Keyboard shortcuts promised but not delivered

• Jun 19, 2024 - 22:15

I love keyboard shortcuts. I use them on Windows, I use them on Word and Excel; Lord have mercy, I even use them a little bit when I'm forced to use my wife's Mac. I'd love to use them on Musescore, but it's so frustrating to try!

The way the rest of the world works, I press Alt-F while I'm working on a file, and that causes a file menu to come up. That much works fine in Musescore. Then I look down the list and see that the "a" in "Save as" is underlined. indicating that if I want to save the file as something else, all I have to do is press "A." That too is what I expect it to find. But here's the problem: it doesn't do anything. It just sits there and waits for me to do it manually. Ditto the "e" for "Export." Promised, but not delivered. I've been aware of this since Musescore 3, but I figured if I was patient it would get fixed. What gives?

I would be glad to help with the coding work if someone could fix me up with the credentials and tell me how far I can go.

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• Jun 20, 2024 - 01:13

It's well known that the menu mnemonics don't work. Click Alt+F (or whichever menu you want), then use the up- or down-arrows to select a particular menu option. I'm unaware of anyone ever promising them, though. *shrug*

If you're interested in coding, click on Contribute / Development at the top of these webpages for info on getting started.

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• Jun 20, 2024 - 02:40

Thanks, TheHutch. What I meant was that the underlines are obviously designed to work and set up an expectation in users like me that they do. That's my implied "promise." I'll try the up- and down- arrows. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

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• Jun 21, 2024 - 01:13

That's wild!!! They have not worked for me on Windows XP, 10, and now 11. Through versions 2, 3, and now 4.

To be precise, Alt+ ... one of the underlined letters on the toolbar does open that menu, but the underlined letters on the menu itself (referred to commonly as "menu mnemonics") have never worked for me.

For example, Alt+O opens the Format menu. However, Alt+O, P looks like it ought to open the Page Settings dialog and it does not. Instead, Alt+O, followed by any letter (any I've tried anyway) opens the first item on the Format menu: namely, the Style dialog.

As another example, Alt+A opens the Add menu, but pressing any other letter does NOTHING more that I can see.

And, my recollection is that this has been the case since I first started using MuseScore 6-8 years ago. (I know it was during version 2, but I don't know when v.2 was superseded by v.3.)

[A few minutes later]

And, in response to Jojo's comment, Alt+F opens the File menu, yes, but Alt+F, A does nothing MORE ... Hmm, I take that back: at least sometimes, it opens the New Score dialog.

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• Jun 20, 2024 - 11:28

Well this is interesting. Reading your comments, Henk and graffesmusic, I decided to open Musescore and try again. What I discovered is that, for Musescore 4.3.2 on my Windows 11 PC, there is some functionality of the shortcuts when I first open Musescore. Then, after I've been working with it for a while, my chance of success with those two key shortcuts ("Save as" and "Export") declines. Because I can't rely on them, I never try to use them. Thanks for forcing me to understand the problem better.

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