GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 133026
Allow menu mnemonics to activate even with Alt still depressed
Last modified: 2018-05-02 13:55:37 UTC
Can you change insert row so that the shortcut Alt-I-R will still work if you hold down Alt throughout? Looks like you must do Alt-I, then remove the Alt and then press R. This is just going to frustrate other former Excel users like me. Gnumeric 1.2.1 on FC1
Possibly in the 1.3 series, but the underlying libraries do not allow multiple shortcuts in 1.2
Hmm, this seems like a nice usability extension. However, it would really need to be addressed at the gtk+ level not in gnumeric. If I understand you correctly what you really want is the ability to selected a menu item with a mnemonic while still pressing alt. In this case Alt-I opens the insert menu and R inserts a row but you want to be able to continue to have Alt depressed for the second step and have things still work. Lets see what the gtk folk think. I don't known how much work it would be.
The difficulty here would probably be to differentiate between Alt-Press I-Press I-Release R-Press R-Release Alt-Release and Alt-Press I-Press I-Release Alt-Release < Alt-Press < R-Press R-Release Alt-Release
It's probably a lot easier to just make Alt-R work when the menu is popped up in addition to R.
But there could be another toplevel menu using R as a mnemonic. I'd expect Alt-I Alt-R (with a Relase of Alt in between) to first pop up the menu for I, then the one for R. I just checked how IE/Win behaves wrt this: It pops up the menu for I when Alt-I is pressed, keeps it open when Alt is released, but unposts it when Alt is pressed again. Alt is almost treated as a separate "keynav unit" in IE, which is supported by the face that pressing Alt alone moves the focus to the menubar.
Adding keynav keyword.
I'm sure this is a dup of another bug (or at least a conglomeration of other bugs), but marking as AP3 for now to reflect accessibility impact.
Apologies for spam-- ensuring Sun a11y team are cc'ed on all current a11y bugs. Filter on "SUN A11Y SPAM" to ignore.
Created attachment 35250 [details] [review] a patch
Apologies for spam... ensuring Sun a11y folks are cc'ed on all current accessibility bugs.
Patch 35250 applies cleanly. Reviewing it would take little time. (Working on http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2007-March/msg00148.html)
FWIW, Firefox 3.6.4 on Linux behaves as the original poster intended. If this was fixed on gtk+'s side the desktop would be a little bit more consistent.
For many years, I have used Windows, but now I use Ubuntu as my primary desktop. I'm a big fan of keyboard shortcuts, so I learn them and use them whenever possible. As the original posted commented, it would be useful to allow for the menu mnemonic to be activated while the ALT key is still depressed. The reason for this is speed and accuracy. Using the example of the original poster: 1. ALT(down)-I(press)-R(press) requires fewer steps than ALT(down)-I(press)-ALT(up)-R(press). If you try both approaches, you will find that the latter approach feels awkward and can't be done as quickly. 2. The ALT key forms a pivot point that forms a frame of reference for accurately pressing the correct mnemonic key. If you release the ALT key, then this frame of reference is gone and so there is hesitation when pressing the next key. Motor memory is enhanced while holding down the ALT key. 3. Extended combos by chaining other ALT hotkeys. Say for example the ALT(down)-I(press)-R(press) combo brings up a dialog box, since the ALT is still pressed, we can simply press TAB to switch to another window to, for example, copy some text that we need in the dialog box. Compare this with ALT(down)-I(press)-ALT(up)-R(down)-Alt(down)-TAB(press). You get the idea. I was originally hoping that this feature would be available as a configurable option, but saddened to learn that it's not available. I feel that this an important usability feature that will help users who are switching from Windows, and also help gnome users navigate the menus more efficiently than before.
Created attachment 192585 [details] [review] rebased patch on current git master I just rebased Matthias' patch on current master. It works correctly. I think it can go in.
*** Bug 774169 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message -- This bug has been migrated to GNOME's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity. You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/issues/231.