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Bug 1317

Summary:	Add GUI control box to control behavior of the Alt key
Product:	TDE	Reporter:	Darrell <darrella>
Component:	tdebase	Assignee:	Timothy Pearson <kb9vqf>
Status:	NEW ---
Severity:	enhancement	CC:	bugwatch, darrella, michele.calgaro, slavek.banko
Priority:	P1
Version:	R14.0.x [Trinity]
Hardware:	Other
OS:	Linux
Compiler Version:		TDE Version String:
Application Version:		Application Name:
Bug Depends on:
Bug Blocks:	2969, 1323
Attachments:	Patch to provide check box GUI control Patch to provide check box GUI control with updated text

Description Darrell 2012-11-12 18:09:08 CST

Qt3 supports a unique behavior with the Alt key that generally is not supported in non Qt3 apps, which means not supported in non Trinity apps. Specifically, pressing only the Alt key immediately selects the top level of the first menu in the menu bar but does not open the menu. In most non Trinity apps, pressing only the Alt key does nothing.

I believe this behavior feature is common in Microsoft Windows but generally is uncommon in the 'nix world. Thus some people like this feature and others do not. In such cases the preferred solution is to provide a GUI check box control to let users decide.

There is a current work-around that requires manually editing a configuration file. The underlying control is maintained in $HOME/.qt/kstylerc:

[Settings]
MenuAltKeyNavigation=true

The default value is true and therefore the key name probably is not in most user's kstylerc file. The same option applies to global kstylerc files.

This configuration value is read in tdelibs/tdefx/kstyle.cpp.

Currently in (R14 development branch) KControl -> Appearance & Themes -> Style, there is a check box "Hide accelerators when not in use." I recommend adding this new check box control just under that check box:

| | Hide accelerators when not in use
| | Pressing only the Alt key selects the menu bar

What's This help:

When enabled, pressing only the Alt key immediately selects the top level of the first menu in the menu bar but does not open the menu. This is a Trinity/Qt3 feature and generally not available with most non Trinity apps. Disabling this feature means the Alt key must be pressed concurrently with an accelerator key to open a menu from the menu bar in Trinity apps.

I'm tagging this request as an enhancement but there are people who consider this a bug. :)

Comment 1 Darrell 2012-11-12 20:58:08 CST

Created attachment 973 [details]
Patch to provide check box GUI control

Attached is a proposed patch to provide the described GUI control check box. Works here for me on Slackware 13.1 32-bit. Somebody on a different distro should test before pushing to GIT.

As decribed in the original report, the new check box is located in KControl -> Appearance & Themes -> Style.

Comment 2 Darrell 2012-11-14 22:12:39 CST

Created attachment 979 [details]
Patch to provide check box GUI control with updated text

This is an updated patch with updated text strings.

We still need one more test in another distro.

Slavek,

If backporting this patch to 3.5.13.x then first backport the patches from commits d50125d0 and bbd076f4 from 2012-08-13. The patch for this bug report includes updated text for those patches. If the patches from those commits are not backported then the patch for this bug report will not merge.

Comment 3 Darrell 2013-03-02 21:20:44 CST

Patch in attachment 979 [details] pushed to GIT in commit 37c081e3.

The patch does not fully resolve the original bug report.

Comment 4 Michele Calgaro 2014-04-12 08:29:42 CDT

Changing status back to NEW for too long inactivity

Comment 5 Michele Calgaro 2018-07-29 08:54:22 CDT

Alt does not seem to select the top level on my system, with or without the checkbox selected. not sure if this is now default behavior or related to my style.