Curve Manip Toggler:

Hidding the manipulator and selecting a controller doesn't take much time... but we need to do it a thousand times and that  is a waste of time that I tried to get rid of. So I found a way to make this very simple script which I've been using for two years now, even at work, and some friends of mine are using it as well so I want to share.

What it does:

When we hold this shortcut, the manipulator in the active window becomes invisible, while and all the curves become visible. We can then select our controllers without having the gizmo in our way.

When we release this shortcut, all the curves becomes hidden again so we see only the character and a manipulator. I like seeing only the character without all his spaghettis around him.

curveManipToggler

Installation:

We need to assign two shortcuts to a single key via the hotkey editor. One on [KEY] and one on [KEY]-Release.

[KEY] stands for the key of your choice, I uses "C"

 

Maya 2015:
1. In maya, go to Window, Settings/Preference, HotkeyEditor
2. Go in the user category
3. Click New
4. Insert the name of your choice, and add this script :

string $myPanel = `getPanel -wf`; { modelEditor -e -nurbsCurves 1 $myPanel; }
string $myPanel = `getPanel -wf`; { modelEditor -e -manipulators 0 $myPanel; }

5. Assign it to a key of your choice in the "Assign New Hotkey" section to the right with the direction set as "Press"
6. Click assign, click assign
7. Create a new hotkey for this script, on the same Key, but with direction set as "Release":

string $myPanel = `getPanel -wf`; { modelEditor -e -nurbsCurves 0 $myPanel; } ;
string $myPanel = `getPanel -wf`; { modelEditor -e -manipulators 1 $myPanel; }

 

Maya 2016:
1. In maya, go to Window, Settings/Preference, HotkeyEditor
2. Click on the Runtime Command Editor Tab, New, and add the name of your choice
3. In the command/string box, add this MEL script:

string $myPanel = `getPanel -wf`; { modelEditor -e -nurbsCurves 1 $myPanel; }
string $myPanel = `getPanel -wf`; { modelEditor -e -manipulators 0 $myPanel; }

4. Click "Save Runtime Command"
5. Open the dropdown menue next to "Edit Hotkeys For:" to Custom Scripts
6. Your new script command is in the Custom script, click on the blank area to its right and assign the Key of your choice
7. Create another Runtime Command with this script:

string $myPanel = `getPanel -wf`; { modelEditor -e -nurbsCurves 0 $myPanel; } ;
string $myPanel = `getPanel -wf`; { modelEditor -e -manipulators 1 $myPanel; }

8. Assign this one the same hotkey than the other one, but click on the small arrow that appears when defining our hotkey, and select "On Release"

I suggest as well to define another hotkey that would just toggle curves visibility ON/OFF, because sometimes we would want to see the manipulator on playback. So I suggest assigning that following script to the same key than before but with the ALT Key held.

string $myPanel = `getPanel -wf`; if(`getPanel -to $myPanel` == "modelPanel") { if(`modelEditor -q -nurbsCurves $myPanel` == 0) { modelEditor -e -nurbsCurves 1 $myPanel; } else { modelEditor -e -nurbsCurves 0 $myPanel; } }

 

Feel free to share, let me know if you like it !