Keyboard Shortcuts in Menus

[Richard Gaskin]

Graham Samuel wrote:

 > In the whole toolbar, all keyboard shortcuts must of course be
 > distinct, and are presumably not case sensitive. That was my silly
 > mistake. I made it because PC programs often have an underlined 'x'
 > in the 'Exit' menu item: this is not a keyboard shortcut but some
 > other PC-only thing which sadly I don't understand.

There are two sets of keyboard shortcuts on Windows and some Linux systems:

Control+<letter> is widely used these days on most OSes, and is the only 
shortcut method used on Mac (though of course on Mac we call it the 
"Command key" or "Apple key").  This most commonly allows one key 
combination to invoke an action, so once learned it's usually the one 
people use.

Alt+<key> is a multi-step way to invoke menu commands, in which the 
first Alt combo drops down the menu which has the corresponding 
underline, and once dropped items within the menu can be triggered using 
Alt+ the underlined letter marked in that item.

The Alt key combos predate the now-nearly-universal adoption of Control 
key combos, and among new users aren't used as often.

But because an underlined letter need only be unique within a single 
menu, you'll find some devs who still like that multi-step method 
because it allows shortcuts to be added with less risk of conflicting 
with another menu's shortcuts.

And some users like them because they don't require memorization: 
everything needed is visibly apparent in first the menu title itself, 
and then by having the menu made visible you can see the items directly.

One glitch in LiveCode:

Since XP forward, Microsoft has tastefully chosen to show the underlined 
characters only when the Alt key is down.  After all, they're only 
useful when the Alt key is pressed, and the rest of the time this change 
makes for a much cleaner appearance.

I've submitted an enhancement request to adopt this more modern 
convention in LC's menu bar:
<http://quality.runrev.com/show_bug.cgi?id=3015>

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com