The correct shorthand for writing keyboard shortcuts

[David Spreadbury]

Avraham,

Two questions:

Will Ctrl+M, followed by Ctrl+F, give the proper results?

Will Ctrl+M+F give the proper results?

If the second is true, I would document it by teling the user; "Press and
hold the Control key then press M followed by F (Ctrl+M+F)."

The Microsoft Manual of Style, version 2, always has shortcuts with a plus
(+) following Ctrl, Alt, of Shift (Ctrl+?).

It seems to depend on whether you need to release the Ctrl key between
sequences.

-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Avraham Makeler
Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 3:57 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: The correct shorthand for writing keyboard shortcuts

Hi all,

   RE: The correct shorthand for writing keyboard shortcuts


I have a general question on writing keyboard shortcuts - but no
particularly connected to FM. So I was referred to this forum sicne there is
the general impression that FM users are the champions of extremely long and
complex keyboard shortcuts.

So here is my question: It is a surprising problem to have: a simple enough
issue that I should have already come across years ago, but for some reason
I am bumping into it only now. I have asked a number of experienced
technical writers about this, but have had no convincing answer.

I am documenting a GUI, that has a certain command called 'Merge Forms',
whose keyboard shortcut is, *as the SME writes it*:

    Ctrl M+F

The SME means to say: press Ctrl+M and then with the Ctrl key still pressed,
then press the F key.

And this does in fact successfully invoke the required operation.  (Not of
negligible importance: Ctrl+M followed by Ctrl+F will also work.)

But is 'Ctrl M+F' the correct way to write this?
I think not. For a start, the custom seems to be to write a plus (+) immed.
after the 'Ctrl'.
But 'Ctrl+M+F' means something else: to press all three keys at once.
---------------

Ctrl+M, F is not correct, since it means: Press Ctrl+M, then release the
Ctrl key, and then press the F key

---------------

And another surprise I had is that when I tried a few experiments typing
keyb sequences in the MS Word 'Customize Keyboard' dlg box, I found lots of
bugs. But since this is an FM forum and not a Word forum I wont detail the
 issues here.

Thanks all,

- avi
_______________________________________________


You are currently subscribed to Framers as dspreadb at yahoo.com.

Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com.

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com
or visit
http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/dspreadb%40yahoo.com

Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit
http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.