Using Cosmos

Search

Keyboard Shortcuts

System	Start Cosmos
Mac	SHIFT + TAB
Windows	CTRL + TAB

In the Search Window

Action	Shortcut
Go to next/previous item	Up/Down Arrow
Execute selected Action	Return/ Enter Key / TAB Key
Favorite selected item	CTRL + F
Edit current item (if available)	CTRL + E
Show options for selected Maya Action	CTRL + E
Close the Cosmos Window	ESC Key
View Recent Actions	CTRL + 1
View Favorite Actions	CTRL + 2
View Blacklisted Actions	CTRL + 3
View Menu	CTRL + 4

Add Action window

Action	Shortcut
Save current action and close	CTRL+ S
Set focus to the tab-field	CTRL+ T
Show hidden field for icon-name	CTRL+ F

Favourites

If you find Actions that you use all the time, or that you want to save for that particular day, click the star next to it to put it in your favorites.

You can access your favorites by choosing “Favorites” as the viewing mode in Cosmos, or from the Action list by filtering.

Latest

The viewing-mode for Latest actions.
This will show us all the recent actions executed in chronological order.

Blacklist

You can blacklist an action by:

• The keyboard shortcut (CTRL/Command + B)
• By pressing on the three dots and choose “Blacklist Action”.

This will add it to the global list of blacklisted actions, and will not show up anymore in Search.
The list of blacklisted actions can always be accessed through the Viewing mode for Blacklist in Cosmos search, or in the Actionlist under Filter > Others.

Maya Options

Many Maya commands come with options to customize attributes before getting executed.
Those options are now available by pressing the sliders icon on the actions that have them.

Actions

Add Actions

Adding your own scripts to Cosmos is easy. It can do done from two places:

1. Cosmos > MENU > Add Action
2. Clicking the “Add Action” in the Actionlist

Title:
The name of the Action
Description:
A short description of what it does
Icon:
By clicking on the empty icon-picture to the left of the title we can choose a file we like to use for our icon.
Tags:
Optional tags to add to this Action describing what it does.

Path:
In what Action-path does it live. By default, you can choose to save it in your User Actions.
Category:
Choose a category for your Action
Code:
The action code-snippet for your Action. Specify the format for it below
Type:
The coding language of your action. Python or Mel.

Add/Edit Actions Window

To add an Action

1. Open Cosmos
2. Click Menu
3. Click on “Add actions”

Here you can also test the script by clicking on the "Test Script" button to execute it without closing the window.

To edit an Action

CTRL/Command + E will edit the current selected Action in the search-window.
Double-click on the Action-card from either the Cosmos search or the Actionlist.

Click on the three dots on an Action to edit it when available.

The Actionlist

The Actionlist is our way to display all the Cosmos Actions added to Cosmos.
You also have options to filter/sort them based on a number of criteria.

Sorting modes

Alphabetical: Sorted by the alphabetical names of the Actions.
Category: Sort by the Actions category
Path: Sort by the Action-path/lists they are in
Tags: Sort by what tags are assigned to the actions
Relevance: Sort by how often an Action has been used. More used Actions have a higher relevance.
Filter actions:
Actions can be filtered by clicking the Filter text and choose what you wanna filter for.
To reset the current filter simple click in the “Reset current Filters” in the lower section of the filter-view.
(Maya’s Actions are currently not supported to be displayed in this interface, as it is a representation of Maya’s menu).

How to access it:
Cosmos > MENU > Actionlist

Dock the action-list:
Simply click on the docking button next to the close button in the upper right corner.
This will dock the Actionlist to be displayed on the right side.

Settings

Settings Window

This is where you can customize the behavior and appearance of Cosmos.
The settings are read from your cosmosPrefs folder.

Action folders

Action folders:
This is where your Actions are stored on file. By default, you will see actions from the Cosmos install directory Default and your used-actions User.

When right-clicking on a existing path, you can options like open, change folder and delete.

Add Paths

Simply click the Add button if you like to add another path to save/read actions from.

Prefix

The Name of each path is a good identifier when adding/editing actions to easily know what you are referring to. This could be changed at any time. Shorter names are preferred.

Reset Paths

By clicking on Reset Paths you will reset the paths to the default of cosmos. This is the Defaul + User folder specified above

Generic Settings

Always On:
Enabling this will always keep Cosmos open even after clicking an Action.
(Note that you can keep the window temporarily open by holding SHIFT KEY while clicking an Action).

Grayscale Mode
Enable this will change the look of cosmos to a more toned down gray interface (Save to apply)

Include Maya Commands:
Uncheck this to disable Cosmos viewing of Actions from the Maya menus.

Reset Search

This is where you can reset your personal searches saved by Cosmos. It includes:
- Favorite Actions
- Recent Actions
- Blacklisted Actions
- Personal searches

You can read more about recommended searches below:

Recommended Search

While searching for things in Cosmos, it gets to know more about you, and therefore it gets better at predicting what you want by looking at past searches. This is done by taking into account:

• Actions you saved
• Actions you have favorites (clicked the star icon)
• Your most recent Actions used
• Actions not on the top of the list that you have clicked instead
  By gathering this, Cosmos will try to display the most relevant search on the top of the list.