Keyboard Shortcuts and Settings

⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts & Settings

This page lists all keyboard shortcuts, customization preferences, themes, and automatic update features built into Metadata Editor.

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⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Context	Action
Ctrl + N	Global	Create a new NFO template (uses your default format from Settings)
Ctrl + O	Global	Open an .nfo, .xml, or .txt file
Ctrl + S	Global	Save the current file
Ctrl + Shift + S	Global	Save As a new .nfo or .xml file
F5	Global	Reload the current file from disk
Alt + F4	Global	Exit Metadata Editor (prompts if unsaved changes exist)
Enter	Raw Editor Find Box	Find Next match in the Raw Text / XML Editor

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⚙️ Preferences & Settings

Open the Settings dialog via Settings → ⚙️ Preferences & Settings... in the top menu bar.

1. 🎨 Appearance & Theme

Choose between three built-in color themes that apply instantaneously across the entire UI:

• 🌙 Dark Slate (Default): Modern dark slate blue palette designed for comfortable extended editing.
• 🌌 Midnight Blue: Deep high-contrast midnight palette optimized for OLED and dark-room home theater setups.
• ☀️ Light Clean: Crisp white and light-gray interface for brightly lit workspaces.

(You can also switch themes directly from Settings → 🎨 Theme in the top menu bar.)

2. 🔄 Automatic Updates

• Check for updates automatically on startup: When enabled, Metadata Editor silently queries the official GitHub Releases API (KevinK56/MetadataEditor) 2.5 seconds after launch.
• Update Notification Banner: When a new version is published, a non-intrusive banner appears at the top of the workspace showing the release title, a Release Notes button, and a ⬇️ Download & Install button.
• One-Click Upgrade: Clicking Download & Install downloads the latest Inno Setup installer with a live progress bar, closes the running app, upgrades in place, and relaunches automatically.
• Status Bar Version Badge: You can also trigger a manual update check anytime by clicking the 🔄 v<Version> button in the bottom-right corner of the status bar.

3. ⚙️ General Defaults

• Default Format for New Files: Choose which format (Movie, TvShow, Episode, MusicAlbum, MusicArtist, PlainText) is initialized on startup and when pressing Ctrl + N.
• Default Character Encoding: Set your preferred default encoding (UTF-8, UTF-8 (with BOM), DOS CP437 (ASCII), Windows-1252 (ANSI)).
• Create a .bak backup before overwriting existing files: When checked, saving movie.nfo automatically creates movie.nfo.bak in the same folder before writing changes, giving you an instant rollback safety net.
• Automatically scan for and display posters / cover artwork: When checked, loading any file automatically scans its directory for all artwork (poster, fanart, clearlogo, landscape, banner, discart, etc.) and populates the 🖼️ Artwork & Details tab.

4. 📍 Where Settings Are Stored

User preferences are saved as a lightweight JSON file in your local Windows profile:

%AppData%\MetadataEditor\settings.json

(Typically C:\Users\<YourUsername>\AppData\Roaming\MetadataEditor\settings.json)