Alt Menu Bar Override

[Jesse Cogswell]

On Windows, when you press Alt once it highlights the top menu bar and allows you to go into a menu by pressing letter key corresponding with a menu item (F for File, E for Edit, M for Modify, etc).  This will override workspace shortcuts.  So, if you wanted the Mirror tool to have a shortcut of Alt + M, you'd be out of luck as it would just open the Modify menu.

 

I had a colleague reach out to me this afternoon asking if this is a recent change, swearing that he used Alt+M as the Mirror tool shortcut.  I'm reaching out to you all on the Forums with deeper institutional knowledge.  From my understanding, this is behavior that has been baked into Windows since the beginning (the earliest I used was Windows 3.1, and I absolutely used the Alt + letter keys to jump through menus), but was Vectorworks able to override this on older versions?  The oldest version I've used was 12.1, but I never tried to make a tool shortcut that would match a menu item.  The earliest version that I have installed is 2019, and Windows will stomp on Alt shortcuts that match Menu Bar items.  Does anyone know if this wasn't the case on earlier versions?

[Miika Riikonen]

Hi Jesse,

 

I have this same problem nowadays. This started when I installed 2024.

 

Yes, it's Windows' function and has been but somehow this haven't been an issue before VW2024. I'm also looking for a solution for this because this renders ALT-key almost useless as a shortcut key.

 

 

Miika Riikonen / Finland

 

 

ALT-R is rotate!

[Miika Riikonen]

Did a test and at least on my computer this has improved a bit after 3.1 - dunno why. I still cannot access alt-m for example but I can use alt-r like I used to use it before.

 

So no help of me here but I'm glad I can now do better than a week ago.

 

Miika