Horrible keyboard shortcuts

#1 I also have looked all over the scripts for where to change the keyboard shortcuts- it was the 3rd thing i did after installing Constructor, and did not find them.

#2 The shortcuts are set up similarly to the transform tools in Maya - combined with the selection modes being set on 1, 2, and 3 they make it so that you can use access of the primary modeling functions without ever having to move your hand from a single home position.

The keybinds are saved in the config.db file - it is a SQL database file and will require a SQL database editor to alter it (there are many freely available.)

#3 Cool, thanks Alex. Only a few keys i feel the need to change.
And I have started to notice that there was indeed allot of thought put into the key-commands.

#4 I think Alex means SQLite. I was nosing around in the database files myself and they all appear to be SQLite files. Mac OS X comes with SQLite command-line tools, and there are some SQLite visual editors available on sourceforge.

#5 Sorry, yes, I mean SQLite.

#6 Here's a quick tutorial. From the command line (on OS X with the apple-provided sqlite3)

sqlite3 path/to/Constructor/config.db

You'll get a command prompt:

sqlite>

You can view the associations like this:

sqlite> .dump KeyboardTable

You'll get a SQL dump of the data in the table. Find the one you want to change:

INSERT INTO "KeyboardTable" VALUES(51, 'z', 0, 1, 0, 'PerformUndo();', 'Temporary perform undo', NULL, NULL, 8, 1);

The booleans are for the modifier keys control, shift, and alt. Note the key id, which is the first number in the parenthesis. And then change that record:

sqlite> update keyboardtable set keyname="k" where keyid=51;

And there I've just changed my keystroke for undo to "control-k". Which totally sucks, but hopefully you guys can follow along and make the keys the way you want them to be.

When you're done:

sqlite> .exit

And that's it.

#7 Thanks a lot Rob! I just may do that. Although, I did also notice that they put some thought into the controls. It just wasn't intuitive for me from the outset, especially coming from 3DWS, where there ISN'T any keyboard shortcuts for Rotate, translate, scale, etc... But, how is T not 'translate'?!

#8 The idea was utility over up front logic for the common keybinds - just like W isn't an intuitive letter for "Forward" it is very convenient when placed with "ASD" for FPS movement controls. Imagine how much less efficient your FPS playing would be if the cardinal directions were tied to F L R B instead of W A S D - it might make more sense the first time you saw it, but the utility of that up-front logic is not equivalent to the value of faster access to an experienced user :)

T also lines up with the Ctrl-T shortcut for the transform tool in photoshop, which functions quite similarly to the cage scale.

#9 You can snag a pretty decent freeware SQLite Database browser/editor here. Best of all it is fully cross platform =)

#10 Would anyone happen to have a list of which 'keyid' number equals what key?? I'm assuming of course that you can't just write 'k' in place of the 51.

#11 No, all you have to do is replace the letter. The KeyID is just a sequential number used by Constructor, not the hexadecimal keycode. I've already changed some keys around, and it works just fine.

#12 Thanks a lot. I was a little worried. How would you tell it to respond to mouse clicks?? I want to make the camera control like in maya. Where you hold alt, then left click to tumble the camera, right click so that you can move it in/out. For ctrl, alt, shift.... what would you write for those keys?? Sorry if i'm being annoying with these questions. Thanks in advance for any replies.

#13 How do you just move around the camera. I know that I can right click to rotate, and I can zoom in and out, but the camera seems to always stay pointed at the center. I've tried using the 'g' to move the camera, but there seems to be no rhyme or reason to how it moves. Not to mention it doesn't move very smoothly. I think a wasd configuration would be a more natural method of moving around the camera in perspective mode.

#14 Hit "C" (or edit the PREF setting) then RIGHT-CLICK and use the WASD keys to 'run' the cam around.

#15 Thanks... that will definitely make things a bit better :D