Previous: Commands, Up: Interaction
Most actions that you can do through Geomview's panels have equivalent keyboard shortcuts so that you can do the same action by typing a sequence of keys on the keyboard. This is useful for advanced users who are familiar with Geomview's capabilities and want to work quickly without having to have lots of panels cluttering up the screen. Keyboard shortcuts usually are indicated in square brackets ([ ]) near the corresponding item in a panel. For example, the keyboard shortcut for Rotate mode is 'r'; this is indicated by "[r]" appearing before the word "Rotate" in the MOTION MODE browser. To use this keyboard shortcut just hit the r key while the mouse cursor is in any Geomview window. You don't need to press the <Enter> or <SPACE> keys.
Some keyboard shortcuts consist of more than one key. In these cases just type the keys one after the other, with no <Enter> afterwards. Keyboard shortcuts are case sensitive. You can cancel a multi-key keyboard shortcut that you have started by typing any invalid key, for example the space bar.
Keyboard commands apply while the cursor is in any camera window and most control panels.
Many keyboard shortcuts allow numeric arguments which you type as a prefix to the command key(s). For example, the shortcut for Near clip in the camera panel is v n. To set the near clip plane to `0.5', type 0.5vn. Commands that don't take a numeric prefix toggle or reset the current value.
Most commands allow one of the following selection prefixes. If none is provided the command applies to the target object.
For example, g4af means toggle the face drawing of object g4.
Simply typing a selection prefix, like g4, doesn't yet select an object; that only happens when a command, like ae, follows the prefix. To select an object as the target without doing anything else to it, use the p command. So g3p selects object g3.
The text field in the upper left corner of the Main panel shows the state of the current keyboard shortcut.
In addition to the keyboard shortcuts for the panel commands, there is also a shortcut for picking a target object: type the short name of the object followed by p. For example, to select object g3, type g 3 p. This only works with the short names — the ones that appear in square brackets ([ ]) in the Targets browser of the Main panel.
Below is a summary of all keyboard shortcuts.