Is it possible to add an interface/facility to list the characters used and unused so that when needs change, we can shift shortcuts to other, more meaningful assignments?

Also, I am finding that 26 letters and a few (10 or 20) symbols are not meeting my needs for shortcuts. I want to reclaim screen real estate, and since the viewports are obscured by tool palettes, I am considering turning some of them off. BUT, with only single-letter shortcuts, I am starting to agitate. Has Autodesk got some patent on multi-letter shortcuts? Does the rest of the industry have an aversion or hatred or NIH (Not Invented Here) affliction of/toward multi-letter shortcuts?

Once memorized, shortcuts are eminently and imminently great. Once shifted out for lack of available combinations, old and new get mixed up. Can't we get an OVERLAY tool for this? I am sure this would be worth $10 or $20 added to the product cost. Am i alone in this feeling/need/hope/expectation?

I hope they do give attention. VC is a pretty great program. Even tho I sometimes crash it by grabbing or doing things to the paired surface/solid, i don't mind too much (as with windows, you SAVE and SAVE OFTEN), because the program gives me lofting & surface & solids features that TurboCAD refuses/d to give. I've actually uninstalled TC14D from my machine. I had mixed feelings, but i needed the space, and i hardly use/d it in the past 4 months due to ViaCAD. Now, if only ViaCAD spiffs up the tool palettes to improve screen real estate. (Actually, a 'secret' wish is to have a ViaCAD RPM or .tar ...)

Thanks, but, i did those. For mnemonic (sp?) reasons, it is difficult and stressful having to give up 3-letter shortcut assignments. When some commands share letters, and "reasonable" sequences cannot be given to them, it still is no less than frustrating or confusing. With 3-letter shortcuts, one can make more "memorable" or "memorizable" shortcut-mental associations, pretty much making the use of shift-keys and cheat sheets obsolete.

I'm not trying to "ding" Punch!, but just being one more "voice" (metric) begging for a more flexible/friendly interface. At the least, WE should be allowed to decide (up to 3 or 4 letters) what assignments are useful. 96 sounds like a big number, but short of putting commands in a spreadsheet and creating "standby" case-by-case substitutions, its just time-consuming to double-check what is going on.

Just my 2 cents. But, Punch! has company: IMSI also wrote me (months ago) and affirmed (then) that they were NOT going to change their single-letter shortcut assignments, either. And they have MANY more commands than ViaCAD, and maybe 200+ icons to deal with. But, then, they don't have ViaCAD's niftier 3D facilities, despite the much slicker/"industry-like" GUI. But, for me, just as i trained my eyes to ignore browser adverts, i mostly ignore palettes until i need something on them--mostly, that is.... (And, still, for space reasons, mostly, I uninstalled TurboCAD 14. Partly is it stopped opening some of my VC-generated DXF files, and i figure a reinstall may be in order, but it takes so longgg to install TC that i don't have TIME for that exercise. I haven't even bothered to upgrade 14 to 15, either... and don't envision doing so since they won't add a BOM, CGs, nor the sweet 3D tools that VC has..., unless I jump to the $500+ price point...)

Is this talk of multi-letter shortcuts over? I hope not. As a long time CAD user and CAD teacher from before the days of even AutoCAD it is something that has always amazed me as not being offered by every CAD system.

Generic CAD used it very successfully in the old DOS days and VisualCADD continued the good work.

I am new to ViaCAD and am very impressed by it - and it would seem eminently suited to the multi-letter shortcut (MLS) approach. By it's very nature any 3D CAD system will have many more "commands" at it's disposal than a simpler 2D system. So the ability of the user to remember all the single letter shortcuts will be even more difficult. Whereas a 2 or 3 letter acronym is much easier to recall.

As an aside, as an early sufferer of RSI in my right wrist I found it actually very easy to train my left hand to do the mouse work. This I quickly discovered had the added bonus, as a right handed "typist", of being able to operate the mouse movement side of a CAD system and type in the numerical input at the same time. And of course the use of MLS with my right hand while moving the mouse with the left makes life even simpler.

So can I add my vote to the call to get the otherwise suberb ViaCAD to offer MLS?