Most Inkscape keyboard shortcuts are working normally for me, but some are not. One that doesn't is Ctrl+Shift+A, which should open the Align & Distribute dialog. I've looked in the bug list but don't find that, and I've deleted my preferences and restarted the program. Neither restored that shortcut.

I also checked my Inkscape installation in my laptop, which is still just the defaults. I can't get that dialog with the shortcut there, either. There's nothing wrong with my Ctrl or Shift keys. For instance, I can get the layers dialog with Ctrl+Shift+L.

I haven't been using Inkscape for long, and I'm not sure whether I've ever tried Ctrl Shift A before today; but today I needed it about 50 times, and had to pull it down from the Object menu every single time. I also know that I've had this problem with a few other shortcuts, but I haven't needed them so badly, so I've just used the menus.

Thanks

Mary

I'm using Inkscape on 64 bit Windows 7 in my main machine, and 32 bit XP in my laptop.

Mary Bernard wrote:Most Inkscape keyboard shortcuts are working normally for me, but some are not. One that doesn't is Ctrl+Shift+A, which should open the Align & Distribute dialog. I've looked in the bug list but don't find that, and I've deleted my preferences and restarted the program. Neither restored that shortcut.

Deleting the preferences or restarting the program has no influence on the keyboard shortcuts Inkscape knows about.

Do you still use a customized 'default.xml' as you mentioned in your earlier topic "customizing UK keyboard in Inkscape"?

The unedited 'keys/default.xml' that ships with Inkscape 0.47 has these definitions for the 'Align and Distribute' dialog:

Did you accidentally change or delete these lines or reuse the mapping for a different command (verb)? Or is your custom keymap file based on 'keys/corel-draw-x4.xml' (which has no shortcut defined for 'Align and Distribute') or on 'keys/xara.xml' (which defines 'Ctrl+Shift+L' for 'Align and Distribute')?

>>Do you still use a customized 'default.xml'<<

Yes. I have now tried replacing it with the default 'default.xml', but it made no difference.

>>Did you accidentally change or delete these lines or reuse the mapping for a different command (verb)? Or is your custom keymap file based on 'keys/corel-draw-x4.xml' (which has no shortcut defined for 'Align and Distribute') or on 'keys/xara.xml' (which defines 'Ctrl+Shift+L' for 'Align and Distribute')?<<

No to both -- if I had changed or deleted the lines, or if I were using the coreldraw keymap file, I would have got back my Ctrl+Shift+M shortcut when I restored the default 'default.xml'.

So it's still a mystery.

Mary

Try this, (if you have not already). open the file Inkscape.xml from the share\keys folder, save it as default.xml without making any changes, and when the system asks you if you want to replace the existing default.xml with the new one, say yes.

druban wrote:open the file Inkscape.xml from the share\keys folder, save it as default.xml without making any changes, and when the system asks you if you want to replace the existing default.xml with the new one, say yes.

default.xml is just a copy of Inkscape.xml (same content). Restoring the default keymapping file didn't help:

Mary Bernard wrote:Yes. I have now tried replacing it with the default 'default.xml', but it made no difference.

Could it be that some other application (or even the system) grabs this specific shortcut (Shift+Ctrl+A) globally?

[Edit]
… like the Windows Media Center keyboard shortcuts > Use shortcuts to play DVDs: 'CTRL+SHIFT+A' ("Change the DVD audio selection")? No idea if these shortcuts are global when playing a DVD (not using Windows myself) - just to give you an idea...

… or maybe a similar problem as asked in "How to disable IE8 Ctrl+Shift+A global shortcut launche "Enter Abbreviation"?" (no real answer there though).

… or the General keyboard shortcut 'Ctrl+Shift' ("Switch the keyboard layout when multiple keyboard layouts are enabled") takes over before you press 'A'? Unlikely though because other shortcuts work as expected - like e.g. 'Shift+Ctrl+L' to open the Layers dialog.
[/Edit]