Accelerator keys

Accelerators keys are attributes defining the keyboard shortcuts for actions.

Keyboard accelerators can be defined at several level in the form files or in action defaults. You can define up to four accelerator keys for the same action in action defaults, by setting the acceleratorName, acceleratorName2, acceleratorName3 and acceleratorName4 attributes.

If no accelerators are defined in the action defaults, the runtime system sets default accelerators for predefined actions, according to the user interface mode. For example, the accept action will get the Return and Enter keys in GUI mode, but gets the Escape key in TUI mode.

Accelerators can also be defined in on the program in the attribute list of the ON ACTION interaction block.

If one of the user-defined actions uses an accelerator that would normally be used for a predefined action, the runtime system does not set that accelerator for the predefined action. For example (in GUI mode), if you define an ON ACTION quit with an action default using the accelerator "Escape", the "cancel" predefined action will not get the "Escape" default accelerator. In this case, user settings take precedence over defaults.

Text edition and navigation accelerators such as Home and End are usually local to the widget. According to the context, such accelerators might be eaten by the graphical widget and will not invoke the action bound to the corresponding accelerator defined in the action defaults. For example, even if the action defaults for the "firstrow" action defines the Home accelerator, when using an INPUT ARRAY, the Home key will jump to the beginning of the edit field, not the first row of the list.

If you want to force an action to have no accelerator, specify "none" as the accelerator name.

This table lists all the keyboard accelerator names:

Table 1. Keyboard accelerator names
Accelerator Name Description
none Special name indicating the runtime system must not set any default accelerator for the action.
0-9 Decimal digits from 0 to 9
A-Z Letters from A to Z
F1-F35 The functions keys
BackSpace The BACKSPACE key (do not confuse with DELETE key)
Delete The DELETE key (navigation keyboard group)
Down The DOWN key (arrow keyboard group)
End The END key (navigation keyboard group)
Enter The ENTER key (numeric keypad, see Note)
Escape The ESCAPE key
Home The HOME key (navigation keyboard group)
Insert The INSERT key (navigation keyboard group)
Left The LEFT key (arrow keyboard group)
Minus The MINUS sign key (-)
Next The NEXT PAGE key (navigation keyboard group)
Prior The PRIOR PAGE key (navigation keyboard group)
Return The RETURN key (alphanumeric keypad, see Note)
Right The RIGHT key (arrow keyboard group)
Space The SPACEBAR key
Tab The TABULATION Key
Up The UP key (arrow keyboard group)
Note: The "Enter" key represents the ENTER key available on the numeric keypad of standard keyboards, while "Return" represents the RETURN key of the alphanumeric keyboard. By default, the "accept" validation action is configured to accept both "Enter" and "Return" keys.