Just a quick tip for those out there getting ready to upgrade to the new Adobe Creative Suite CS4: I discovered after the upgrade that CS3 customized keyboard shortcut files do not transition into CS4.

This is a huge bummer, as there is no easy way that I know of to display what you have changed compared to the default set. I can only speak for Photoshop CS4, Illustrator CS4 and InDesign CS4 as I do not use the rest of the programs in the Design Premium suite enough to customize keyboard shortcuts.

I can’t recall if this is the case with previous Creative Suite upgrades as well or if this is a CS4-only situation.

To add insult to injury, when upgrading to CS4 (from CS3), Adobe also moved some of my customized files that weren’t compatible with CS3 into a new “Adobe CS3 leftovers” folder in the Application folder on my Mac (I have no idea how this all is handled on Windows systems).

I suppose I should be glad they didn’t just throw them all away, but imagine the surprise I would have gotten launching a CS3 app and discovering lost functionality. The weird thing is that not all the plugins/settings were moved to this “leftovers” folder. I could see no rhyme or reason to it all.

Just a warning to anyone upgrading so you have time to plan to set up all your custom keyboard shortcuts.