On 05-09-2011, at 20:56, Allin Cottrell wrote: > On Mon, 5 Sep 2011, Berend Hasselman wrote: > >> I've been experimenting in Ubuntu 10.04 in VirtualBox. >> The behaviour of programs seems to vary. >> >> In Firefox you use the Alt+letter to go to a main menu item and then >> - you can keep the Alt key depressed and press an underlined letter >> - or you can let go of the Alt key and and press an underlined letter. >> >> The Gnome Commander on the other hand wants you to let go of >> the Alt key when you go for a submenu item. Nautilus behaves >> in the same way. And Gretl of course. > > I'm seeing the same here on native linux. > > As an experiment I wrote a minimal test program which just > opens a plain GTK window with a menu. There are at least three > different APIs for constructing a menu in GTK (though maybe > they all come to the same thing internally). Anyway, I tried > building the menu in three ways and in all cases it behaved > like the ones in gretl and gnome apps, as Berend describes. > > My tentative conclusion is that apps such as Firefox and > LibreOffice, where both Alt-key and plain key can be used to > select a submenu item with an underlined letter, must be doing > something special to get that effect. In which case I don't > think it's worth bothering with.
I agree. I've just checked to see what happens on Windows. It's also a mixed bag. In TextPad (editor) one must keep Alt depressed when accessing sub menu items. Total Commander behaves like Firefox on Ubuntu, so you don't have to keep depressing the Alt key when accessing a sub menu item with an underlined letter. Firefox on Windows behaves as Firefox on Ubuntu. Berend
