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Digital artist friend told me to map my keyboard shortcuts to muscle memory positions
She said put the ones I use most on Q, E, R, F, C, V, and Space instead of weird F-keys. Took me like 2 weeks to retrain my brain. Now I can flip between brush sizes and layers without looking. Cant believe I spent years reaching for function keys like a caveman. Anyone else rearrange their shortcuts based on hand position?
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samwalker16d ago
Not gonna lie, I hear what you're saying but I actually disagree pretty hard. The whole "home row" keyboard mapping thing never clicked for me. My hands just don't sit still on the keyboard when I'm drawing, I'm always reaching for different tools and moving around. I tried moving everything to QERF and it actually slowed me down because I kept hitting the wrong keys. Took me way longer to undo that muscle memory than it did to just get good at hitting my F-keys. I think it depends a lot on what software you use too. Some programs just have their own logic for where things go and fighting it feels like swimming upstream. For me, I'd rather spend that time learning the default shortcuts than rebuilding my whole brain for a setup that might not carry over to another computer.
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christopher_sullivan17d ago
That part about "weird F-keys" really hit home. I had this whole setup where I used F5 for saving and F9 for exporting. My pinky finger got a workout every single time. Then I switched to putting save on Ctrl+S like a normal person and export on Shift+S. Felt like I was breaking the law for the first week. But now my hand barely moves from the home row. Your friend was right, it's all about keeping your fingers where they naturally rest.
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