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Keyboard Shortcuts

Chip Hippo follows Electron's CmdOrCtrl convention throughout, so every shortcut listed here as Cmd also works as Ctrl on Windows and Linux. Most shortcuts are disabled while a text field has focus, and some are further gated on the current tool or simulation state — those conditions are noted alongside the shortcut.

Desk & simulation

Shortcut Action
Space (tap) Run / Stop the simulation (not while typing, or while a placement/wire/bus tool is armed) — it acts as the key comes up
Space (hold) + drag Pan the desk, from anywhere — over a board or a part too
Option (hold) + drag Pan the desk, from anywhere that isn't a lead (a wire end or a movable leg — those it picks up instead)
Cmd+R Run / Stop the simulation
1–9, 0 Press signal buttons 1–10, top to bottom (0 is the tenth) — only while the circuit runs, and several at once (see External signals)
Tab Switch between the Breadboard and Schematic views (not while typing); from the 3D view, to the Schematic
Escape Abandon a drag in flight, then unpin a probed net, then disarm the probe, then cancel a pending wire/bus, then cancel a placement in hand, then deselect — whichever applies first
Delete / Backspace Remove the whole current selection in one step, no questions (a part, wire, bus, annotation, board with everything on it, a picked leg's part, or a whole multi-selection); a selected Output or Input tag is unplugged back onto its card instead

Selecting & moving

These are mouse chords rather than keystrokes, but they are the modifiers the desk answers to — four jobs, and they never combine. A click is just a drag that didn't move: it selects what you pressed. The Desk covers building a selection; Chips & Components covers moving one.

Chord Action
click / drag a thing Select just that thing; dragging moves it — with its wiring (wires on what moves come along; one with an end left behind stretches)
drag empty desk Draw a selection box (a drag can start on a board's bare holes too) — it replaces the selection with everything it encloses completely; a click on empty desk clears the selection
click a board Select the whole board — every strip snapped to it, its parts riding along
Cmd-click Add one item to the selection, or take it back out (Ctrl-click on Windows/Linux; on a Mac Ctrl-click stays the context menu). On empty desk it does nothing
drag any member of a selection Move the whole selection as one unit — boards, parts and wires — all or nothing
hold Option Pin targeting: only a lead that can move on its own (a wire end, a resistor's or LED's leg, a TO-92 transistor's leg) reacts, its hole ringed red
Shift-drag a part or selection Move it bare — the selected parts move, every wire and leg plugged into them stays in its hole
Option-click / -drag a lead Pick just that lead (never added to the selection) / move it to another hole, the other end staying put
Option+Cmd-click a lead Add that lead to the selection, or take it back out (Alt+Ctrl-click on Windows/Linux); drag the selection and every picked lead moves with it
Space-drag, Option-drag, middle-drag Pan the desk

Tools

Shortcut Action
W Arm/disarm the wire tool
B Arm/disarm the bus tool
K Arm/disarm the Cut Track tool (veroboard)
I or P Arm/disarm the probe tool (works even while the simulation is running)
M Disarm whichever of the wire/bus/probe tool is currently armed
H Fade the wires down to a stub at each end, and back (works while running — it only changes what's drawn)
1–8 While the wire tool is armed, pick a wire color
1–8 While the bus tool is armed, pick the bus width — 2–8 for that many bits, 1 for 16-bit

Placing & rotating parts

Shortcut Action
R Rotate or flip the part being placed or selected — see Chips & Components for the exact behavior per part type
R (Output/Input tag) Turn the tag being dragged, or the selected tag, a quarter-turn
F Flip an LED's polarity while its placement ghost is armed
Cmd+C Copy the selection — one part, a whole multi-selection of parts, or (if it includes boards) the whole sub-assembly
Cmd+V Paste a copy as a new placement ghost

View

Shortcut Action
Cmd+F Fit the desk (recentring it) — or the schematic or 3D view, when it is showing
Cmd+Shift+F Zoom out to fit everything at once
Cmd+= Increase the interface text size
Cmd+- Decrease the interface text size
Cmd+0 Reset the interface text size (13 px)
Option+Cmd+= Zoom the desk in
Option+Cmd+- Zoom the desk out
Option+Cmd+0 Reset the desk zoom
Cmd+L Lock or unlock the desk against the scroll wheel
A Toggle the Logic Analyzer panel
Cmd+P Toggle the parts palette panel

Both scale shortcuts want the unshifted key. On a layout where + needs Shift, use Cmd+= rather than Cmd+Shift+= — the shifted chord is deliberately ignored, so it can't collide with anything else.

The two families above do different jobs. Cmd+= and friends change Chip Hippo's own text: toolbars, panels, menus and dialogs, in every window at once — the same setting as Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Editor font size. Hold Option as well and you move the desk camera instead, zooming the circuit, chips, boards, wires and all. Markings on the desk are printed on the circuit, so they follow the desk zoom rather than the text size.

On a Mac, Option+Cmd+= and Option+Cmd+- are also macOS's own Zoom shortcuts (System Settings ▸ Accessibility ▸ Zoom ▸ Use keyboard shortcuts to zoom). If you have that turned on, the system takes the keys first and Chip Hippo never sees them — use the zoom cluster in the bottom corner of the desk, or Cmd+F to fit, instead.

Files & editing

Shortcut Action
Cmd+N New Project (a blank slate, one empty desktop)
Cmd+O Open… (load a saved project)
Cmd+Shift+O Recent projects (the same menu a right-click on the toolbar's Open button drops)
Cmd+S Save the project to its file
Cmd+Shift+S Save As… (give the project a new file)
Cmd+B Toggle the build guide (Bill Of Materials) panel
Cmd+A Select All — every board, part and wire on the desk; in a text field, its text
Cmd+Z Undo
Cmd+Shift+Z Redo

Chip Designer & debugger

In the Chip Designer window. The debugger keys act while the circuit runs, and only when their button on the debugger bar is not greyed out.

Shortcut Action
F9 While designing: set or remove a breakpoint on the caret's line
F8 Continue — run on to the next breakpoint
F6 Step — execute one statement
F7 Step Out — finish this chip's reaction
F9 To Settled — run until the board settles, ignoring breakpoints
F10 Detach — stop debugging this chip for the rest of the run

CPU monitor

In the CPU monitor window. Each function key acts only when its button on the monitor's bar is not greyed out.

Shortcut Action
F8 Pause the run, or Continue it to the next breakpoint
F6 Step — run to the start of the CPU's next instruction (paused)
F7 Step Over — run a JSR, CALL or RST's subroutine and pause after the call (paused)
F9 Set or remove a breakpoint on the selected byte
Page Up / Page Down Move the selected byte 256 bytes, the memory block with it
Escape Drop a typed digit, let go of the selection, or close the window

Floating slider

In a floated potentiometer slider's window.

Shortcut Action
← → / ↑ ↓ Turn it 1 %
Shift+← → / Shift+↑ ↓ Turn it 10 %
Page Up / Page Down Turn it 10 %
Home / End Turn it all the way to either end
Mouse wheel Turn it 1 % a notch, up raising it
Space (tap) Run / Stop the simulation, as on the desk

App

Shortcut Action
Cmd+, Open Settings
Cmd+K Open the quick Keyboard Shortcuts popup
Cmd+/ Open the Chip Hippo User Guide (this guide)
Alt+Cmd+I Toggle Developer Tools