Thanks Richard - great explanation as usual! By the way, I am using some Unicode characters in menu items in Windows 7 (actually running on a Mac under Parallels) and sometimes I’ve noticed that they don’t “stick”, in that one can paste a Unicode character like the square root symbol into a menu item, looks OK in the IDE, but then turns into a ‘?’ at some point. OTOH, sometimes it works. This is (so far) too elusive for a bug report, but I mention it in case anyone else is seeing it (LC 7.0.1 rc-2 on Windows 7).
Graham > On 13 Nov 2014, at 15:29, Richard Gaskin <ambassa...@fourthworld.com> wrote: > > 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 > ____________________________________________________________________ > ambassa...@fourthworld.com http://www.FourthWorld.com > > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription > preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
