Preferences

Five pages, setting by setting. Open with ++k++, or Am_Picker → Preferences.

Preferences are stored in Maya's own optionVars, prefixed AP_am_picker_. They belong to you, not to a picker — opening somebody else's picker never changes your setup, and reinstalling the tool does not lose them.

The dialog is modeless: leave it open while you work. Apply commits without closing, OK commits and closes, Cancel discards.

General

Canvas overlays

Setting	Default	What it does
Show canvas size in picker view	On	The 714 × 837 read-out in the bottom-left corner
Show Edit / Anim mode in picker view	On	The mode name in the bottom-right corner
Name the tool when you pick one	Off	Briefly names the active tool as you switch

Edit mode frame

Setting	Default	What it does
Show the frame around the canvas	Off	Draws a coloured border while in Edit mode
Colour	Red	Its colour

Worth turning on if you keep catching yourself editing when you meant to animate.

Character avatar frame

The defaults behind the corner portrait. The Fill shows through wherever a frame has no picture in it; the Border is where every frame starts.

A picker that sets its own colours in Image Manager → Avatar Property keeps them — these are only the fallback.

Drag selection

Setting	Default	What it does
Use custom drag selection colours	On	Otherwise Maya's defaults
Fill inside the selection box	On	Fill as well as outline
Border colour	Red	The marquee outline
Fill colour and opacity	Red, 12%	The marquee fill

Context menus

Setting	Default	What it does
Use radial marking menus	On	Right-click menus are radial. Off gives plain lists

Item creation

Setting	Default	What it does
New items join the layer selected in the Picker Outliner	On	Where a new item lands

If the highlighted layer is hidden the item is still created there, and the canvas says so — it will be waiting in the Outliner when you turn the layer back on.

Manipulators

Setting	Default	What it does
Show a gizmo on every selected picker	Off	Off shows one gizmo on the anchor item only
Rotation snap	15°	The increment rotation snaps to

Mirror

Setting	Default	What it does
Mirror axis	X	Which axis mirroring works across
Left	left_, _left, Left_, _Left, lt_, _lt, Lt_, _Lt, lft_, _lft, Lft_, _Lft, Lf_, _Lf, lf_, _lf, l_, _l, L_, _L	Left-side keywords
Right	right_, _right, Right_, _Right, rt_, _rt, Rt_, _Rt, rgt_, _rgt, Rgt_, _Rgt, Rg_, _Rg, rg_, _rg, r_, _r, R_, _R	Right-side keywords

The two lists are positional: the nth entry on the left pairs with the nth on the right. Add your studio's convention if it is not covered, keeping the pairs aligned.

Duplicate-and-mirror swaps these keywords in the item name and in the bound control names — and only renames a control if the swapped Maya node actually exists, so a mismatch leaves the binding alone rather than breaking it.

Picker items

Outline

Setting	Default	What it does
Draw an outline around picker items	On	The stroke around every item
Colour	White	Its colour
Thickness	1.10 px	Its width

Selection feedback

Setting	Default	What it does
Selected highlight	110	How much brighter a selected item goes
Press darken	130	How much it darkens while the mouse is down
Selected outline	White	The outline colour of a selected item
Last selected outline	Green	Edit mode: the item you selected last, which align and match commands take as the anchor
Selected outline thickness	0.50 px	The width of both selected outlines

Link wires

Setting	Default	What it does
Thickness	1.30 px	The wires drawn between linked items
Colour and opacity	Grey, 100%	Their colour

Per-item overrides for the outline live in the Channel Box; these are the picker-wide defaults.

Keyboard

Rebind any of the 88 actions. Select a command, use Capture, then Assign press or Assign release.

The description under the list explains what the selected command does. The Conflicts line warns you before you commit a chord that is already taken, and Restore Defaults puts everything back.

Full list of actions and their defaults: Keyboard shortcuts.

Fonts and Colours

The look of the embedded script editor.

Setting	Default	What it does
Font	Consolas	The editor typeface
Size	10	Its size
Show only fixed-width fonts	On	Filters the font list to monospaced ones

Syntax colours sets foreground, background, bold, italic and underline for every token type in both Python and MEL — MEL flow keywords, Maya commands, strings, backtick substitution, numbers, variables, command flags, and the Python equivalents. The Sample pane previews as you go.

Script Editor

Display

Setting	Default
Show line numbers	On
Background	Editor default

Tabs and indent

Setting	Default
Tab size	4
Replace tabs with spaces	On
Auto-indent new lines	On

Code completion

Setting	Default	What it does
Enable code completion	On
Open the list	As you type	Or only on demand
After typing	2	Characters before the list appears
Also open after "." and MEL "-"	On	Attribute and flag completion
Matching	Fuzzy	Or prefix matching
Case-sensitive matching	Off

Completion list

Setting	Default
Visible rows	12
Show descriptions	Off
Show kind badges	On
Show documentation panel	On
Add () after functions and commands	On
Tab inserts the highlighted entry	On
Insert immediately when only one match	Off

Completion sources

Each toggleable: Picker variables (__CONTROLS__ and friends), Python keywords, Python built-ins, maya.cmds commands, MEL commands, command flags, words in this script, and snippets.

Turning Picker variables off is rarely a good idea — those names are the whole point of an item script.

Resetting

The circular arrow in the bottom-left corner of the dialog restores that page's defaults.