It's The Claw

April 10, 2013 8:57 AM

Documenting the absurd finger acrobatics required to Save For Web in Adobe software (SLTumblr)
posted by metaphorever (64 comments total)

I thought I was the only one who only uses the modifier keys on the left side of the keyboard.
posted by idiopath at 9:06 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

That's pretty funny. I just use my mouse. I love keyboard shortcuts and all, and certainly I'll use Command+S/Ctrl+S to save my project as I'm working but I view Save For Web as something more deliberate, akin to rendering my project. I actually like that it takes a little longer to (because of mouse clicks) get there, it forces me to slow down and give the file one more long eyeball before committing it.
posted by Doleful Creature at 9:07 AM on April 10, 2013 [2 favorites]

How is there not an emacsclaws.tumblr.com?
posted by brennen at 9:09 AM on April 10, 2013 [2 favorites]

How is there not an emacsclaws.tumblr.com?

Because remapping.

I thought I was the only one who only uses the modifier keys on the left side of the keyboard.

There are people that use the modifiers keys on the right side?
posted by DU at 9:10 AM on April 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

Because remapping.

Hahahahahahaha. Ahahhahaha. Hahaha.

Hoo, boy.
posted by brennen at 9:11 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

I thought I was the only one who only uses the modifier keys on the left side of the keyboard.

Huh? I played so much Quake growing up my left hand naturally defaults to WASD to this day. Seriously, my default resting position as I edit or use Photoshop or ANYTHING is WASD. Seems completely bizarre to use the right side modifier keys.
posted by nathancaswell at 9:12 AM on April 10, 2013 [4 favorites]

Huh. I'm probably the only one who likes that key combination. Impossible to forget: Ctrl-Shift-S is Save as; Ctrl-Alt-Shift-S is Save for Web. However, I suppose most other apps put it all in Ctrl-Shift-S, so yeah. Adobe.

This Tumblr is about as trivial as it gets.

Seems completely bizarre to use the right side modifier keys.

Until you start mousing with your left hand.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:13 AM on April 10, 2013

I often think I should use modifier keys on the righthand side, but somehow I just can't make it happen. I feel like whoever keeps putting them on new keyboard designs must have similar feelings about civilization as a whole.

Cue guy who only ever hits right-Ctrl entering thread in 3, 2...
posted by brennen at 9:14 AM on April 10, 2013

Anyone who has ever used blender or maya would have a thing to say about this.

Seriously, this is considered to be a "big problem" from Adobe?
posted by MysticMCJ at 9:17 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

I live and die by keyboard shortcuts, but any shortcut requiring more than three (closely spaced) fingers is immediately relegated to mousing over the menu bar. This is, by far, the tiniest of any of the myriad problems one might have with Adobe software.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:19 AM on April 10, 2013 [6 favorites]

Because remapping.

Hahahahahahaha. Ahahhahaha. Hahaha.

Huh? I've remapped or reassigned a number of key combos in Emacs that I found infelicitious. (Collisions with GNU screen are one reason, collisions inside of SLIME are another one.)
posted by DU at 9:27 AM on April 10, 2013

Photoshop is like playing a piano suite for left hand and a right finger. Deal with it.

Anyone who has ever used blender or maya would have a thing to say about this.

Wut? Maya Marking Menus are a work of genius. I wish they'd license it to everyone.
posted by charlie don't surf at 9:27 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Pinky on shift, middle finger on S, thumb rested between option & command to press both buttons at once. Obviously.
posted by designbot at 9:28 AM on April 10, 2013

Also annoying: paste without formatting. shift-option-command-v (This is more of an Apple gripe, tho.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:29 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

What the hell kind of stupid keyboards are these people using? I just tried it on my Microsoft Natural 4000 and while it's not something I'd want to hit over and over it was just fine. Thumb on Alt, pinky on Shift, ring finger on Ctrl, index finger on S.
posted by kmz at 9:29 AM on April 10, 2013 [2 favorites]

Protip: It makes it more complicated to do a several-key shortcut when you're juggling your smartphone in the other hand taking a picture of it.
posted by aught at 9:32 AM on April 10, 2013

Heh. This shortcut is so burned into my mind that I have to remap my alt and CTRL keys on windows machines to match up with a mac.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 9:35 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Until you start mousing with your left hand.

Mouse? What am I, a caveman? Wacom, my friend.
posted by nathancaswell at 9:36 AM on April 10, 2013

*checks*

Thumb on apple/alt, pinky on shift, index on S. I've done it so many times now I don't even think about it, my left hand just assumes the Save For Web position.

It's kinda one of my favorite dialogue boxes. Or it was until the latest release of Illustrator stopped responding promptly to typing a new number in the image size boxes. The only way I've found to get it to reliably respond to this is to toggle the proportion lock button next to them, it's really a pain in the ass.
posted by egypturnash at 9:38 AM on April 10, 2013

How is there not an emacsclaws.tumblr.com?

Because our hands are so twisted and crippled from years of inhumane keyboard bindings that it is physically impossible to type a tumblr. (Related: rms uses voice dictation software, or at least used to.)

Can I just say that Macs have far too many modifier keys? Windows users get by with just Alt, or maybe occasionally Control. Mac programs are fond of also using Shift and Option all over the damn place. My favorite example is how Sublime Text has Ctrl-Shift-Q as "run macro", a relatively useful and common command particularly suited for keyboarding. But better not get that wrong, because Cmd-Shift-Q is "force quit right now".
posted by Nelson at 9:43 AM on April 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

I use keyboard commands constantly, but that doesn't apply to Save For Web. I've never thought too hard about why, but Doleful Creature's explanation sounds about right.
posted by brundlefly at 9:44 AM on April 10, 2013

Pinky on shift? What's wrong with your hands people? Is this an Apple keyboard problem?

Pinky on ctrl, ring on shift, middle on s, and thumb on alt. Index finger supervises. Or shift over and give the pinky a rest, the keys are all in a line.
posted by borkencode at 9:45 AM on April 10, 2013

Yeah, the 'Save for Web' key combo is as deeply ingrained in my neural pathways as Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, and Ctrl+V.

Now if I could only make my brain unlearn the Ctrl/Cmd+D shortcut that used to exist for Illustrator's 'Place' command. It hasn't worked in years but I still try to use it every. single. time.
posted by usonian at 9:46 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

There are no fewer than EIGHT four-key "shortcuts" in Photoshop (as of CS6, anyway). Even as a keyboard shortcut lover, I just use the mouse in these instances.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 9:48 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

I admit I don't use the keyboard shortcuts in Adobe products as much as I should, but when I first read this, I figured it was going to be one of those "Eat 6 saltines at once" type things that SOUNDS really easy, but turns out to be physically improbable/inconvenient/undoable.

Then I tried without really looking.

I mean, I know "first world problems" is sort of a problematic term and all, but...
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 9:57 AM on April 10, 2013

@borkencode: Index on S, and I'm in complete agreement. Middle provides spacing (hovering over 'A'). This is by no means an unusable key combo.

SHIFT-META-CTRL-BUCKY-X forever!

[ESC]:wq
posted by jferg at 10:00 AM on April 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

You kids. Behold, the Keyboard Of The Old Ones.
posted by Devonian at 10:01 AM on April 10, 2013 [9 favorites]

This has to be the dumbest tumblr ever. Anyone who uses Photoshop should have this down with no problem. I hit it as quickly and thoughtlessly as ctrl+v.

I'm going to start my new tumblr, wherein I ask readers to send in pics of their toilet paper rolls. Over or under? Yes, we definitely need dozens of pictures of the same thing over and over. Why do you ask?
posted by dozo at 10:03 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Huh, never thought this was a problem. Looks like it's harder on a Mac keyboard, though. But I also do Ctrl-Alt-Del one-handed half the time.
posted by echo target at 10:04 AM on April 10, 2013

This is not a problem for us Dvorak users...
posted by jeffamaphone at 10:06 AM on April 10, 2013

> Because remapping.

If remapping is mandatory for a useful UI, then the UI is bad.

For my part, this is how I save to web:
1. Marquee-select the item in the designer's comp.
2. F11
3. Pick file format, type name, hit return.

On my computer, F11 is short for: Copy all layers in the selection, paste into a new file, merge all layers in the new file, open "Save For Web", and close the untitled file window without saving after "Save For Web" is dismissed.

I don't like Fkeys much at all, but cmd-ctrl-shift-S is worse. The only thing worse than that is ctrl-alt-shift-S on PCs, especially since I inevitably hit the Windows key instead, which pops the Start menu over Photoshop and leaves the entire computer in a modal state with nothing foregrounded that I can't recover from without mousing and clicking on some damn thing.
posted by ardgedee at 10:08 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

I don't do anything which requires "Save to Web", but do work in InDesign.

Claw command:

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E : Size to Frame (usually followed by Ctrl+Alt+E: Center in Frame)
posted by Debaser626 at 10:09 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Does nobody know that you can re-assign keyboard shortcuts in most Adobe products? There's a metric shitload of keyboard shortcuts, almost no one uses more than small fraction of them. Just pick one you don't use (that wont give you carpal tunnel) and swap it for the one you hate.
posted by doctor_negative at 10:15 AM on April 10, 2013

Now if I could only make my brain unlearn the Ctrl/Cmd+D shortcut that used to exist for Illustrator's 'Place' command. It hasn't worked in years but I still try to use it every. single. time.

I must have missed the version of Illustrator that had a shortcut for the Place command. It's really unforgivable that we've had to mouse and menu our way through this frequently used option for decades.
posted by porn in the woods at 10:16 AM on April 10, 2013

If remapping is mandatory for a useful UI, then the UI is bad.

Fortunately it's not mandatory to make the UI useful. It's mandatory to make the UI customizable. To prevent it from colliding with other software, for instance. Or to make it optimal for your handicap (e.g. left-handedness) or keyboard (a lot of people in this thread are forgetting the wide variety of key placement, sizes and ease-of-press).

Or, to put it another way, if you can't alter your tool, it is the user and YOU are the tool.
posted by DU at 10:18 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Hm. Like most of the characters in Jurrasic Park (3D! woot!), I guess Adobe thought the Internet was just a fad. (Does 'save for cd-rom' use less keys? )
posted by sexyrobot at 10:21 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Do it in three with ring finger on shift, index on ‘s,’ and thumb on *both* option and command—a variation on designbot’s, without the weird pinky/middle business.
posted by migurski at 10:22 AM on April 10, 2013

DU, while I don't totally disagree with you, I'd say that the prevailing UX/UI practice is to make experiences as egalitarian as possible. While you or I may avail key remapping utilities, that is likely limited to an elite range of users.

Also, I don't think this tumblr was supposed to show how difficult doing the ctrl alt shift s "claw" is, just that everyone has a different way of doing it, that they taught themselves. Sortof like how there is a "me-fight" and "mef-ite" divide of metafilter demonym pronouncers.
posted by fontophilic at 10:33 AM on April 10, 2013

Ring-middle-index on left-side shift-option command, then hit the S key with my right index finger. And it'd be nice if the enter key worked on that dialog box, not just the return key, which is a daily annoyance. Enter works in other programs to do the same thing.

And a thousand times YES that Illustrator's Place should be the same command-D as in Indesign.
posted by bink at 10:33 AM on April 10, 2013

ardgedee: “If remapping is mandatory for a useful UI, then the UI is bad.”

I do sympathize with the aversion some people have to Emacs; I may adore it, but changing the key bindings, to take the pertinent example, is slightly more daunting than most people would prefer. Here's the reference page on how to change key bindings. It's not that complicated, I swear! It's just that Emacs is a world you kind of have to get used to.

However:

If remapping is impossible even though it would make the UI more useful for certain people, then the UI is bad.

Human beings are not monotypic instances of the same creature; we are different. There is hardly any such thing as "intuitive" where UI is concerned except in reference to whatever software people have experienced before. More to the point, we all have very different hands, and where I tend to prefer claw-like key combinations (less stretching) other people don't.
posted by koeselitz at 10:38 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Devonian: "You kids. Behold, the Keyboard Of The Old Ones."

Holy crap, the keyboard from 1980 has built-in Facebook buttons?
(see [STATUS][LIKE][DISLIKE] at top right...)
posted by caution live frogs at 10:38 AM on April 10, 2013

DU, while I don't totally disagree with you, I'd say that the prevailing UX/UI practice is to make experiences as egalitarian as possible. While you or I may avail key remapping utilities, that is likely limited to an elite range of users.


Actually, though, Photoshop and its ilk are intended for the elite user. This is not consumer software, it demands a fair amount of dedication to gain even basic proficiency. So by making the shortcuts and things customizable, Adobe will keep its most important users... less unhappy.
posted by Mister_A at 10:43 AM on April 10, 2013

Yeah, I don't get this, really. I've been customizing my keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop for quite some time, now. It started with needing to get quickly to menu items that didn't have shortcuts, like the selective color adjustment & the select by color range dialog many, many years ago. I've also got the smart sharpen filter & the new spot channel (I love that it copies the selection into the channel right away, as so many people send RGB files with each color in its own layer, & call them separations. I bill people good money to command-click a layer, then type F7) set as F keys.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:43 AM on April 10, 2013

I guess Adobe thought the Internet was just a fad.

And now that they have discovered the Internet, Adobe has gone way overboard. I do not need Photoshop in the cloud.
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:47 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh Mister_A, how I wish I could disagree with you.

I'll save you the long form rant I have with Adobe selling out the industry/professional Photoshop and Creative Suite users for the "Hey I have a fancy camera, therefore I should buy Photoshop!" set. But basically Adobe no longer gives a shit about the professional, as they enjoy a 90%+ adoption rates with pros. Moving to "cloud" pay-per-month fee structures just cements this, making $30/mo easier to swallow for a dude with a DSLR.

Also, there are plenty of creative professionals who are barely computer literate. They're called art directors.
posted by fontophilic at 11:10 AM on April 10, 2013

Right, they need Photoshop in the cloud. 'Cause money.
posted by invitapriore at 11:11 AM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Save to web is usually my triumphant final act on something, so like Doleful Creature, I don't mind that it's different than other keyboard shortcuts.

I do it two handed. Thumbs on alt and command, middle fingers on Shift and S, with a kind of "Taaaa-DAH" rhythmic flourish.
posted by looli at 11:13 AM on April 10, 2013

And two handed means I can't take a picture of it.
posted by looli at 11:13 AM on April 10, 2013

What's the problem here? You people need to learn to play an instrument or something.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:32 AM on April 10, 2013

I played so much Quake growing up my left hand naturally defaults to WASD to this day.

Learning to type before first-person shooters were invented is why I always play them with EADF. (Why not ESDF? It has to do with trying to play Doom with the same keybindings I'd worked out for playing Descent without a flight stick...)
posted by straight at 11:52 AM on April 10, 2013

What, no love for Apple+Option+S?
posted by readyfreddy at 12:04 PM on April 10, 2013

The part that baffles me is all these shockingly clean, fresh out of the box, super fancy keyboards. They don't have dents and dings and that one wobbly bit where there's a pen underneath BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS NEED A PEN and the letters aren't rubbed away and there aren't Wolverine claw-marks where your nails always hit.

.... or it could be that I'm the weird one for using my peripherals right into their little plastic graves instead of constantly getting new stuff.
posted by cmyk at 12:08 PM on April 10, 2013

Post OS 9 Mac users are so quaint!
posted by Brocktoon at 12:26 PM on April 10, 2013

Left hand: Index finger on Command, middle finger on Option, ring finger on Shift
Right hand: Index finger on S, with a flourish
posted by limeonaire at 12:26 PM on April 10, 2013

> Actually, though, Photoshop and its ilk are intended for the elite user. This is not consumer software,

Never been to DeviantArt, I see.
posted by jfuller at 12:39 PM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

usonian > Now if I could only make my brain unlearn the Ctrl/Cmd+D shortcut that used to exist for Illustrator's 'Place' command. It hasn't worked in years but I still try to use it every. single. time.

My brain always wants it to be cmd-e for some reason. For several versions it refused to activate via hotkey, and only via the menu. For laughs, I just tried assigning a hotkey to it, and it worked. Hooray!

* * * * *

I have a fair number of custom shortcuts in Illustrator - and a lot of mine are cmd-alt-shift-something. c-a-s-a/f/s for "select same appearance/fill/stroke", c-a-s-b for "blend options"… I just kinda mash on all the modifiers and hit the key with the same hand. I kinda feel like tweaking your shortcuts to make things you use a lot easy to access without visiting the menus is an important part of mastering an art program. Any program, really. You may have something programmed into your head from years ago - animation tools inevitably seem to get a keymap that's a bastard mix of AI and Deluxe Paint 3 when I use them, for instance. Or you may just have a workflow that emphasizes something the designers thought only needed to be a button.

One of these days I need to go into every program I write HTML in and unify the keystroke for "linkify this text". ⌘-k in Mail, TextEdit, and Evernote, ⌘-alt-a in MarsEdit, ⌘-shift-l in XJournal,… hmm okay a standard seems to be emerging here. Off to the "Keyboard Shortcuts" pane of System Preferences!
posted by egypturnash at 12:58 PM on April 10, 2013

@egypturnash: My brain always wants it to be cmd-e for some reason. For several versions it refused to activate via hotkey, and only via the menu. For laughs, I just tried assigning a hotkey to it, and it worked. Hooray!

You weren't ever a QuarkXPress user, were you? I'm almost sure Place was Cmd/Ctrl-E in Quark. Or was it in PageMaker? Urf. I've recycled too many of those brain cells at this point.
posted by jferg at 1:07 PM on April 10, 2013

I don't actually find this one too bad. I do the lefty claw thing, on a mac. The real killer useful-but-tortuous shortcut for me is paste without formatting, which is vital on a mac and involves wedging your thumb into two keys while hitting a v. I think it's shift-apple-v or something (on phone atm)
posted by iotic at 1:08 PM on April 10, 2013

I'm almost sure Place was Cmd/Ctrl-E in Quark.

It was, & I still hit it instead of command+d in InDesign All. The. Time.
posted by Devils Rancher at 2:52 PM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

paste without formatting,

It's the Rosemary Woods Stretch of shortcuts, for sure. The easiest move is pinky on shift, ring finger on option, thumb on command, index finger on v. But I have long-ish fingers, and it's still not easy. You have to kind of roll your thumb back onto the nail a bit.
posted by Devils Rancher at 2:58 PM on April 10, 2013

Although I've never really had a problem with this keyboard shortcut, dealing with Adobe is bizarrely annoying. It's like they're trying to troll their customers. For example, command-option clicking (I think, it's instinctive now) to zoom, command-option drag a box to zoom in on what the box is around. Until now, when most of their applications behave like that, but Photoshop zooms in and out of the picture vertiginously. I'm still not used to that, and switching between CS4 and CS6 isn't helping.

I was discussing this with one of my employers ... well, having a moan ... and she pointed out that apart from anything else, CS6 had started to look very male, which I must confess hadn't crossed my mind, but it is true. All black and serious.

They seem to have got rid of the keyboard command in Photoshop that shows one image pixel to one screen pixel (which I use all the time when retouching), although you can edit video if you want.

Adobe are the Big Software Company that no one really pays that much attention to, but I'd be fascinated to know what goes on in there, because they quite literally seem to have no idea what they're doing. They seem to be at least four quite separate bureaucracies working in parallel, who don't want to talk to each other and speak completely different languages even if they did.
posted by Grangousier at 3:38 PM on April 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

I think Adobe is in the position of owning its market, so it can spend all its time on internal squabbles and doing incomprehensible stuff. The money comes in, regardless. Not having any competition is like putting a tiger in a cage - it goes bonkers.
posted by Devonian at 4:51 PM on April 10, 2013

DU, I'm a big fan of customizable UI, and I remap keys all over the place. I just enjoy poking fun at the way the entire commonly-used control surface of Emacs has evolved into a diabolically efficient ruiner of human hands and wrists. I mean, it's an astonishingly powerful piece of code, but it's also the only piece of software I've ever literally had to quit using on doctor's orders. (For people who are somehow unaffected by this, particularly after decades of use, I salute your superior physique and/or profound mental discipline. All I ask is that you don't try convincing me that any of the Emacs vi-like input modes are satisfactory replacements for Vim, and I think we can probably live in peace and relative harmony.)

Anyway, the standard editor flamewar thing is a total derail and I apologize. I should really just be here for the Adobe slagging.
posted by brennen at 5:16 PM on April 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

(brennen – I don't think it's "superior physique and/or profound mental discipline." I have a similar experience to you when I try to use Vim – seriously, it's wacky and makes my hands hurt, and I don't know if it's because I'm a piano player or what but Emacs just works much better for my hands. But I know that every hand is different, so I celebrate the diversity in editors and the ability to remap keys in all of them, etc etc etc.)
posted by koeselitz at 5:53 PM on April 10, 2013