16 Shortcuts

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.

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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 CHEATSHEET.md at the repository root. 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.

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➡️ Next: Chapter 17 — Undo, Redo & History