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Disable menu bar toggle when pressing ALT


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It's really annoying in Windows. Whenever I press ALT as a modifier key in most apps in Windows, the menu bar highlights. It doesn't happen in some of the music production software I use, so I know it's possible to disable this from within the application.

 

Is there a chance for you to do something about this?

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  • 4 months later...
  • 3 years later...

I am also looking for a solution. When I press ALT - "File" menu on top gets triggered and its impossible to work with smoothly with Wacom tablet or mouse, when this happens.

lets say I am using Healing Brush Tool or Clone Brush Tool - they both require CONSTANT ALT key pressing to sample something - and EVERY time top of the "File" menu opens! Also when it is triggered - Undo (Ctrl+Z) does not work and I need to press AGAIN - ALT or ESC key so it exits damn "File" menu!

I tested in Adobe, File menu also gets highlighter but it does NOT bug next key pressing. ALSO I found this video solution with AutoHotkey software and "Alt_menu_acceleration_DISABLER.ahk" macro, file which completely disables ALT menu triggering, BUT it works in all other programs (including adobe), but still does not work in Affinity Photo...

Moved from adobe to affinity (v1.8.5) and this problem is so frustrating, impossible to work smoothly with retouching. 

This thread is almost 4 years old, I can not believe there is no solution to fix this.
Maybe it is at least possible to remap ALT to CTRL (or similar key) trough keyboard shortcuts in affinity? Could not find option to this..

 

 

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3 hours ago, Dovis said:

lets say I am using Healing Brush Tool or Clone Brush Tool - they both require CONSTANT ALT key pressing to sample something - and EVERY time top of the "File" menu opens! Also when it is triggered - Undo (Ctrl+Z) does not work and I need to press AGAIN - ALT or ESC key so it exits damn "File" menu!

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

I'm not sure why you're having that problem. For me, pressing Alt+Click to set the clone source will cause the menu bar to become active, and the initial letters (F for File, etc.) to be underlined, but noting really "activates" or "opens", and the fact that the letters are underlined in the menu has no effect on how the application operates. I would have to press F (for File) or E (for Edit), etc. while the menu keys were highlighted.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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On 10/22/2020 at 3:09 AM, walt.farrell said:

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

I'm not sure why you're having that problem. For me, pressing Alt+Click to set the clone source will cause the menu bar to become active, and the initial letters (F for File, etc.) to be underlined, but noting really "activates" or "opens", and the fact that the letters are underlined in the menu has no effect on how the application operates. I would have to press F (for File) or E (for Edit), etc. while the menu keys were highlighted.

Thanks for reply. With Wacom painting tablet it is more frustrating, but with simple mouse setup, you can try this to trigger problems:

1) Paint something on blank page with paint brush
2) Press "Alt"
3) Press "Ctrl+Z" and "Undo" function will NOT work. You will need to press "Alt" again to "turnt off" triggered "File menu" and only then "Ctrl+Z" to make "Undo" function work (doing retouching with tablet tis gets triggered often)

OR

1) Paint something
2) Press "Alt"
3) Press "Space" and it will trigger "File menu" opening.. While with tablet I just want to move around/pan image which I do very often when retouching zoomed close into photo.

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Thanks for the clarification.

Note that you started out talking about sampling for the Clone Brush, which is Alt+Click. When I do that, I have no problem, even though the letters are underlined on the Menu. Ctrl+Z, for example, works just fine. It is only by pressing Alt without the click that any problem arises, and to fix it one only needs to press Alt again. So, personally, I don't have a problem with this behavior.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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  • 2 years later...

Hello,

I have similar problems with ALT accessing MENU in Affinity Photo, v1 and v2. Tried some solutions, but nothing worked for me, same behavior on two different Windows 10 PC's. Finally, after many trials and errors, I found a solution that is working for me, using AHK. I tested it on both computers, during different use cases, and so far it is working.

My script is below. Description and how it works in the end.

 

#IfWinActive ahk_exe Photo.exe
~LAlt up::
    Send, {Shift down}
    Send, {Escape}
    Send, {Shift up}
Return
#IfWinActive

 

This ALT menu behavior disturb my workflow in few aspects:

1. Using clone brush and sampling - similar as mentioned before.
2. Sampling colors.
3. Using selection brush - ALT to temporarily switch to subtract mode.

Sometimes during regular ALT + click it is in fact not causing any trouble. But life is more complicated than that. You can accidentally double press ALT after first correct use, you can resign from sampling after pressing ALT, you can intend to use your custom shortcuts with ALT, and changed your mind and use different shortcut, and wondering why it is not working....

My script is limited to Affinity Photo only, by using #IfWinActive

~LAlt up:: ensures that this action is happening only when you release ALT, ~ tilde before shortcut is for not hiding this shortcut from system

Sequence of three Send, {} functions is for exiting from menu and bringing focus to previous action. I found that this exact sequence is not harmful to what you were doing before, and in my workflow, does not cause any trouble when selecting, painting, etc. Try this and test for yourself, when in menu by using ALT: press and hold Shift, press and release Escape, release Shift.

Return is for end this sequence.

 

Hope that it will be useful for someone.

Desktop 1: i7 2600k @4,3 GHz, RTX 4070 12GB, 16GB Ram, SSD + HDD, Win10 Pro 22H2, Wacom Bamboo
Desktop 2: i7 3770k @4,2 GHz, RTX 2060s 8GB, 16GB Ram, SSD + HDD, Win10 Home 22H2, Wacom Intuos 4

Latest Affinity V2 + Affinity V2 Beta

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi, I just found 1 little issue with my script and the way it works. When you want to define new shortcut in Affinity Photo with left ALT there is always an interference with what the script is doing. And instead, in preferences, after pressing new shortcut with Left ALT it gets immediately replaced with Shift + Esc. To overcome this you can Suspend the script for the time of defining a shortcut in Windows tray (AHK icon>Right Mouse Button>Suspend Hotkeys) and enable it afterwards.

Desktop 1: i7 2600k @4,3 GHz, RTX 4070 12GB, 16GB Ram, SSD + HDD, Win10 Pro 22H2, Wacom Bamboo
Desktop 2: i7 3770k @4,2 GHz, RTX 2060s 8GB, 16GB Ram, SSD + HDD, Win10 Home 22H2, Wacom Intuos 4

Latest Affinity V2 + Affinity V2 Beta

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