Change What a Key Does in MinimalPad Studio for Mac

Click a key on the pad drawing and the inspector asks “What should this key do?” Pick a kind of action, then pick the action itself. The key changes the moment you choose something.

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The kinds of action

On a profile whose app has a shortcut library, an extra tile appears with that app’s icon — see App shortcuts below.

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Record a shortcut

Choose Shortcut, click the recorder, then press the combination on your keyboard. Studio writes exactly what you pressed. If you’d rather not press it — say the shortcut would trigger something — build it instead: pick the modifiers, then pick the key.

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Open an app

Choose Open app and pick any app on your Mac — what’s open right now is listed first, then everything installed. Press the key and the app opens, or comes to the front if it’s already running. It works on Default and on every profile, over USB or Bluetooth. The pad itself only reports the key press; Studio does the opening. So an Open app key works while Studio is running (it lives in the menu bar, so that’s normally always), and it needs MinimalPad firmware 0.5.0 or newer. On older firmware the tile doesn’t appear — Studio can install the newer firmware for you.

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App shortcuts

For 31 apps, Studio knows the app’s default Mac shortcuts by name: Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom Classic, Premiere Pro, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, Blender, Sketch, Fusion, Claude, ChatGPT, Xcode, VS Code, Cursor, Terminal, Slack, Notion, Obsidian, Linear, Zoom, Discord, Spotify, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, Safari, Chrome, Arc, and Finder. On a profile for one of them, the last tile in the inspector carries the app’s icon and opens its actions — Figma’s tile opens Figma actions, grouped and searchable, with up to 30 of the app’s most useful commands. Pick Group and Studio writes the ordinary chord ⌘G. The pad sends a normal keyboard shortcut, so nothing needs Accessibility permission and nothing runs in the background.

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The dial

The dial’s button is a key like any other: click it on the pad drawing and assign it. What the dial does when you turn it is set for each layer. Select a layer or profile, then open Dial above the pad, next to the layer’s name:

• Hold while scrolling. With a scroll chosen, pick ⌃, ⌥, ⇧ or ⌘ to hold them while the dial scrolls. Many 3D, video and design apps pan, zoom or orbit when you scroll with a modifier held; the app’s own navigation shortcuts say which.
• Reverse direction swaps what turning right and turning left do.
• Same as Default gives a profile or layer Default’s dial again. On Default and Connections & LEDs, As it came puts back what the pad did out of the box: volume, and light brightness.

Out of the box the dial changes the volume, and while you hold the bottom-right key for Connections & LEDs, the light brightness. A profile you haven’t given a dial of its own uses Default’s. The pad keeps your choice, like your keys, so it works without Studio running and on any computer. The pad does it itself, so the dial is as quick as a key, and nothing needs Accessibility permission. Changes are part of undo.

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Renaming a layer

Double-click the layer name above the pad, or click the pencil next to it, or right-click the layer in the sidebar and choose Rename…. Return keeps the name, Escape cancels. Names are limited to what the pad can store, so the field stops you at 19 bytes.

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Saving, undo, and quitting

There is no Apply or Save button.

• Changes reach the pad immediately, so you can press the key and test it straight away.
• They’re written to the pad’s memory about three seconds later. The status area says Unsaved · saving shortly, then Saved to pad.
• ⌘Z undoes the last change, and ⇧⌘Z redoes it.
• File › Discard changes… throws away everything not yet written.
• Quitting waits for the pad. Studio finishes the final save before it closes. If the save fails, it stays open and offers Try again, Cancel, or an explicit Quit Without Saving.

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Keyboard and VoiceOver

• Arrow keys move across the pad, Return edits the selected key, Escape backs out.
• ⌥⌘I hides and shows the inspector.
• Every key announces what it does, including whether it’s inherited from Default.