Blender Tip: Keyframe Selection Hotkeys

Yesterday while browsing the comments section the Caminades blog, I noticed a feature request relating to a feature to select all the keyframes within a channel in the DopeSheet Editor. At the time, I thought: surely this already exists! I'm sure I've implemented something like this, which was ported over from an earlier feature in the old 2.4x days... Apparently I did implement said feature, but apparently only in the Graph Editor! Grief!

While checking out the code for the mappings used, I realised that it would be handy to let animators out there know what the mappings were. I've probably posted about these in the past, and if I have, it's probably been a while since I did so and people may not have seen it (or have forgotten by now). So, a little reminder probably won't hurt.

So, without further ado, here's the logic behind the current mappings.




Here's what each modifier key is used to represent:

• Shift = "Extend Selection" 

In other words, instead of selecting ONLY the keyframe under the mouse, the previous selection is preserved, and the selection status of the keyframe under the mouse is toggled (which usually results in that keyframe being added to the set of selected keyframes)

• Alt = "Column"

In other words, all keyframes on the same frame as the selected keyframe will also be selected. This is useful when blocking animation (without a summary channel visible) to quickly shift a pose.

• Ctrl = "Select Left/Right"

In other words, all keyframes on the same side of the current frame indicator as the cursor location are also selected. This is useful when trying to do "shift or manipulate all keyframes from this point on", for example when retiming blocked poses or when inserting extra poses before some existing ones.

• Ctrl+Alt = "Curve/Channel"

In other words, all keyframes in the same F-Curve (Graph Editor) or channel (DopeSheet Editor *) are selected.



Notes:
(*) This is the feature which I found was not in fact implemented for the DopeSheet. It seems to only have worked in the Graph Editor for the last few releases... See r. 60895

Alt and Control modifiers can be combined with Shift to do "Add Column to Selection" or "Add Curve/Channel to Selection" operations (instead of just "Select Keyframe Column" or "Select Curve/Channel" only).