Menu Bar Access Keys…Interesting Note (VB and IE)

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Drew, I was going to post and say, whuh? hunh? ’cause I had underlines in IE 5.5 and toggling the setting to show and not show the key help didn’t seem to make any difference. But then a few hours later I looked up and saw that NOW I don’t have the extra help in IE. I wonder why I had the little underlines before I ever messed with this?

When adding the key help, I did have to close IE and restart it to make it work. Thanks for the tip, here’s an illustration:

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I forgot to mention that the changes would only take affect on new windows opened after the setting was changed. If you think about it though, it makes sense that it would work that way though. What’s odd, is that not all software is affected. For instance, I checked Word and VB 6.0 and they had the underlines regardless of the setting. The fact that VB 6 had the underlines was especially odd, since .exe’s made with it ARE affected.

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Curiously looking at what I have open its 50/50
Access97 shows helps
IE does not
Windows explorer does not
Outlook does

All running under W2K

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Same results for me.

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This was interesting, so I thought I would post it to the lounge. My Dad is taking a VB course, so naturally he is calling me for help here and there. Last night he had a wierd one. He said that the menu Access keys weren’t showing up underneath his menus. Today he called me and said that someone pointed out they had the same problem, however, when you press the Alt key, the menu ‘shortcuts’ showed up, until the focus when back to something else. (By shortcuts and access keys, I am talking about the underline under the letter that will open the menu. (ie, &File as a menu’s caption/name will show an underline under the F. Thus, hitting Alt-F will drop that menu).

I finally found what caused this. It’s wierd. I have noticed that some software displays them automatically, and some don’t. IE 6.0 displayed the same behavior as my Dad’s VB issue. I discovered that in your Accessibility Options (in your control panel), under the Keyboard tab, there is an option – “Show Extra keyboard help in programs”. If that is checked, VB’s (and everything elses) menu’s display the underline all of the time. If it is not checked, then the shortcuts only display after you hit the Alt key.

Just thought that was something interesting to note.

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There also seems to be some control from the Display Properties setup. The screenshot below is from XP, with Win2K having a similar option.

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Hi Drew:
Well, this is strange. I have the underlined letter in all my apps & I don’t have the setting checked under Accessibility Options/Keyboard tab. I even tried checking the extra help option, unchecking it, closing IE & restarting & even rebooting. I have Win 98SE. I’m not complaining, because I want to see the underlined letter. I just don’t know why it won’t go away.

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What version of IE do you have. That might be making a difference.

Take a look at my ‘title’ through this thread…started as a StarLounger, then a 2StarLounger, and this post is a 3StarLounger…..l’ve been busy I guess!

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Hi Drew:
I’m using IE 6…and yes, you’re title is changing. Of course, on Feb 3, you were a 2 star lounger, on Feb 14, you lost ground becoming a star lounger. So you must have worked real hard in 4 days to get back up to 3 star lounger.

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Boy that is pretty odd. Maybe I edited it, which changed the date of the posting! .

Maybe it is only a Windows 2000 issue. Very odd….

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Editing a post does change the post date. Or maybe you got penalized for encouraging looooong threads in some forums.

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Well I certainly could be accused of doing such……I guess it’s just in my nature!

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