Date:         Mon, 9 Jun 2008 09:28:58 -0700
Reply-To:     Lou <lpogoda@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Lou <lpogoda@HOTMAIL.COM>
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Subject:      Re: UNIX Pull-Down Menus
Comments: To: sas-l@uga.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

On Jun 9, 11:39 am, paul.barte...@TXU.COM (Paul Bartells) wrote:
> This is really a basic question, but one I've not been able to find the
> answer to, either in SAS Online Documentation or on SAS-L.  It might be
> there, but it doesn't show up in the searches I've done.  I have no doubt
> that this forum will yield the answer.
>
> Basically, the question is this:  I'm running x-windows display manager
> session on a Unix system.  I want to be able to access the pull-down menus
> with keystrokes instead of using the mouse.  The menus appear to have
> hotkeys or shortcuts, but what is the key combination to open the Edit
> pull-down menu, for example?  On Windows, it's ALT-E.  Try that in x-
> windows, and it does nothing.
>
> The preferences for PmenuOn and usePmenuMnemonics are both set to True,
> and the menu items show a letter underlined, but they just don't respond.
>
> What am I missing?
>
> Thanks.
> Paul Bartells
> TXU Energy
> Irving, TX

This is another of those differences between Windows and Unix.

In this case, it's not really an OS difference, but a function of your
X software.  Most X-emulators in my experience don't trap the <alt>
key, so as far as your Unix session is concerned, you never press the
<alt> key, and you can't access the pull down menus using shortcut
keys.

On a Windows machine, you can "scroll" among running applications by
pressing <alt><tab>.  If you can scroll to another running application
while the X-session has the focus, your emulator isn't trapping the
keypress, and to the best of my knowledge and belief, the only way
you'll be able to enable this functionality is to switch to an
emulator that that traps this key, though there may be an outside
chance that some setting or option for your present emulator will
enable what you want.