Shift key not constraining

[Anonymous]

Hi, I have recently started at a new office running ArchiCAD on Parallels on a Mac.
The shift key will not constrain to 0°, 90°, 180°, 270° when drawing lines etc.
It also wouldn't do this in Revit. The shift key works just fine otherwise.
I suspect this is a Mac issue as I have encountered keyboard issues with Macs in the past.

Any ideas?
Also, would it be better running on the Parallels or Mac side? (I don't really like Macs)?

[Eduardo Rolon]

It can be a Parallels issue.
Though AC always is a little slow in locking the Shift Key on the 3D Window regardless of which platform you are running.
You should try running native and using an app like Better Touch Tool to configure your mouse so it behaves more like windows (and sometimes better)

[Anonymous]

I have installed ArchiCAD to the Mac side and this problem doesn't occur.
It looks like it's a Parallels issue as you say - I guess I will have to stop blaming Macs and learn to live with working on one!

[Anonymous]

Actually I have found how to fix this.
In Parallels one needs to go into
Virtual Machine > Configure > Options > Advanced
and select Optimize modifier keys for games.
It now works properly on Windows.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Good tip, Syncop8r.

Parallels wrote:
Enable Optimize modifier keys for games if you actively use modifier keys (Option (Alt), Ctrl, Shift) in action games. If you enable this option, signals from these keys will be processed faster.

Also, note that Parallels has keyboard shortcuts per-VM under Parallels > Preferences (vs the machine config or the Mac prefs) and you create shortcut mappings for things that are otherwise challenging to do with a Mac keyboard.

Like Eduardo, I recommend running AC on the Mac side, though. As good as Parallels graphics support is, it isn't the same as running on the native display driver...and you can utilize all cores on your Mac, while you would not want to assign all cores to a VM.