Alt Key Bug in CS2

AT
Posted By
Apple_Tom
May 13, 2005
Views
391
Replies
7
Status
Closed
This one is weird. If you open one file (doesn’t happen with two or more files) in PSCS2, you don’t have access to most of the sub-menus when using the keyboard only. A single mouse-click anywhere in Photoshop will render the alt key valid again.

Test – open PSCS2. Open any file – psd or jpeg. Don’t touch your mouse. Hit the alt key, the letters in the upper menu (File, Edit, Image, etc.) will show the underline. Hit the key – "T" for Filter. Use the down arrow button to show the filters. They are all grayed out!

Use the right and left arrow keys to select different main menus. Most sub items are grayed out. With the filter sub-menu showing, click the word filter, the submenu goes away. Click ‘filter’ again and you have access to any filter you want.

Bizarre, huh? And after playing for awhile, I can’t get the bug to repeat until I close and reopen PSCS2. Then it will repeat.

Win XP with Athlon 64 3500 and 1 gig ram. Discovered by one of the people here at work – Gabe. We use the X-Keys auxiliary keyboard a lot, and this glitch will be a detriment to our workflow.
Related Tags
alt bug key

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I
ID._Awe
May 13, 2005
I get the same thing. Ooooops.
C
chrisjbirchall
May 13, 2005
CS2 seems to handle the Alt Key Menu selection differently. I have found that if I hold the Alt key down whilst hitting the letter(s) the menus appear as normal (NOT greyed out).

Don’t know whether this change was by design or accident. If by design, it begs the question "Why fix something which wasn’t broken?!

Chris.
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
May 13, 2005
One drawback to having to hold down the Alt key while accessing a menu command is affected by having your keyboard set up for a fast repeat rate, which I personally prefer. Under that condition, holding the Alt key down leaves the keyboard in what I’d call an "excited state" as you move on to selecting another menu item by letter. This can cause a rapid progression to yet another menu or dialog whereas being able to release the Alt key first will allow the keyboard to return to a "relaxed state" before the next key is depressed.

Daryl
C
chrisjbirchall
May 14, 2005
So how do you get along with Ctrl key commands which only work if Ctrl is held down whilst you hit the corresponding alpha key?
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
May 14, 2005
Good question, and yet I can’t say I’ve ever noticed a problem with Ctrl key shortcuts. I can only guess that it’s because I normally do not use Alt sequences to access the menus that I even noticed a potential problem there. Plus, this may be a case of studying the problem finds me actually holding a key down longer than I really would in practice. Looking at Ctrl key shortcuts, using Ctrl+V as an example, perhaps they just do not demonstrate repetitive actions if held….I do not obtain multiple pastings of data if Ctrl+V is held down, but rather just get a one-shot paste. Similarly, Ctrl+E held down doesn’t repetively merge layers. Perhaps another factor is that until PS CS2, I simply used buttons a lot more for accessing commands, via PhotoBars.
H
Ho
May 14, 2005
Hmmm. My alt key seems to be functioning as it should. I performed the prescribed test

Test – open PSCS2. Open any file – psd or jpeg. Don’t touch your mouse. Hit the alt key, the letters in the upper menu (File, Edit, Image, etc.) will show the underline. Hit the key – "T" for Filter. Use the down arrow button to show the filters. They are all grayed out!

and could not duplicate the (bad) result.
WN
Wesley_Norman
May 14, 2005
Mine seems to work as it should also. Nothing seems to be grayed out. There is one thing though and that is, I am used to holding down the Alt key and double clicking on an image to open it and closing the bridge. Now when I do that, I get a blinking name of the image in the windows task bar. I have to hit the Return (Enter) key to get the image to be selected. If I just double click on the image to open it, then all is normal.

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