Warning
Back up your Blender preferences before using this add-on.
Keymaps are sensitive user data and Blender provides limited safeguards around them. This add-on edits your keymaps in place — there is a real possibility of keymap loss or corruption, with no guaranteed way for users to restore them from within Blender. Before using this add-on, copy your userpref.blend (and any keyconfig files) from your Blender config folder so you can roll back if anything goes wrong.
Blender's shortcut system is powerful, but the built-in keymap editor makes you dig through nested menus to find anything. blenderKey shows you the whole keyboard on one screen: every shortcut on every key, color-coded, searchable, rebindable with a right-click.
Hover a key to see what it does. Click once to lock it. Right-click to change it. Press a shortcut to jump to the key that owns it. Save your setup as a preset and share it with your team.
Completely vibecoded using Claude Code.
- See every shortcut at a glance. The whole keyboard is rendered on-screen with each key colored by what it does.
- Rebind without hunting. Right-click any key, pick a binding, press a new combo. Done.
- Find keys by shortcut. Press
?then the combo — the key highlights and the panel shows its bindings. - Find shortcuts by name. Press
/and start typing. Matching keys stay bright, others dim. - See what you've changed. Press
Dand Blender defaults appear in red/green/neutral. - Undo anything. Up to 50 steps,
Ctrl+Zlike you'd expect. - Save your setup. Presets as JSON, export as a Blender
.pykeyconfig, or paste from clipboard.
A GPU-rendered keyboard with drop shadows and smooth hover animations. It's not a screenshot — it's interactive.
- 6 sizes: 100% full, 96% compact, 80% TKL, 75%, 65%, 60%
- 2 physical layouts: ANSI or ISO (proper ISO Enter shape)
- 7 logical layouts: auto-detect your OS, or force QWERTY / AZERTY / QWERTZ / Dvorak / Colemak / Nordic
- Resizable: drag the handle, scale 0.5× to 3×
- All the keys: alphanumeric, navigation cluster, numpad, function row, mouse buttons (LMB/RMB/MMB)
Each key changes appearance based on what's happening:
- Unbound — plain surface
- Bound — highlighted
- Category-colored — tinted by what it does (Transform = amber, Navigation = teal, Mesh = purple, etc.)
- Hovered — soft animated transition
- Selected — accent color when clicked
- Modifier-active — Ctrl/Shift/Alt/OS keys pulse at 2Hz when you hold them physically
- Dimmed — during search, non-matches fade to 30%
- Diff mode — green for modified bindings, red for deactivated, dim for untouched
- Rebind flash — green pulse when you successfully reassign a key
- Top-left — the physical key name (
G,Tab,F5) - Bottom — the primary operator, abbreviated (
Move,Extrude,Loop Cut) using 80 built-in shorthand labels - Bottom-right — count of other modifier combos that also have bindings
- Top-right "D" — shown when the key has click-drag bindings
Text color adapts to background luminance (WCAG-aware) so labels stay readable on any theme.
Pick a key — the right-hand panel shows everything bound to it:
- Every binding with its modifier prefix, operator name, editor icon, and keymap
- Same operator in multiple keymaps? Grouped into one expandable row
- Expand a group to see operator descriptions
- Modal shortcut hints for chain combos (
G G → Edge Slide,S S → Shrink-Fatten,R R → Trackball) - Scrollable — wheel or middle-drag, with a real scrollbar and fade gradients
Nothing selected? The panel shows contextual help and tooltips instead.
Two side panels to narrow down what you see:
- Editors — All, Global, 3D Viewport, Image/UV, Node Editor, Text Editor, Sequencer, Clip, Dopesheet, Graph, NLA, Properties, Outliner, Console, Spreadsheet
- Modes — All, Object, Edit Mesh, Sculpt, Pose, Weight Paint, Vertex Paint, Texture Paint, Grease Pencil, Curves
Multi-select. Mix and match. Icons for everything.
A searchable accordion on the left lists every Blender operator, grouped into 13 categories:
Transform • Navigation • Mesh • Object • Edit • Sculpt • Paint • UV • Nodes • Animation • Playback • File • System
- Type in the search to filter by name or idname — categories auto-expand
- Blue dot marks operators that are actually bound somewhere
- Click any operator to:
- Assign Shortcut — press a key combo to bind it
- View Bindings — jump to the key it's already on
- Remove All Bindings — unbind everywhere (undoable)
- Open in Preferences — jump to Blender's built-in editor
Opens a menu listing up to 5 bindings on that key. Hover any binding for a sub-menu:
- Rebind — press a new combo
- Unbind / Enable — toggle it off or back on
- Reset to Default — restore Blender's original
- All undoable
When you rebind, every other key dims and your target pulses with an animated border. The prompt says "Press new key combination… ESC to cancel". Press any combo — letters, digits, F-keys, Tab, Space, arrows, numpad, punctuation, with any mix of Ctrl/Shift/Alt/OS.
If your new combo is already taken, a centered dialog appears with three options:
- Swap — move the conflicting binding to the old key
- Override — take the combo, deactivate the conflict
- Cancel — bail out
Two kinds, different keys:
- By name —
/orCtrl+F. Fuzzy token matching on operator names. Matching keys stay bright, others dim to 30%. Result count shown. - By shortcut —
?(Shift+/). Press a key combo — the visualizer jumps to that key and shows its bindings.
Press D. Compares your current keyconfig against Blender defaults:
- Green — you modified this binding
- Red — you deactivated this binding
- Dim — untouched
A "DIFF" badge appears in the toolbar while active.
- Undo up to 50 levels.
Ctrl+Z/Ctrl+Shift+Z. Every rebind, unbind, reset, toggle, preset-load and import pushes a snapshot. - Presets — save your whole keyconfig as a JSON file. Load, delete, copy to clipboard, paste from clipboard. Location configurable in preferences.
- Export — write a Blender-importable
.pykeyconfig script. Export only what you changed (default) or the whole thing. - Import — load a previously exported
.pyback. Parsing is safe (ast.literal_eval), no code execution.
Full keyboard-only workflow for accessibility:
Tab/Shift+Tab— cycle focus: Keys → Editors → Modes → Operators → Info- Arrow keys — move around the keyboard layout, or scroll lists
Enter— select / toggle- Focus ring shows where you are
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
ESC |
Close visualizer / cancel |
/ or Ctrl+F |
Search operators |
? |
Reverse-lookup (find key by shortcut) |
D |
Toggle diff view |
Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z |
Undo / Redo |
Tab / Shift+Tab |
Cycle focus |
| Arrow keys | Navigate keyboard / scroll |
Enter |
Select key / toggle filter |
| What you do | What happens |
|---|---|
| Left-click a key | Select it, see its bindings |
| Left-click a modifier | Toggle that modifier |
| Right-click a key | Open context menu |
| Left-click Export / Import / Presets | Open that tool |
| Drag resize handle | Scale the keyboard |
| Mouse wheel | Scroll the panel under the cursor |
| Middle-drag | Drag-scroll a panel |
From the Blender Extensions platform (easiest, once listed) Edit → Preferences → Get Extensions → search "Keymap Visualizer" → Install.
From the zip
- Download
keymap_visualizer-1.0.0.zipfrom the Releases page - Edit → Preferences → Get Extensions → dropdown → Install from Disk…
- Pick the zip
- Restart Blender (required — the addon registers a topbar button at startup)
From source (for development)
Clone the repo, then copy the keymap_visualizer/ folder into:
# Windows
%APPDATA%\Blender Foundation\Blender\<version>\extensions\user_default\
# macOS
~/Library/Application Support/Blender/<version>/extensions/user_default/
# Linux
~/.config/blender/<version>/extensions/user_default/
Open from Edit → Keymap Viz in the top menu bar. A new window opens with the keyboard.
- Hover — preview bindings
- Left-click — lock the info panel to that key
- Right-click — rebind, unbind, or reset
- Ctrl / Shift / Alt / OS buttons — filter by modifier combo
/— search by operator name?— find a key by pressing its shortcutD— see what you've changed from defaultsCtrl+Z/Ctrl+Shift+Z— undo / redo
Edit → Preferences → Add-ons → Keymap Visualizer:
- Keyboard Layout — pick your layout, form factor (ANSI/ISO), and size (100%–60%)
- Export / Import — output path, scope (modified-only or all), import path
- Presets — folder to store preset JSON files
- Fonts — custom TTF paths for key labels and command labels (optional)
- Theme — 8 base color tokens. All other colors derive from these.
- Category Colors — turn on/off, customize all 13 category colors
- Advanced Color Overrides — 29 fine-grained per-element color pickers (collapsed by default — open only if the base tokens aren't enough)
Keys are tinted by what they do. 13 categories — Transform, Navigation, Mesh, Object, Edit, Sculpt, Paint, UV, Nodes, Animation, Playback, File, System. Each color is individually configurable. Legend shown above the keyboard. Turn the whole system off if you prefer plain keys.
keymap_visualizer/
__init__.py # Addon registration
blender_manifest.toml # Extension metadata
constants.py # Enums, color tokens, layout constants
drawing.py # GPU rendering (keys, panels, overlays)
export.py # Python keymap script export/import
handlers.py # Event handling and input dispatch
hit_testing.py # Mouse-to-key hit detection
icons.py # Icon loading and texture atlas
keyboards.py # Physical/logical keyboard definitions
keymap_data.py # Keymap introspection and diffing
layout.py # Key position/size calculations
operators.py # Blender operators (modal, launch)
preferences.py # Addon preferences and theme settings
presets.py # Preset save/load/delete
state.py # Runtime state, undo/redo, selections
- Fork, branch, change, PR
- One feature or fix per PR
- Test in Blender 5.1+
- Clear description of what changed and why
GPL-3.0-or-later — see LICENSE. Required by the Blender Extensions platform since Blender itself is GPL.
Bundles Roboto Condensed font (Apache-2.0, © 2011 Google Inc.) — see keymap_visualizer/fonts/LICENSE.txt.