| Dialog actions / Keyboard accelerator names | |
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:
| 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) |