Focus Panel with Keyboard?

[sberic]

Is it possible to set up Premiere Pro to be able to switch to a target Panel or Extension? There are two interactions we have in mind for this:

1. [Registerable?] Keyboard Command to open or focus a panel/extension.
2. OS keyboard commands to switch to floating window.

It's really annoying to keep having to use the mouse to switch to a specific extension panel.

What's more, with respect to #2 (on macOS, at least), it seems that it's possible to use the built-in window-switching keyboard shortcut [⌘`] (command tick) to switch from a floating panel to the main application, but not back to the floating panel! Once the main app has context, it appears to swallow the command entirely...

[Bruce Bullis · Accepted solution]

There's nothing of the sort, in either case.

Keyboard shortcuts are at a premium (I think there are fewer than 5 combos left), and we selfishly hoard them for Adobe functionality. Also, in the shared UI framework all our video apps use, there's no 'next panel'.

What're you trying to do; force your panel to the front?

[sberic]

Bruce Bullis wrote

There's nothing of the sort, in either case.

Wow. That's really surprising. Two workflow questions:

1. Why do you allow users to undock their windows if they can't switch between them?
2. How do you suggest users quickly switch between panels?

Perhaps understanding better User Interactions as prescribed by "The Adobe Way™" will help us better navigate feature implementation.

With respect to #1 above, I just did a quick test by undocking the Metadata window and adding it to my second screen. It has no shortcut from what I can see. In order to interact with it I had to move my mouse to the second monitor and click on it. Once I did that I could move my hands back to the keyboard, hit the [TAB] key to get to the search field and begin interacting with it as usual. It would be very, very appreciated if I could use something like [ALT+TAB] in Windows or [⌘+`] in macOS to switch between the various windows/contexts.

Bruce Bullis wrote

What're you trying to do; force your panel to the front?

Yes. Or any floating panel, for that matter. You guys present the UI as a tabbed interface. How there is no way to switch between the various tabs as there is in just about any other application available, regardless of platform, is what is so surprising. Not all applications agree on the hotkeys but one example that Safari/Chrome/VSCode (and many others) use is [⌘+SHIFT+bracket] (bracket = "[" or "]") to change tabs.

I just checked the Keyboard Shortcuts settings (really nice work there, by the way! It's probably the best interface for that I've seen, personally!). As you said, I could not find an option for switching between the different panels setup in the UI. This seems really odd, given that you can have panel-specific Keyboard Shortcuts...

At the very least, would it be possible to allow Extension Panels to hook into that system? I imagine that you could configure a list of commands in a config file somewhere that the system registers. Then panels could hook into it using the CSInterface event stuff when they start up...

[Bruce Bullis]

1. So they can arrange them however they like.

2. Clicking on the panel they'd like to target.

I'm a keyboard-first user, and I understand why you'd want a 'move between open tabs' key command.

> This seems really odd, given that you can have panel-specific Keyboard Shortcuts...

To which panel-specific keyboard shortcuts, are you referring?

[sberic]

Bruce Bullis wrote

2. Clicking on the panel they'd like to target.

Heh, I guess I need to train to get quicker with the mouse/trackpad...

Bruce Bullis wrote

This seems really odd, given that you can have panel-specific Keyboard Shortcuts...

To which panel-specific keyboard shortcuts, are you referring?

This screenshot should be able to more clearly state things than writing:

That's some of the settings for the Capture Panel. I specifically captured the portion of the screen that shows an important explanation:

Application shortcuts (purple) are active regardless of panel focus. Panel shortcuts (green) override Application shortcuts when the panel has focus.

Given that tidbit, shifting focus between panels and then using their features seems like an obvious workflow-win (especially for folks like you-and-me who prefer Keyboard-first ;D).

[Bruce Bullis]

Here's the rub: That capture panel is a bona fide part of Premiere Pro, built from C++, with all messaging remaining internal to PPro. For CEP-based panels, none of that PPro-internal messaging is available; to proliferate such messages outside the actual PPro application, Significant Architectural Work Is Required™.

We know that getting/setting the current project panel selection is important, and plan to work on that for next major release.

[sberic]

Understood. It's good to hear that improvements on this are being planned! Thanks for the explanations!

[Grant34943213rnh0]

For anyone reading this (2017 is an old thread as of the time of writing in 2024), Shift + 1-9 (PC) will cycle the focus to different panels (Prem 2024).