Common Shortcuts

The shortcuts below are the high-frequency ones worth committing to muscle memory. TouchDesigner has many more (see the official Application Shortcuts page for the full list).

macOS: TouchDesigner uses Ctrl, not Cmd, for its keyboard shortcuts on macOS. This is intentional and differs from most Mac apps. Alt translates to the Option (⌥) key.

Network Navigation

Key	Action
Tab	Open the Operator Create Dialog
i	Enter the selected COMP
u	Go up one level to the parent
Enter	Enter the selected COMP (alternative to i)
Esc	Cancel current action
h	Frame home (fit network to view)
Shift+h	Frame the selected node
f	Frame all nodes
o	Toggle network overview

Operator Manipulation

Key	Action
a	Toggle Viewer Active on selected nodes (Alt+a for momentary all-active)
p	Toggle the Parameter dialog
c	Toggle the Color palette
s	Toggle wire style (splines vs straight lines)
Middle Mouse	Show operator info/status overlay
Ctrl+A	Select all
Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V / Ctrl+X	Copy / paste / cut
Del	Delete selected

Dialogs and Panes

Key	Action
Alt+T	Open Textport (Python REPL + log)
Alt+Y	Open Performance Monitor
Alt+H	Open Help
Alt+1 … Alt+9	Switch the active pane to a different view type
Alt+\	Stow pane
Alt+Z	Close pane
F1	Toggle Designer ↔ Perform mode

Timeline

Key	Action
Space	Play / pause the global timeline
Right Arrow	Step forward one frame
Left Arrow	Step back one frame
Ctrl+Space	Toggle global cooking

There is no keyboard shortcut to reset the timeline to frame 1. Use the Reset transport button in the Timeline bar.

File Operations

Key	Action
Ctrl+N	New project
Ctrl+O	Open .toe
Ctrl+S / Ctrl+Shift+S	Save / Save As
Ctrl+I	Import file into the current network

Customization

Application shortcuts can be edited and customized in TouchDesigner’s preferences. There are also two related but distinct shortcut systems:

• Panel Shortcuts: keyboard hooks you wire into custom Panel COMPs you build yourself
• Operator Shortcuts: not keyboard shortcuts at all, but Python references like op.PROJECT and parent().Some for accessing components from anywhere. See The op and me objects

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📚 Learning Path · Stage 1 - Foundations · step 8 of 44

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