Mac Illustrator keyboard shortcuts now working

 It has been many years since I last had to support a Mac so what I am about to say may not be very well informed.

I needed to setup a Wacom Intuos 5 graphics tablet on a Mac Pro desktop to use with Illustrator.

Downloading and installing the drivers for the older Wacom tablet were not difficult. It is still supported by the latest driver set.

During the install the driver installation requires some Security and Privacy settings to be enabled for the Wacom drivers.

The note says something like, enable the options for all of the Wacom apps.

That is incorrect or at least misleading.

If the Wacom Desktop Centre is allowed to intercept the keyboard, Adobe Illustrator shortcuts do not work.

The problem did not show up until trying to use some shortcuts, like 'Layer forward and back' 'Cmd [ and ]' It was luck that I remembered the various settings and suspected that one of them might have been the cause.

From the Mac Settings (Gear) icon, go to 'Security and Privacy' and then 'Keyboard'. Make sure there is NO tick next to Wacom Control Centre.

I unlock changes by selecting the Lock icon and entering a password.

For the various Wacom products, there should only be a tick next to the Wacom Tablet Driver in Input Monitoring and a tick next to the com.wacom.IOManager in Accessibility. 

Once the changes have been make I locked the preferences again.

Correcting that, fixed the keyboard shortcuts in Adobe Illustrator.

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Fusion 360 zoom pan and orbit

I've just spent a frustrating half an hour looking for the instructions to explain what key, button and mouse combinations can be used to control pan, orbit and zoom in Fusion 360.

I've written this post to consolidate the information I found, in to one place.

Just to be clear, I know how to do this with either the onscreen buttons or the default Fusion 360 options but what I wanted was a set of key combinations that work with my Kensington Expert Mouse, which is actually a trackball.

The Fusion 360 default and several of the other options use the middle mouse button for view controls. The trouble is that the button positions on the trackball mean that to use the middle mouse button I have to twist my hand in to a slightly uncomfortable position.

I am therefore, looking for a keyboard alternative to the middle mouse button or the on-screen view controls, that is more efficient and, ideally, a little more comfortable.

Since September 2018 Fusion 360 has had four alternative options, however, I struggled to find details of them, all in one place. Specifically the new Tinkercad settings.

I did eventually find the Fusion 360 help pages on the subject, using the help function within the app. Searching Google or Autodesk's web site was useless. As shown in the image at the start, I have put this together in the hope people manage to find it with less effort than I had to put in.

The Fusion 360 methods work in addition to the selected compatibility option.

For my requirement, only the 'Inventor' option does not use the middle mouse button. I use the F2 and the F4 keys for Pan and orbit, respectively but I continue to use the mouse wheel for zoom.

As an added bonus, this setup also works well with a laptop touch pad.

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Useful links:
Set your preferences
Keyboard shortcuts

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Leap Motion and the Future

It's not often that I get excited about new technology.  I work in IT so I should be a gadget geek but to me most are just obvious innovations or toys that won't make a significant difference however sometimes a new thing just opens up a world of possibilities.  I think the Leap is one of those.

This is a sensor that detects detailed hand movement to control a computer.

http://leapmotion.com/

If it works as well as they claim then in my opinion this will change how we control lots of things.  It should make touch screens obsolete.  It could be used in cars, for your cooker, light switches, your TV, for phones for games...

There are so many obvious innovations that come out of it.

The Future

The first change I hope to use would be a keyboard and mouse free desk.  The keyboard could be replaced by anything, just a bit of paper with the letters on would be enough.  The cursor movement could just follow your finger so the mouse is no longer necessary.

I can't help leaping (pun intended) ahead to the next obvious stage.  That will be for 3D screens to project a 3D keyboard.  You can then type on moving or static 3D images of the keys from a keyboard.  They could move as you press them.  I am sure you could even get audible and perhaps one day tactile feedback using focused or inaudible low frequency sound or something else that activates the nerve endings (a bit Sci-Fi here).

Some of this is a bit difficult at the moment.  I think projecting 3D in to mid air is still tricky at a price any of us are prepared to pay.  It would need some low cost method of lasers interacting with each other to produce visible light in mid air.  I don't know how existing 3D screens work.  I assume the most obvious would be to have a gas or particles to project against.  I am not sure if anyone has anything reacting with air.  I am sure people cleverer than I have already though of all these possible solutions.

All those ideas just from one new device.

Anyway, back to my point, this little thing opens up a world of possibilities.

I pre-ordered mine months ago.

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Update:
This was very disappointing. Its use was too limited to be of any use.
I'm pretty sure that this type of interface will have its place at some time in the future but it's not there yet.

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Keyboard Layout for Visio

For use with Microsoft Visio 2000

Use for training, samples or your own custom keyboards

Download
Keyboard Layout Visio stencils in a Zip file format [440kB]


Included
The download includes individual stencils and a whole workspace. For convenience I have included the template 'Keyboard.vst' which can be opened as a Visio library.

Public Domain 

Copyright© John C. Brown

As long as you own a copy of Microsoft Visio you may use the drawings for any purpose. 

No warranty is provided.  You use these entirely at your own risk.