16 Shortcuts - grymmjack/DRAW GitHub Wiki

Ch. 16 ⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts & Command Palette

What you'll learn: How to find any command instantly via the Command Palette, and the most important shortcuts grouped by activity.


Command Palette — 200+ Commands at Your Fingertips

🎯 Goal: Access any command instantly.

Press ? to open the Command Palette. Start typing — DRAW does fuzzy-matching across command names so you can type flip to find both Flip Horizontal and Flip Canvas Vertical. Each match shows its hotkey on the right; arrow keys to highlight, Enter to run.

Use Help → Cheat Sheet for Quick Reference Mode, which lists every command in the application without filtering — handy for learning what's available.

The Palette is grouped into categories that match the menus:

  • Tools
  • File
  • Edit
  • View
  • Color
  • Brush
  • Layer
  • Canvas
  • Assist
  • Grid
  • Symmetry
  • Select
  • Help
  • Image
  • Audio

Keyboard Shortcuts Cheat Sheet

🎯 Goal: Memorize the essential shortcuts.

The full, authoritative list is in SHORTCUTS.md at the repository root — generated directly from the input registry, so it never drifts from the app, and it covers both keyboard and mouse. Below are the essentials — what you'll use thousands of times a session.

Tool selection (single key)

Key Tool
B Brush
D Dot
L Line
R Rectangle (Shift+R filled)
C Ellipse (Shift+C filled)
P Polygon (Shift+P filled)
F Fill
K Spray
I Picker
E Eraser
M Marquee
W Wand
V Move
Z Zoom
T Text
Q Bezier
(Toolbar) Smart Shapes (Polygon, Pie/Donut, Rounded Rect, Tab, Pill, Pac-Man, 3D Dice, Bevel Rect, Arrow, 3D Text)

Essential combos

Combo Action
Ctrl+S / Ctrl+O / Ctrl+N Save / Open / New
Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y Undo / Redo
Ctrl+C / Ctrl+X / Ctrl+V Copy / Cut / Paste
Ctrl+A / Ctrl+D / Ctrl+E Select All / Deselect / Clear
Ctrl+L Toggle Layer Panel
[ / ] Brush Size − / +
\ Brush Shape (circle ↔ square)
X Swap FG / BG
0–9 Paint Opacity 100% / 10–90%
' ; . , Grid: toggle / snap / size+ / size−
/ Toggle grid alignment (Corner ↔ Center)
G+Arrow Adjust grid width/height independently
} / { Music: next / previous track
F4–F9, F11 Panel and mode toggles
Tab Toggle Toolbar
? Command Palette

Smart Shapes & 3D Tool Modifiers

Key Function
Up/Down/Left/Right Adjust shape parameters (segments, bevel, mouth, Z depth, etc.)
Mouse Wheel Adjust primary parameter
Shift Constrain aspect ratio
Left-click drag Wireframe mode (FG color)
Right-click drag Solid mode (BG color fill, FG color wireframe)
4/6/8/0/1/2 Switch dice type (D4/D6/D8/D10/D12/D20)
W/A/S/D/Q/E Orbit light
=/- Change light elevation
L+0..9 Light intensity presets

Bezier Tool

Key / Action Function
Q Activate Bezier tool
Click Drop corner anchor
Click+drag Drop smooth anchor, shape handle
H Toggle handle visualisation
Backspace Remove last anchor
Enter Commit curve
Escape Cancel

Line Tool — End Caps

Key Function
s Cycle start cap (while dragging)
e Cycle end cap (while dragging)

Hold-Key Combos (Non-Modifier)

The following combos require holding a non-modifier key (not Ctrl/Alt/Shift) and clicking, pressing, or dragging another input. These are distinct from standard modifier shortcuts and are easy to miss!

Hold Key + Action Effect
F Left Click Global Fill — flood-fills all visible non-locked layers with FG color (contiguous)
F Right Click Global Fill — flood-fills all visible non-locked layers with BG color (contiguous)
Shift+F Left Click Replace-all Global Fill — replaces all matching pixels across all visible layers with FG color
Shift+F Right Click Replace-all Global Fill — replaces all matching pixels across all visible layers with BG color
E Click Flood Erase — erases contiguous same-color pixels to transparent (no selection step)
W Click Magic Wand — select from merged canvas (all visible layers)
G Arrow Key Resize grid width/height independently
L Digit (0-9) Set Smart Shape 3D light intensity preset
R Click Picker — sample from reference image instead of visible layers

See also: Tool-specific sections for additional drag-time and context-sensitive combos (e.g., Smart Shapes, Line End Caps, etc.).

For everything else, use the Command Palette or read the chapter where the feature is introduced.

Customize Controls — Rebind Anything (New in 2.1.0)

🎯 Goal: Make DRAW's controls match your muscle memory.

Every shortcut in DRAW is now rebindable — keyboard and mouse. Open Edit → Customize Controls (or search "Customize Controls" in the Command Palette).

Rebinding a control

  1. Type in the FIND box to filter the list by command name.
  2. Click SET… on a row to open the capture dialog.
  3. Press the new key, click a mouse button, spin the wheel, or tilt the wheel left/right — whatever you press is captured. Toggle the Ctrl/Shift/Alt checkboxes to require modifiers.
  4. If the input is already bound elsewhere, DRAW warns and steals it (the old binding is unbound). Click OK to apply — changes take effect immediately.

Rows you've changed from the factory default show a marker and a "= changed from default" legend. RESET ALL restores every control to the shipped defaults instantly.

Mouse controls you can bind

Control Default Notes
Vertical wheel Zoom in/out (cursor-centered) Rebindable; can be set to canvas pan or brush size
Wheel tilt (left/right) Brush size − / + Tilt right = bigger; rebind to Pan Left/Right for horizontal scroll
Ctrl + wheel Brush size
Thumb buttons (Back / Forward) Undo / Redo
Right-click (Zoom tool) Zoom out Left-click zooms in
Pan drag button Middle / Space+drag Rebindable

There are also dedicated Pan Up / Down / Left / Right actions you can bind to the wheel or tilt for scroll-to-pan.

Presets & export

  • Load preset applies a full keymap in one click: Aseprite, Photoshop, GIMP, Krita, Illustrator, Procreate, MS Paint, Pro Motion, DeluxePaint.
  • Export as… writes your live keymap (including overrides) to Markdown, HTML, or PDF.
  • Bindings persist across sessions in DRAW.bindings; the CLI flag --load-preset <name> applies one at launch.

➡️ Next: Chapter 17 — Undo, Redo & History

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