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    Disable menu activation for a shortcut.

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    • Steve KingS
      Steve King
      last edited by

      Hello Notepad++ folks,

      How do I unmap or otherwise prevent a shortcut from activating a menu?

      For example, I mapped Alt-L to delete line. My shortcut works (line is deleted), but also activates the “Language” menu, which I do not want.

      Thanks in advance for the help.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • guy038G
        guy038
        last edited by guy038

        Hello, @steve-king,

        Ah, yes, the Alt + Letter shortcuts are, usually, associated with the some choices of the menu bar !

        To change these default shortcuts :

        • Close any instance of Notepad++

        • Localize the english_customizable.xml file, in the localization folder, under :

          • The installation folder of Notepad++.exe, for a local installation, with the zero-length file doLocalConf.xml

          • The folder %AppData%\Roaming\Notepad++, in case of installation, with the installer, on a W7, W8 or W10 machine

          • The folder %AppData%\Notepad++, in case of installation, with the installer, on a Win XP or Vista machine

        • At beginning of that file, in the <Entries> section, change the line :

        <Item menuId="language" name="&amp;Language"/>
        

        by, for instance, this one :

        <Item menuId="language" name="Lan&amp;guage"/>
        
        • Save the changes of english_customizable.xml file

        • Re-start Notepad++

        • Choice the option Settings > Preferences... > General > Localization

        • Select the language English (customizable)

        • Click on the Close button

        => From now on, you’ll have to hit the shortcut Alt + G, to select the Language menu ! … and no more conflict with your Alt + L shortcut :-D

        Best Regards,

        guy038

        Victorel PetrovichV 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • Scott SumnerS
          Scott Sumner
          last edited by Scott Sumner

          @guy038 ,

          Very nice–I didn’t know these type of key combinations could be reassigned, or even REMOVED entirely (just delete the “&” part completely instead of moving it to another selection of the menu word). But it makes sense as you could change the File menu text to say “Panda” (or whatever) if you wanted, and there is no “F” in that!

          One thing I did try was to NOT close and restart Notepad++…and it works just fine this way. Even though I already had “English (customizable)” selected in the dropdown in the Preferences, all I had to do was drop down the menu like I was going to change AWAY from “English (customizable)”, but then actually just reselect it. After that any changes made to the english_customizable.xml file take effect.

          Scott SumnerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • Scott SumnerS
            Scott Sumner @Scott Sumner
            last edited by Scott Sumner

            @Scott-Sumner

            Oops. It appears that if you remove &amp; entirely from the text of a menu item, the original Alt-based keycombo will still work (Alt+F in the case of File, Alt+L in the case of Language, etc), even though there will be no underline of that letter when the “File Edit Search…” menu is activated by pressing and releasing Alt alone. :(

            In the earlier post, where I said & it should have been &amp; I didn’t check the markdown. :(

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • Steve KingS
              Steve King
              last edited by

              I also removed the &amp; completely, and trying to diagnose why I still saw default behavior was driving me crazy. I ended up just adding &amp;_ to the end of each menu item.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • Victorel PetrovichV
                Victorel Petrovich @guy038
                last edited by

                @guy038 doesn’t work anymore… Tried both deleting and moving a bit that &amp; thing.

                Alan KilbornA mkupperM Victorel PetrovichV 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Alan KilbornA
                  Alan Kilborn @Victorel Petrovich
                  last edited by

                  @Victorel-Petrovich said in Disable menu activation for a shortcut.:

                  doesn’t work anymore… Tried both deleting and moving a bit that & thing.

                  It DOES work; suspect that you just did something wrong so that it didn’t work for YOU.

                  Alan KilbornA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • mkupperM
                    mkupper @Victorel Petrovich
                    last edited by

                    @Victorel-Petrovich said in Disable menu activation for a shortcut.:

                    @guy038 doesn’t work anymore… Tried both deleting and moving a bit that & thing.

                    It works but without more details from you it’s hard to provide constructive feedback.

                    One bit of good news is that you don’t need to exit/restart Notepad++. That may have been needed in the year 2017 when this thread was started but is not needed in newer versions. You still need to do the other step with selecting your language in Preferences / General / Language but can even select the same language you are already using. Just move the selection up or down a line and then back. You will see the screen repaint and update.

                    Try adding extra letters or digits to a menu item. For example, append a digit so that you have <Item menuId="language" name="&amp;Language 1"/>. When you select the language in Preferences you should immediately see Language 1 in the menu line. It will show up the instant you move the language selector thing to the row for the language file you are making changes to.

                    Alan KilbornA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • Alan KilbornA
                      Alan Kilborn @mkupper
                      last edited by

                      @mkupper said in Disable menu activation for a shortcut.:

                      That may have been needed in the year 2017

                      It hasn’t been true since at least 2015 (the year I started using N++).

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • Victorel PetrovichV
                        Victorel Petrovich @guy038
                        last edited by Victorel Petrovich

                        This post is deleted!
                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • Victorel PetrovichV
                          Victorel Petrovich @guy038
                          last edited by Victorel Petrovich

                          @mkupper @Alan-Kilborn
                          With the Installer, the steps don’t work, at least on my system that is, if you mean to edit “english_customizable.xml” in the user’s “%AppData%\Notepad++”, according to documentation https://npp-user-manual.org/docs/binary-translation/,

                          Here’s the catch:
                          if I have “english_customizable.xml” ONLY in folder “localization” (created by me) in “%AppData%\Notepad++”, and not in (default) install directory, then there is no English (customizable) option in Settings -> Preferences -> General -> Localization.

                          On the other hand, if I have have “english_customizable.xml” in folder “localization” both in Install directory (either because I select that lang during installation, or added it later), and in my “%AppData%\Notepad++” one,
                          then yes, that option is present there, BUT: my edits in the local “english_customizable.xml” are not taken in consideration.
                          I have to edit the version in “installdir\localization” folder for it to have effect.

                          It behaves as if it looks for the localization folder only in install directory.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • Alan KilbornA
                            Alan Kilborn @Alan Kilborn
                            last edited by

                            @Alan-Kilborn said in Disable menu activation for a shortcut.:

                            It DOES work; suspect that you just did something wrong so that it didn’t work for YOU.

                            How about “in general, it does work”? :-)

                            There are apparently a lot of possible setups, and some of these I’m not an expert on and it looks like you’ve stumbled on a scenario that may have some issues.

                            I only use “portable” versions of Notepad++, so some others would have to comment on installed versions. Using only portable, editing the localization files and getting the program to recognize them has never presented any problem for me. But that’s all I can say.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • Victorel PetrovichV
                              Victorel Petrovich @Victorel Petrovich
                              last edited by Victorel Petrovich

                              I also should have been more specific than:

                              @guy038 doesn’t work anymore… Tried both deleting and moving a bit that & thing.

                              I guess I should submit an issue on github. Or maybe wait till somebody else confirms it, with Installer version.

                              Alan KilbornA PeterJonesP 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
                              • Alan KilbornA
                                Alan Kilborn @Victorel Petrovich
                                last edited by

                                @Victorel-Petrovich said in Disable menu activation for a shortcut.:

                                Or maybe wait till somebody else…

                                Unless I miss my guess you will hear from @PeterJones real soon about it.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • PeterJonesP
                                  PeterJones @Victorel Petrovich
                                  last edited by

                                  @Victorel-Petrovich said in Disable menu activation for a shortcut.:

                                  maybe wait till somebody else confirms it,

                                  I can confirm: if I do not have c:\program files\notepad++\localization directory but do have %AppData%\Notepad++\localization with english.xml and english_customizable.xml, when I start Notepad++ and check the Settings > Preferences > Localization, I cannot see any languages available.

                                  I should submit an issue on github

                                  If you do, please paste a link to the issue you create in this discussion, so that other interested users can find out the results of your issue. I personally am interested in whether the developers say “it’s always meant to be this way” (in which case, I need to update the documentation, because localization\ wasn’t in the list of directories that I knew were only meant to work in the <install_directory>)

                                  Victorel PetrovichV 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
                                  • Victorel PetrovichV
                                    Victorel Petrovich @PeterJones
                                    last edited by

                                    @PeterJones
                                    https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/13932

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                    • Tim ProninT
                                      Tim Pronin
                                      last edited by

                                      Thank God there is someone else who cares about this problem.
                                      The most annoying thing is when they start convincing you that the problem is with you, in Windows or somewhere else.
                                      The problem is only in Notepad, nowhere else. This really interferes with the nominal work.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                      • notdodgeballN
                                        notdodgeball
                                        last edited by

                                        Continuing the trend of the user is actually the problem, I have several custom Alt+something shortcuts and the menu bar options don’t interfere with them at all.

                                        It gets better, if I let go of the Alt key and then press the letter I can still use the menu bar shortcuts normally, as if I had pressed the F10 key to bring the focus to the menu bar, which would be my fallback option anyway.

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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