Hotkeys and settings

You can configure your settings and find out which hotkeys are available by clicking Settings from within a labeling task:

Use keyboard shortcuts

Use keyboard shortcuts, or hotkeys, to improve your labeling performance. When performing a labeling task, click the settings icon to see more details about hotkeys or to enable or disable hotkeys.

This table describes the hotkeys for a standard keyboard. For a Mac keyboard, use Return instead of Enter, Command instead of Control, Delete instead of Backspace, and Option instead of Alt.

Key	Description
ctrl + enter	Submit a task.
alt + enter	Update a task.
ctrl + backspace	Delete all regions.
escape	Exit relation mode or unselect a selected region.
backspace	Delete a selected region.
alt + r	Create a relation between regions, when a region is selected.
alt + .	Cycle through all regions in the order listed on the regions’ sidebar.
alt + h	Hide a selected region.
ctrl + d	Duplicate a selected region.
u	Unselect a selected region.
shift + down	On the Data Manager, change the row selection to the next row, 1 below the current row. The quick view for the selected task row appears automatically.
shift + up	On the Data Manager, change the row selection to the previous row, 1 above the current row. The quick view for the selected task row appears automatically.
shift + right	On the Data Manager, open the labeling quick view for the selected task row.
shift + left	On the Data Manager, close the labeling quick view for the selected task row.

Other annotation types have labeling-specific shortcuts, such as numbers to select specific labels for named entity recognition tasks.

Image-specific hotkeys

When labeling image data types with the Rectangle, BrushLabels, Ellipse, Polygon, or KeyPoints tags, you can use specific hotkeys to take image labeling-specific actions.

Key	Description
alt + left arrow	Rotate the image to the left.
alt + right arrow	Rotate the image to the right.
ctrl + +	Zoom in to the image.
ctrl + -	Zoom out of the image.
v	Select the mouse arrow in the toolbar.
h	Select the pan option in the toolbar.
k	Select the key point option in the toolbar.
r	Select the rectangle option in the toolbar.
shift + r	Select the 3-point rectangle option in the toolbar.
o	Select the ellipses option in the toolbar.
p	Select the polygon option in the toolbar.
b	Select the brush option in the toolbar.
e	Select the eraser option in the toolbar.
[	When the brush or eraser option is selected, decrease the size of the brush or eraser.
]	When the brush or eraser option is selected, increase the size of the brush or eraser.

Time series-specific hotkeys

When labeling timeseries data with the TimeSeries tag, you can use specific hotkeys to take actions on a selected region on the time series data.

Key	Description
left arrow	Expand the region area to the left.
right arrow	Expand the region area to the right.
alt + left arrow	Decrease the region area on the left.
alt + right arrow	Decrease the region area on the right.
shift + left arrow	Expand the region area by a larger amount to the left.
shift + right arrow	Expand the region area by a larger amount to the right.
shift + alt + left arrow	Decrease the region area by a larger amount on the left.
shift + alt + right arrow	Decrease the region area by a larger amount on the right.

Video-specific hotkeys

When labeling video data with the Video tag, you can use specific hotkeys to take video-specific actions.

Key	Description
alt + spacebar	Play or pause video.
alt + left arrow	Rewind one frame.
alt + right arrow	Fast forward one frame.

Enable hotkeys for labels

By default, labels also have hotkeys. For example, pressing 1 on your keyboard applies the first label listed in the labeling configuration.

You can use the labeling settings to disable this behavior or ensure that the hotkeys are visible:

• Labeling hotkeys – Enables hotkeys for labels and choices.
• Show hotkeys on labels – If hotkeys for labels and choices are enabled, this will display the hotkey value next to the option.

For example, in the screenshot below, both settings are enabled. Pressing 1 would select the “Cat” choice and pressing 4 would select the “Opossum” label.

Customize hotkeys

You can specify custom hotkeys for labeling using the Shortcut tag, or change the hotkeys used for specific actions using an environment variable.

EDITOR_KEYMAP='{"annotation:submit":{"key": "shift+s","description": "My Custom Submit Hotkey!"}}'

Refer to the full list of customizable hotkeys in the keymap.json file to update a different hotkey combination.

You cannot use this environment variable to remove an existing or add a new keyboard shortcut.

Configure your labeling settings

Click the settings icon when labeling to configure the labeling interface to suit your labeling use case:

The following options are available:

Field	Description
Labeling hotkeys	Enables hotkeys for choices and labels. For example, pressing 1 selects the first label.
Show hotkeys on labels	Display the hotkey next to the label name.
Show hotkeys on tooltips	When hovering over options in the labeling interface tool set, display the hotkeys for each option.
Show region labels	When applying regions to data, by default the region is identified by its color coding. Enable this option to also show the corresponding label name next to the region.
Keep label selected after creating a region	Allows continuous region creation using the selected label.
Select region after creating it	Automatically selects newly created regions.
Show line numbers	Identify and reference specific lines of text in your document. Only applies when annotating text.
Keep selected tool	As you move between tasks, this will keep the same segmentation tool selected between tasks. Only applies when annotating images.
Pixel smoothing on zoom	Smooth image pixels when zoomed in. Only applies when annotating images.