In order to efficiently operate a tool or a software, it’s important to have an awareness of commonly used keyboard shortcuts. Using these keyboard shortcuts, you can trigger an important function or process just by pressing a combination of keys. For example – CTRL + C is used to copy the text in several windows-based text editors.
In this post, we’ll have a look at the important keyboard shortcuts in Amibroker software. We’ll also learn how to assign a new shortcut key to the function of your choice.
Click this post to read a massive guide to get started with Amibroker software, understand it’s features, pros-cons, and learning resources.
Pre-Defined Keyboard Shortcuts in Amibroker
Below is the list of pre-defined shortcut keys in Amibroker. You may open Amibroker and test out these shortcuts yourself:
| Shortcut Keys | Purpose |
| ALT+ RIGHT ARROW KEY | Open chart for the next symbol in the database |
| ALT + LEFT ARROW KEY | Open chart for the previous symbol in the database |
| F3 | Stock symbol finder by name or ticket |
| SHIFT + F1 | Open contextual help |
| F1 | Open Help Window |
| HOME | Scroll left in the chart |
| END | Scroll right in the chart |
| CTRL + W | Switch to weekly timeframe |
| CTRL + D | Switch to daily timeframe |
| CTRL + M | Switch to monthly timeframe |
| CTRL + H | Enable crosshair |
| CTRL + R | View and edit chart parameters |
| CTRL + E | Edit formula |
| SHIFT + F1 | Open contextual help |
| F1 | Open Help Window |
Few of these are really useful and can save you a lot of time rather than searching for their equivalents from the menu bar. CTRL+W/D/M to switch timeframes is a really cool feature and can help you a lot with multi-timeframe analysis during live trading.
Assign a new Shortcut Key in Amibroker
On top of the pre-defined shortcut keys, you may also assign a new key of your choice. Follow the below steps for the same:
Step 1: Open Amibroker and navigate to Tools –> Customize –> Keyboard from the menu bar.
Step 2: From the left pane, select the function/category for which you want to define a shortcut key. For example – if you want to define a shortcut to open “Import Wizard”, select it as below:
Step 3: Move your cursor to the “Press new shortcut key” box and then press the desired combination of keys from your keyboard. Suppose you want to assign shortcut key “CTRL+SHIFT+I” to launch import wizard, press CTRL, SHIFT, and I together. Once you do this, the key will appear in the box.
Step 4: Press the assign button. The key combination will move to the “Key assignments” list. You’ll get a warning popup if the key you defined is already assigned for a different function.
Step 5: Click on the close button and then press your shortcut key combination. The import wizard should open up (for this particular example)
Thanks for reading this post about keyboard shortcuts in Amibroker. Please use the comments section to post any queries or feedback.