Can't focus keyboard shortcuts on play control

[Pepijn]

Hi,

I just recently bought 4.1 from using 3.X for a long time as a happy user. Sine 4.1, I experience the problem that it is not possible to program left/right keyboard as hotkey for playcontrol skipping forward/backward actions any more. Every time I press left/right, the track window "steals" the key event for doing scrolling to left or right. This was not the case with 3.X I had before.

Reproduced with Glided and Vitreous skin. Clicking the play control pane doesn't gain shortcut focus either.

The left/right keys are commonly used by other Media players (f.e. Itunes and winamp) and I always used it a lot.
Please fix!

Thanks,
Pepijn

[nohitter151]

That's because those keys are already bound to other functions in the program like navigating the grid. You can use Shift+Arrows or Ctrl+Arrows or some other key.

[Guest]

Yeah, I've noticed that.... I find it a pity that those important keys are reserved for such a (useless) feature. I mean, look at the world, almost all media players have those keys bound to the play control. I don't say copy all features from existing media players, but they are doing that because its intuitive. And consider that play/pause/next/prev/+5 sec/-5 sec are the most common actions you do with a music player.
Besides, It was always controllable and why now, when I just bought this software, it is made different. I don't say make it default, but at least let people choose to configure the hotkeys a bit more the way they make sense.

[Pepijn]

BTW, I think there is really something wrong with the View focus in MM 4.1, also pressing F6 with the main track list focussed (clicked something there first) doesn't jump to the playing song anymore. So you're never able to delete a song that is currently playing if you removed it from the now playing list!

[Pepijn]

BTW, I think there is really something wrong with the View focus in MM 4.1, also pressing F6 with the main track list focussed (clicked something there first) doesn't jump to the playing song anymore. So you're never able to delete a song that is currently playing if you removed it from the now playing list!

OK forget about this one. I had the wrong list in the main screen.

[knetter]

I have the same issue... When I have lots of unexplored music in MM I use to skip through it a lot using left/right arrow keys.

That's because those keys are already bound to other functions in the program like navigating the grid. You can use Shift+Arrows or Ctrl+Arrows or some other key.

Using ctrl+arrow keys doesn't work either. I used to map ctrl+arrow keys on next/prev track...

[Hans De Backer]

With MM 2.x and 3.x, just like many fellow musicians, I could use the left and right arrow keys to navigate back and forward through the song I was rehearsing/learning. Along with the space bar to start and stop a song, these were in fact the only keys I used. VERY handy, yes, could that be the reason why these keys are supported in other players?

I can't help but smile when I read the developer's excuses about these keys having to be reserved for the control that has the focus: what a lazy bum excuse. Common guys, you could make it optional in previous releases, have you lost your creative thinking powers? Growing old and feeling that by now you know things better than your users?

[Kellraj]

I agree that this is a big mistake to not enable the ability to assign keyboard shortcuts with the arrow keys. Industry standard as was mentioned.

[rusty]

Thanks for the input. Tracking at http://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=7886

-Rusty

[jiri]

I'd like to know what actually do you expect to happen in case arrows are assigned to Prev/Next commands:
1. If focus is on Track List - currently these arrows navigate horizontally. Would you sacrifice this and rather do such kind of navigation by mouse?
2. If focus is on an edit line (e.g. Search bar) - again, wouldn't you mind navigating the cursor only by mouse (or e.g. Backspace, etc.)?

Jiri

[Biggles]

For the track list, left/right should be able to be able to be bound to prev/next. I'd much rather use a mouse on the scroll bars if I've chosed to use left/right for prev/next tracks.
On an edit line however, left/right should move the cursor and not change track at that point.

Worked that way in MM3 and was the most intuitive.

This alone is making me think of downgrading.

[Rauven]

I can understand the argument that left/right by themselves should not change track. But at least make it so Ctrl+left/right changes it with focus. It works without focus, and it's really annoying that in focus I can't change track on the same modifier I use for ratings

[Lowlander]

You can setup Hotkeys (and make them global) under Tools > Options > Hotkeys. Ctrl+Arrow keys is available for this.