PyroSim Keyboard Shortcuts

A long-awaited feature has finally arrived, you can now assign Keyboard Shortcuts to various actions in PyroSim.

Overview of the UI

Open the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog through “File” > “Preferences..”. > “Keyboard Shortcuts: Edit…” button.

There are three tabs in this dialog window, ‘Global’, ‘View’ and ‘Tool’. Each tab contains a list of related functions that you can assign to a certain keystroke. For example, the ‘Copy’ function in PyroSim is mapped by default to the CTRL+C keypress combination.

How to set your own Keyboard Shortcuts

Step 1 – Open the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog through “File” > “Preferences…” > “Keyboard Shortcuts: Edit…” button.

Step 2 – Click the cell in the “Key Press” column that you want to assign to a new shortcut.

Step 3 – Press any Modifier Keys (optional) and the primary Key that you want to assign to that action. You can press a single key for an action. For example, you could map the ‘D’ key to the “New Device” action and then whenever you press the D key, the New Device tool will be activated. You can also clear existing shortcuts by clicking the ‘Clear’ button in this step.

If you have a keyboard or mouse that has ‘Macro’ keys or buttons, you will need to map keystrokes to the key/button first and then press this button during Step 3 above.

Defaults

We set a few of the actions to some sensible defaults, but you are free to clear these out and create your own mapping. We did not create a default for all possible actions, so it will be up to you to set as many as you want.

Configuration File

Keyboard Shortcut settings are saved in a JSON formatted file “keybindings.json” stored in the C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\PyroSim directory. This file contains a mapping of each action to modifier keys (i.e. ALT, CTRL, SHIFT) and the keystroke for this action. The values in the modifiers and keystroke fields are common key codes for the keys on a keyboard.

With the Keyboard Shortcuts UI described above, you will not need to edit this file manually. This section is just to give you a look behind the scenes and show you what the file looks like in a text editor.

TIP: This file could be copied from one computer to another into the same location to allow Keyboard Shortcuts to be shared after they are mapped on one computer.

First Release and Room for Improvement

We are glad to have this new feature out of development and into the hands of our users. We have already started on this same feature for Pathfinder and hope to have it in the next release of it as well. Please feel free to provide us with any feedback you have on this feature, and all suggestions for improving functionality are welcome. Please send your thoughts to our Support Email address.