Keyboard and gestures¶

Focus-scoping rule¶

PROPOSED — shortcuts dispatch by focused surface before they dispatch by key. Bare digit and letter keys never fire while a text or numeric input has focus. Space is playback only when the Simulate viewport has focus.

flowchart TD
  K["KeyDown"] --> F{"Focused control?"}
  F -->|Text / numeric input| I["Preserve typing and editing"]
  F -->|Viewport / chrome| C{"Context"}
  C -->|Paint mode| P["Paint bindings"]
  C -->|Simulate viewport| S["Playback + viewport bindings"]
  C -->|Other stage/chrome| G["Global modified commands"]

This replaces the current flat dispatcher. HOW IT IS — ShellKeybindings.Handle currently compares exactly four keys with no focus argument (src/Nps.Shell/Controls/ShellKeybindings.cs:73–113).

Keybindings¶

Existing toolbar actions, planned keys¶

HOW IT IS — Reset, Isometric, Front, Top, Right, Zoom to Fit, Travels, Extrusions, Layer Up, and Layer Down already exist as the ten controls in ViewportToolbar (src/Nps.Shell/Controls/ViewportToolbar.cs:29–38,53–67). The F, 0, T, X, [, and ] keyboard routes are PROPOSED; they reuse the same actions rather than introducing different behavior.

The existing camera presets are Reset, Isometric, Front, Top, and Right (src/Nps.Shell/ViewportController.cs:79–89). No XYZ snap hotkeys are promised.

Viewport gestures¶

Pointer events already travel from the shared shell to each app (src/Nps.Shell/Controls/MainWindowShell.axaml.cs:35–37,269–290). Wheel zoom and paint dispatch are PROPOSED additions to that route.

Cheat sheet¶

PROPOSED — ? opens an overlay containing the same table as this page, grouped by Global, Stage, Viewport, Paint, and Playback. It closes with Esc and does not change stage or engine state.

The overlay must derive from the same binding definitions used by dispatch; it must not advertise shortcuts that do not exist. In particular, the activity bar does not gain undocumented single-letter overlay keys.

Conflict rules¶

PROPOSED — dispatch follows these priorities:

1. Active modal/dialog handles its own commands.
2. Paint mode handles paint gestures and Esc.
3. A focused text/numeric control keeps bare letters and digits.
4. The focused Simulate viewport may handle Space and playback keys.
5. Stage/viewport shortcuts run only in their declared scope.
6. Modified global commands run once and mark the event handled.
7. An unmatched key remains available to Avalonia or the focused control.

A key never both types into a field and triggers an action.

See also¶

• Prepare for open/slice actions and empty-state gating.
• Preview for layer, display, ghost, and export actions.
• Simulate for playback behavior.
• Slicer — interaction map for the four current keys and gestures.
• Simulator — interaction map for current playback and scrubber bindings.