Acorn Documentation: Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard Shortcuts


If you often find yourself using the mouse to change the current tool you are using, you might be able to speed up the process by memorizing a few keyboard shortcuts.  If you forget which key goes to which function, take a look at the menus.


If multiple tools are located under one icon (for example, there are 2 tools under the eraser icon), clicking on the keyboard shortcut for that tool will cycle through the various options.


Don't like a particular shortcut, or wish a menu item had one?  You can change or add shortcuts via the Keyboard System Preferences, under the "Application Shortcuts" section.


Under Acorn ▸ Preferences ▸ Advanced there is the option to autoload a palette when using keyboard shortcuts for tools (such as 'b' for brush, or 'v' for the arrow tool).  When a tool's shortcut is used, that tools palette will then be displayed.  With this option disabled whatever tool is clicked on will be displayed in the palette, but when keyboard shortcuts are used the corresponding palette will not be shown. This makes it easier to switch back and forth from the shape or text tools to another tool, without losing the original palette's focus.


Tool Palette Shortcuts:


<Tab>

Toggle Palette

C

Crop

V

Move

D

Reset front and back colors 

B

Brush

H

Pan

K

Flood Fill

I

Eye dropper / color picker

E

Erase, Instant Alpha

Z

Magnify / Zoom

O

Oval Shape

R

Rectangle Shape

T

Text

L

Line

Q

Quick Mask

F

Full Screen

⇧O

Smudge, Dodge, Burn, Clone

X

Swap the front and back colors

P

Bézier curve

N

Pencil

]

Increase brush size.

Hold down the ⌥ key to increment in fractions.

Spacebar

Switch to the pan tool momentarily


[




Decrease brush size

Hold down the ⌥ key to decrement in fractions


M,  S




Marque / Selection

Pressing m or s multiple times will cycle through the rect, oval, and lasso selection tools.







Layers


0,1-9

Cycle the current layer through various levels of transparency



⌥ ]

Select next layer



⌥ [

Select previous layer





Magnification / Zoom


+

Zoom in

-

Zoom out

1

100%.

2

200%

3

400%

4

Toggle between 800% and 3500% 

5

Toggle between 50% and 25%





Misc


⇧ Drag

Constrain the oval or rectangle selections and shapes to equal sides.

⌥ Delete

Fill the current selection or canvas with foreground color.

⌘⇧6

Make a new image from a screenshot

⌥⇧Delete

Fill the current selection or canvas with background color

ESC

Cancel current transform or crop operation

⇧Delete

Brings up the Fill… panel.

⌘^\

Anchors the Tool Palette to the top right

Delete

Deletes contents of currently selected layer


⌘⇧C

Show / Hide the Color Palette



⌘T

Show / HIde the Font Palette



⌘F

Perform the last filter again



⌘A

Select All



⌘D

Remove Selection.









Legend:


Command Key

^

Control Key

Option Key

Shift Key