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Enable ALT+<key> toolbar accelerators. - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: Enable ALT+<key> toolbar accelerators. (/thread-1773.html)



Enable ALT+<key> toolbar accelerators. - Guest - 12-20-2004

ALT+<key> accelerators work for menu items. They would also be productive for toolbar items (see SNAG-0010.gif). My "&TLB Start Menu" works flawlessly from the Win key, which pulls down TLB's hidden top-screen toolbar and displays its menu; however, there is no way to "jump" to other toolbar icons and launch their menus with keystrokes (no mousing). Since &<key> underlines are supported in toolbars, it seems reasonable to enable ALT+<key> accelerators here, too. This would make a very productive TLB feature upgrade.


- Yuri Kobets - 12-20-2004

There are the only problem. It is too hard to move keyboard focus to the toolbar. I must release one more feature - activate toolbar?

Other solution that I've found the best (for me) using hotkeys. You can set the hotkey for menus. On my toolbar I'm using WIN+1, WIN+2 etc. for menus on toolbar so it is very easy to open any menu with keyboard.


- Guest - 12-21-2004

Re: "move keyboard focus"

.... I appreciate your sharing development issues with your users. Few of my applications' bulletin boards do this.

.... As a TLB newbie, I had expected toolbars to have the same functionality as menus. This misconception has often confused my read of TLB documentation, and colored my wishes for new features. My posts are just one user's voice among many, so best wishes for whatever features you decide to work on. TLB is already head and shoulders above other menu systems I've auditioned for complexity management in science and engineering applications; it is light years beyond anything Microsoft offers.

Re: "You can set the hotkey for menus."

.... I get interesting results from the menu hotkeys I've assigned. For instance, I made Alt+S the hotkey for "TLB Start Menu", and found TLB grabs that hotkey even when Outlook 2003 has the focus (Outlook uses Alt+S for "Send e-mail"). Can anyone share insights into avoiding hotkey conflicts with other applications?

.... I've searched on "hotkey" in TLB's Help and Forums, but was unable to find this topic. Someone please point me there if it exists.


- Yuri Kobets - 12-21-2004

Yes TB act as menu in any application. But there are one huge difference: TLB is other application. I try to explain.

The Alt+S from Outlook is not actually hotkey. Microsoft name it "Accelerator". Accelerator are working only inside application. Hotkeys are property of system (Windows) and work in any application. So when you set hotkeys in TLB you must be sure this keys combination is not used by any of your applications. Using WIN key for TLB hotkeys is very good because usually other applications do not use WIN key.

Now about accelerators in TLB. As in any standard application accelerators works only when TLB is active. There are two ways to activate TLB:
1) Open TLB menu
2) Press WIN+D then TAB, TAB

As you see the second way is too difficult (but this is the standard feature of Windows).

So to make the accelerators work on toolbar too we must activate True Launch Bar. I can add one more option to activate toolbar by hotkey, but I'm not thinking that this is a "must be" feature. If you want to use keyboard you can setup hotkey for any menu. Also you can use CTRL+LEFT and CTRL+RIGHT to open previous and next menu.

Anyway I'll add accelerator to toolbar too, when toolbar is active Wink

What the other forum members think about this?