GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 774169
Menu mnemonic key (alt-x etc.) not working
Last modified: 2017-08-16 08:40:49 UTC
Problem first noticed with Gramps open source software on Windows 10-1607 Gtk 3.22.1. Also appears in gtk3-demo on Windows 10 v1607 with Gtk 3.22.1. Can also reproduce with gtk3-demo application on Linux (in Oracle virtualbox VM on Windows 10-1607) with Gtk 3.16.7. For gtk3-demo, it starts with Application Class Info showing. Right click in Info pane, and then press alt key with mouse cursor within menu. The "Select All" 'A' key gets an underline. Press 'A' key, (alt-A), nothing happens. <---- If I move cursor to "Select All" and click on it, menu correctly executes (all selected). I note that sometimes the alt-x keys do work, for instance they work in selecting the tabs. But they don't seem to work on Menu items.
mnemonics in menus work without Alt. Try just plain 'A'
As a Windows user, I am used to the idea that ht mnemonic uses both alt and key together, not one after the other. So 'alt-a' seems like it should work. It also appears that Gtk is not consistent here, if I use gtk3-demo as an example, use the mouse to select 'Application Class' and then the 'Source' tab, then press 'alt', the 'I' at the top on the 'Info' tab get underscored. If I release 'alt' and press 'i' nothing happens. I HAVE to use 'alt-i' to get the Info tab to select. I regard this as a bug, or at least as a platform issue; I'm not sufficiently familiar with Linux to know if this is considered normal.
(In reply to Paul Culley from comment #2) > As a Windows user, I am used to the idea that ht mnemonic uses both alt and > key together, not one after the other. So 'alt-a' seems like it should work. Being able to rely on habits is nice. But it doesn't exclusively dictate what GTK+ does. > It also appears that Gtk is not consistent here, if I use gtk3-demo as an > example, use the mouse to select 'Application Class' and then the 'Source' > tab, then press 'alt', the 'I' at the top on the 'Info' tab get underscored. > If I release 'alt' and press 'i' nothing happens. I HAVE to use 'alt-i' to > get the Info tab to select. Non-MenuItem widgets require holding Alt. MenuItems require not holding Alt. So, this is an apples and oranges comparison, though it's not unfair to wonder why it's not the same either way. fwiw, I was recently told that the reason Alt is not used is because it doesn't work. However, I'm unsure whether that's a 'cannot work for some technical reason', or just 'does not work because no one has made it work'.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 133026 ***