Importing CS4 Keyboard Shortcuts to CS5

Question

I've  discovered that you can open your custom keyboard shortcuts xml file in a  text editor, and copy/paste shortcuts into your CS5 keyboard shortcuts  file. Anyone else tried this? Is there an easier way to import all of  your keyboard shortcuts from CS4 to CS5?

Answer 1

I did some experimentation, and I stand corrected! Apparently my memory was dodgy. In particular:
My experience is that it basically works fine, though it's been a while.
I thought we had tested this from CS3 to CS5, but it looks like maybe we only did it from CS5 to CS5.5. Which are a lot more similar.
(And yes, I did recall people having complaints about it, but my experience disagreed...)
Indeed, you have some problems with CS4 to CS5, but they are not subtle. At least, initially, I was getting a dialog box informing me that there were defined shortcuts in the shortcut set that were invalid (Somewhere along the way that stopped happening, which is Interesting, but probably not relevant).
Anyhow, I certainly don't disagree that pasting the XML differences is the better way to go -- I said as much in post #13.
But by way of recompense, here are a pair of scripts to make it easier.
Both require you to create a special shortcut set called "defaults" (i.e. defaults.indk) that they use as a baseline for differences. For a variety of reasons, it is insufficient for the script to use the Default.indk file in the application directory. Both scripts pop up an error if you have not done this, and tell you how to do it.
The first one, extractShortcuts.jsx, prompts you to select a shortcut file to extract from, compares it against the default shortcut set, and outputs and differences to a file on the Desktop, extracted.xml. Run this in CS4.
The second one, importShortcuts.jsx, prompts you to select the extracted.xml file from previous, asks you for the name of the new shortcut set, and then merges the two. It merges them in a fairly stupid way (just plain appending just before the end), but it's probably sufficient.
So here we go, exportShortcuts.jsx:
#target InDesign
(function() {
     var appdir = app.filePath,
          prefs, shortcuts,
          i, s,
          defaults, readcuts,
          defxml, readxml,
          e, ea, action, context, string,
          defaultsByAction, d;
     var includes = $.includePath.split(";");
     for (i=0; i<includes.length; i++) {
          s = includes[i];
          if (s.match("Preferences") && s.match(/Scripts$/)) {
               prefs = new File(s).parent;
               break;
     if (!prefs) {
          alert("Could not find User Preferences directory");
          exit(1);
     // $.writeln(prefs.fsName);
     shortcuts = prefs.getFiles("InDesign Shortcut Sets")[0];
     defaults = shortcuts.getFiles("defaults.indk")[0];
     if (!defaults) {
          alert(
     'The script requires a special shortcut set called "defaults" to exist.\n'+
     'The app-folder Defaults.indk is NOT sufficient. Please go to '+
     'Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, and select the the [Default] shortcut set,'+
     '  modify it in a trivial way (for instance, assign F1 to About InDesign),'+
     ' name the new set "defaults", remove the modification, and save the set.'+
     ' Then re-run this script.');
          exit(1);
     readcuts = shortcuts.openDlg("Select an INDK file to extract shortcuts from.","*.indk");
     writecuts = new File(Folder.desktop.fullName+"/extracted.xml");
     defaults.open("r");
     defxml = new XML(defaults.read());
     defaults.close();
     readcuts.open("r");
     readxml = new XML(readcuts.read());
     readcuts.close();
     writecuts.open("w");
     writecuts.writeln("<shortcut-sets>"); // hack
     defaultsByAction = {};
     for (i=0; i<defxml.shortcut.length(); i++) {
          e = defxml.shortcut[i];
          ea = e.elements()[0];
          if (ea.name() != "action-id") {
               alert("Parse failure on element "+ea);
               exit(1);
          action = ea.attributes();
          context = e.context[0];
          string = e.string[0];
          defaultsByAction[action] = { context: context, string: string };
     for (i=0; i<readxml.shortcut.length(); i++) {
          e = readxml.shortcut[i];
          ea = e.elements()[0];
          if (ea.name() != "action-id") {
               alert("Parse failure on element "+ea);
               exit(1);
          action = ea.attributes();
          context = e.context[0];
          string = e.string[0];
          d = defaultsByAction[action];
          if (!d ||
               d.context != context ||
               d.string != string) {
               writecuts.writeln(e);
     writecuts.writeln("</shortcut-sets>"); // matching hack
     writecuts.close();
And its mating half, importShortcuts.jsx:
#target InDesign
(function() {
    var appdir = app.filePath,
        prefs, shortcuts,
        i, s,
        defaults, readcuts,
        writename, writecuts,
        defxml, readxml,
        e, ea, action, context, string,
        defaultsByAction, d;
    var includes = $.includePath.split(";");
    for (i=0; i<includes.length; i++) {
        s = includes[i];
        if (s.match("Preferences") && s.match(/Scripts$/)) {
            prefs = new File(s).parent;
            break;
    if (!prefs) {
        alert("Could not find User Preferences directory");
        exit(1);
    // $.writeln(prefs.fsName);
    shortcuts = prefs.getFiles("InDesign Shortcut Sets")[0];
    defaults = shortcuts.getFiles("defaults.indk")[0];
    if (!defaults) {
        alert(
    'The script requires a special shortcut set called "defaults" to exist.\n'+
    'The app-folder Defaults.indk is NOT sufficient. Please go to '+
    'Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts, and select the the [Default] shortcut set,'+
    '  modify it in a trivial way (for instance, assign F1 to About InDesign),'+
    ' name the new set "defaults", remove the modification, and save the set.'+
    ' Then re-run this script.');
        return 1;
    readcuts = Folder.desktop.openDlg("Select an XML file to import shortcuts from","*.xml");
    writename  = prompt("Choose a name for the new shortcut set. One word, no spaces, please.",
    "new");
    writecuts = new File(shortcuts+"/"+writename+".indk");
    defaults.open("r");
    defxml = new XML(defaults.read());
    defaults.close();
    readcuts.open("r");
    readxml = new XML(readcuts.read());
    readcuts.close();
    defxml.appendChild(readxml.elements());
    writecuts.open("w");
    writecuts.write(defxml);
    writecuts.close();
These are written on a Mac. I suppose there's they might not work perfectly under Windows if the logic to find the user's keyboard shortcuts directory doesn't work.
As always, install scripts by saving each script as a plain text file (in TextEdit or Notepad) and following directions at, e.g., How to Install InDesign Scripts.
Good night.