From owner-ntemacs-users@june Fri Nov 1 05:23:20 1996 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] [nil "Fri" " 1" "November" "1996" "12:46:37" "GMT" "Andrew Innes" "andrewi@harlequin.co.uk" nil "43" "Re: \"Stuck\" Meta (Alt) key?" "^From:" nil nil "11" nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: from joker.cs.washington.edu (joker.cs.washington.edu [128.95.1.42]) by june.cs.washington.edu (8.7.6/7.2ju) with SMTP id FAA00326 for ; Fri, 1 Nov 1996 05:23:20 -0800 Received: from june.cs.washington.edu (june.cs.washington.edu [128.95.1.4]) by joker.cs.washington.edu (8.6.12/7.2ws+) with ESMTP id FAA25182 for ; Fri, 1 Nov 1996 05:23:18 -0800 Received: from holly.cam.harlequin.co.uk (holly.cam.harlequin.co.uk [193.128.4.58]) by june.cs.washington.edu (8.7.6/7.2ju) with SMTP id EAA28887 for ; Fri, 1 Nov 1996 04:47:03 -0800 Received: from propos.long.harlequin.co.uk by holly.cam.harlequin.co.uk; Fri, 1 Nov 1996 12:46:42 GMT Received: from elan.long.harlequin.co.uk (elan [193.128.93.78]) by propos.long.harlequin.co.uk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA21430; Fri, 1 Nov 1996 12:46:37 GMT Message-Id: <199611011246.MAA21430@propos.long.harlequin.co.uk> In-Reply-To: (kindred@telesciences.com) From: Andrew Innes To: kindred@telesciences.com Cc: ntemacs-users@cs.washington.edu Subject: Re: "Stuck" Meta (Alt) key? Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 12:46:37 GMT On Thu, 31 Oct 96 16:40 EST, "David L Kindred (Dave)" said: >I am using 19.34 under Windows 95 and have several times found myself >in a state where the system thinks that the Meta (Alt) key is still >depressed when I am attempting to perform another keyboard or mouse >function. Depressing and releasing Alt clears the condition. > >Is this an Emacs issue, a Windows 95 issue, my typing style or just a >fluke? A mixture of the first three. In normal Windows programs, pressing and releasing the Alt key is a standard system-supported method for beginning keyboard navigation of the current window's menu. Normally there is a menu bar in the window you are using, and the left-most menu will be hilighted when you press and release Alt, for visual feedback. You can then use cursor keys etc to navigate. Pressing and releasing Alt a second time deactivates the menu. If there isn't a menu bar, but there is a "system" menu (the little icon in the left corner of the title bar), then the system menu is activated instead (but it doesn't drop down until you type Space). Before Windows 95 and NT 4.0, the system menu icon would be hilighted as well, but now it is a minature of the program icon and there is no visual clue that it is active. Emacs is a bit unusual in that it processes keystrokes at a lower level than most Windows programs do, and allows for the normal menu bar to be removed, while still allowing the system menu to be accessed. At some point (I think in 19.31 but maybe 19.32), the variable `win32-pass-alt-to-system' was added to control whether pressing and releasing Alt would activate the menu bar (or system menu). By default, this variable is nil, so Alt will not activate the menu. So you should only be seeing a problem if you enable this feature and also turn off menu-bar-mode (which is on by default). In this case, you need to expect the behaviour you are experiencing. Unless you actually want to access the system menu by keyboard, just set win32-pass-alt-to-system to nil. AndrewI