Keyboard Shortcuts - Quick Text Entry

Question

I'm fairly new to Alteryx, but finding it a very frustrating point and click exercise which makes workflow creation very frustrating. I've seen the list of shortcuts but these are quite limited. Are there hidden shortcuts i'm not seeing that do the following:

1) Quick Add Modules

Instead of drag and drop from the top window, can I press Ctrl + J for example to add  to a Join to the workflow.

2) Quick Cycle Text Entry

In the Sum module, to add each Output Field Name I need to point and click each time. 
I would have thought Shift or Enter would take me down to the next cell (like in Excel). Very frustrating.
Same for the Select tool, I would like a quick way of renaming a series of fields without using the mouse.

Similarly in the Formula module, every time I want to add a new column I have to click plus, scroll to 'Add Column' and click, name the column, then click the text field to add formula.

3) Bulk Check/Uncheck
Ignoring the select all button, if I want to tick a subset of boxes all at once, is there a quick way? 
I would have thought, highlight a bunch and hit enter would do the trick. The other option is repeated space + enter which feels silly.

Are there hidden tricks that I'm missing?

After years of mastering excel without a mouse it feels like I'm taking a step back with Alteryx.

Jonathan-Sherman · Accepted Answer

Hi @do55,

So your third part is an easy answer - i'll take a look at the others after:

Example, if we have four columns. Highlight the ones you want (as you've done)

And go to Options -> Select -> Deselect Highlighted Fields

If this solves your issue please mark the answer as correct, if not let me know!

Regards,

Jonathan

Hannah_Lissaman · Accepted Answer

The short answer is that you can't use Alteryx without a mouse. Shortcuts are extremely limited. This is a trade-off which gives us Alteryx's visual interface and endless tool configuration windows with different layouts. You are going to need to get used to clicking again. Don't think of it as a step back though - Alteryx does things so much more efficiently than Excel that you are still definitely saving time overall.

To answer your specific questions in order:

* Adding a tool will always require using a mouse, with the one exception of the Browse tool. With a tool selected, use Ctrl + Shift + B to add Browses to all outputs. 
* When entering text in a Select, Text Input or similar, you can use the up and down arrow keys to progress to the next row. In the Text Input tool, Tab and Shift + Tab will move you right and left.
* There is no quick way to move between tabs in the formula tool. I would also recommend it is better practice to use separate formula tools, rather than stacking up everything in one. This makes it easier to see the steps your data is passing through, annotate each tool if required, and saves you a few clicks when you want to go back and edit.
* For selecting/deselecting multiple, the Options > Select menu is the best we have.

One time-saver which you may find useful is that in a Select tool or any other tool that uses the same interface, you can right click and drag to reorder fields, and you can do this with multiple fields selected.