I use a combination of balance and harmonize constantly when I'm creating certain kinds of typefaces. I even have a secondary hardware mini keyboard with a key dedicated to Contour Harmonize. But I always have to access Contour Balance using the menu.

You can add your own:



- Tools > Commands & Shortcuts (command-shift-P).

- Type "balance" in the search box up top.

- Click on the "Contour: Balance" result.

- Type option-B in the input box beside the keyboard icon.

- Click the Set button.

The reason that this might not have been noticed: in FontLab 6 and maybe some versions of 7, this was just called "Commands". This apparently is something more familiar to programmers than designers. Thank you FontLab for changing this to "Commands & Shortcuts".

Also in most apps, "Assign Shortcuts" or just "Shortcuts" is accessed through preferences.

A couple ideas to make this easier to find:
1. Move it to Preferences. (But preferences is already pretty crowded.)
2. Add a section to preferences, and when you click it, the same dialogue comes up.
3. A video or writeup on setting shortcuts.

Also, the dialogue for commands is a bit tricky, because you have to push "Set", like Patrick showed in his step by step. In many other apps, once you put in the shortcut, it sticks. That's without any further need to push another button. Every so often I get confused about this again, and remember that I forgot to push "set".

Just some things I notice about this.

Yes, I would strongly agree, this should be in Preferences, as in probably all other applications (at least on macOS). However, I think it shouldn’t bring up a secondary dialog, but there should simply be a Shortcuts Tab. The most natural way, in my opinion, would be something along these lines:
 

Add a keyboard shortcut for Contour Balance

 

• Header with Search field / Filter, Import Shortcuts, Export Shortcuts, Reset to Factory Default
• Shortcut List
• Footer with Shortcut Input, Clear, Set. Not sure about the best mechanics for Clear and Set. I could live with a button that changes labels and functionality, but for some users it might be more transparent to have separate buttons for Clear and Set that are greyed out accordingly, if a short cut is (not) already set.

Hope that makes sense …

You guys forget that the Commands&Shortcuts dialog box is not only for shortcuts assignment. It can be used to quickly find and perform actions. 

Hi Alex,
It's true you can quickly find and perform actions (Go!) but it's limited alphabetically to "File: New font" as the latest entry visible in the dialog (at least for me on Windows). For the other commands, it's not "quickly".

Yes, you have to type a few chars to get to the command you need.

Difficult to correct?