F9 Keyboard Shortcut not working (FM10, WinXP)

[Shlomo Perets]

Deanne,

You wrote:

>In our department, a few of us have experienced temporary loss of the
>keyboard shortcut F9 (apply paragraph format) from time to time. As of
>this week, I have lost all use of it, even though I retain use of F8
>(select character format). What gives? Is this a bug? How does one get
>F9 back? I searched through Adobe help, found no help (could not
>anticipate what they were thinking).

In FrameMaker 9 and 10, keyboard shortcuts for selecting 
tags/variables/conditions/elements/attributes (F9 or Ctrl-9, F8 or Ctrl-8, 
Ctrl-0, Ctrl-4, etc.) work inconsistently.

When the shortcuts don't work (bottom left corner shows "Not Applicable"), 
resize the FM application window, and they should work again (only until 
the next time you experience the same problem). You may also try turning on 
the "Auto-Collapse Iconic Panels" preference -- some users reported this to 
be of help (I experience the problem regardless of the preference; turning 
on this preference has a side effect of unexpectedly closing a pod/panel 
when a child dialog is closed -- e.g. DPI setting from Object Properties or 
Edit Tab Stop from the Paragraph Designer). Restarting FM should also help 
(again, until the next time the problem appears).

As a user accustomed to using these keyboard shortcuts regularly, I find 
this to be a major annoyance. There is no point at all using the shortcuts 
when they suddenly stop working and you have to spend extra time getting 
them to work again (until next time).

This issue was brought up several times in all FM-related forums. I 
recently related to this in a comment to a blog post ("One more reason to 
upgrade to FrameMaker 10") by Maxwell Hoffmann, Adobe Evangelist for Tech 
Comm Suite (in the "Friends of FrameMaker" LinkedIn group).

Maxwell promptly replied: "Thanks to everyone for their comments. (a) it is 
important for us at Adobe to know how much the stability of keyboard 
shortcuts matter to many veterans. [...]"

I suggest that users who want to have functional keyboard shortcuts in FM10 
(and FM9!) make their voices heard in public forums -- Framers, Adobe 
Forums, LinkedIn (or any other related forum/list).


Shlomo Perets

MicroType, http://www.microtype.com
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