I press the key next of the "1" key ("2" not xD); I don't put the hexadecimal code. And work it!! Very thanks.
Regards.
By
ZoiX, at Friday, December 12, 2008
hi
I want to share with you a link to a webpage that lets you search for unicode. simply press the key and click on search and it will give you the unicode. seams easier than using character map. Thanks for the tip!
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/search.htm?q=%27&preview=entity
Luis Artigas
Carcas, Venezuela
By
luchoyuno, at Sunday, January 11, 2009
I finally found the correct location for CS4 (9.0) in Vista! here it is:
C:\User\XXXXXX\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\After Effects\9.0 -> Adobe After Effects 9.0 Shortcuts.txt
(XXXXX = whatever your username is)
The modification worked ^^
tackar så mycket!
By
sam, at Monday, April 13, 2009
Ahhhh!
Thank you!
For us iMac-users without numreric keypad, adding markers to the timeline can be extremely time consuming. I remapped the nureric * to an å. LIfe is a lot easier now.
By
Magnus, at Thursday, September 10, 2009
Thank you for this! At first I couldn't get the Å and Ä letters to work with unicode numbers, but then I realized that the code for capital letters Å and Ä must be used, not the code for å and ä.
By
Hannu, at Monday, December 14, 2009
Thanks a bunch!
The mac solution solved the problem for me. Great help!
By
MARTiN, at Thursday, December 17, 2009
hi guys, here
http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/142/keyup.jpg
http://www.sendspace.com/file/j2pk3w
a nice script for cs4 ;)
By
Anonymous, at Saturday, March 06, 2010
Så jag har letat! Tack för väldigt bra hjälp
By
Niclas Fasth, at Saturday, April 24, 2010
Thanks for this article. It helped me a lot. Also thanks for your comment Hannu! It didn't work until I used the Unicode for the capital Ö and Ä.
By
Anonymous, at Tuesday, December 17, 2013
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