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Alt key interferes with other programs

11 REPLIES 11
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Message 1 of 12
davidd
2415 Views, 11 Replies

Alt key interferes with other programs

I'm running Design Review 2011 on Windows XP.

When Design Review is open, but it is NOT the active application, pressing the "Alt" key activates the menus in design review as if it were the active application. This happens approximately 75% of the time.

For example, with Design Review open and in the background, if I use "Alt-Tab" to switch between an email I'm typing and a spreadsheet, when I start typing, a small "F" button appears in the top-right of my screen and my typing does not register on screen. If I'm not paying attention and continue to type, I often end up using a combination of letters that matches one of the Design Review menu items, like "Alt-T-S", which opens the snapshot tool.

Pressing the escape key multiple times until the "F" button disappears allows me to continue with the active application, until the next time I need to press "Alt" to switch applications or access a menu or a shortcut.

I've attached a screen capture of the "F" button appearing over Internet Explorer. Yes, it happened again while I was working on this post.

Thanks for your help!!
-David
11 REPLIES 11
Message 2 of 12
hongji.li
in reply to: davidd

Thank you for reporting this issue.

I cannot reproduce this issue.

Please answer the following question for us to investigate in more detail:
1. Do all programs have this issue or just only IE?
2. Are the steps to reproduce this issue as follows? If not, please describe the steps for which you experience it.
1) Launch IE and open a webpage can type on it.
2) Launch Autodesk Design Review and load a .dwf file.
3) Press Alt + Tab key to switch to IE.
4) Type on webpage.

-Leon Li
ADR/DWF Custom Support


Leon Li
SQA Engineer
PSEB-GE-ACRD PSEB
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 3 of 12
davidd
in reply to: davidd

Leon Li,
Thank you for responding so quickly! I can't believe it's taken so long for me to reply... It's been a busy couple of weeks for me.

I only used IE as an example. I know this happens with Outlook, Excel, PDF-XChange Viewer & Windows Explorer. As far as I can recall it happens with any application.

This has been happening every day for several months. I have tried very hard to figure out a reliable way to reproduce it and have not been able to do so.

After opening Design Review following a reboot, it does not happen for a while, then out of the blue it starts.

Regards,
David
Message 4 of 12
davidd
in reply to: hongji.li

Hello.

 

Could someone take another look at this issue?  It's still happening.

 

One additional bit of info...  This has nothing to do with the Tab key.  It happens by only pressing Alt even while working in another program.

 

Thanks,

David

Message 5 of 12
dickyshu
in reply to: davidd

Hi,

 

I have reproduce this issue once, exactly under the same environment, Windows XP+ADR 2011. However, I cannot reproduce it anymore after that time.

 

Did this problem bother you more often? Did this problem enimilate after some operations? Is there any method for us to reproduce it?

If not, that is not easy for development team to investigate.

 

We will keep looking into the way to reproduce it.

 

Regadrs,

-Dicky

 

 



Dicky Shu
SQA Engineer
PSEB-GE-ACRD PSEB
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 6 of 12
davidd
in reply to: dickyshu

It's good to hear you were able to reproduce it once.  I'm very sorry, but I have not been able to determine a way to reproduce the problem.  It seems to start and stop randomly.  It was happening this morning, but not now.

 

BTW, I've upgraded to Design Review 2012 & TrueView 2012.  The problem still exists.  Dare I say, it seems it may have gotten worse.

 

Before the upgrade, I usually (though not always) only had to press the ESC key 1-2 times to deactivate the menus.  Now it seems every time, I have to press the key 5-10 times to make the little "F" disappear.

 

Do you need any further information about my system?

Message 7 of 12
davidd
in reply to: davidd

Not sure if this is a change in behavior or something I never noticed before.

 

Right now from any of my open applications (TrueView 2012, Outlook 2010, Excel 2010, OneNote 2010, PDF Exchange Viewer), if I press & release the ALT key, the little "F" (from one of the open Design Review sessions) pops up and the File menu item of the active application is also highlighted.  If I press ALT again, the "F" goes away as does the menu of the application.  (It toggles on/off)

 

As far as I know in the past, pressing ALT again would not deactive the little "F".

 

While the little "F" is showing, any key presses are activating Design Review menus in the background just like in my earlier description.  For example, pressing ALT, then T, then S from any open application opens the Design Review screen capture utility.

 

Have fun!

Message 8 of 12
dickyshu
in reply to: davidd

Be able to reproduce it on ADR 2012 one time just for the first run as new installed application.

Then cannot reproduce it even I reinstall ADR 2012.

 

Still keep an eye on the methods to reproducing.

Will get back once we found it.

 

Thanks,

-Dicky



Dicky Shu
SQA Engineer
PSEB-GE-ACRD PSEB
Autodesk, Inc.

Message 9 of 12
davidd
in reply to: dickyshu

I appreciate your efforts!

Message 10 of 12
davidd
in reply to: davidd

Hello again!

 

In the last week, I have installed DesignReview 2012 on two computers, both with this same result.  (See previous posts.)

 

The first was a temporary laptop I was using while my laptop was being refreshed.  The temporary laptop is also a Lenovo, but the model is a T41.  It is running XP.  It had an older version of DR without TrueView installed.  I updated to the latest version of DR & installed TrueView, including the web viewer.

 

The second is my refreshed laptop (Lenovo T400).  Clean install (formatted hard drive) of XP from the OEM image preload.  Loaded the latest version of DR & installed TrueView, including the web viewer.

 

Other software installed:

MS Office 2010 Standard (was running 2007 before)

MS Visio 2010

MS Project 2010

MS Lync

Tracker Software PDF-XChange 4

IE8

Chrome

Firefox 7

Cisco VPN Client

Lenovo/Thinkvantage Tools (10-12 different apps)

Not much else besides typical stuff that comes w/ Windows.

Message 11 of 12

Hello, has there been a resolution for this?

I am having this same issue 12 years later... 

Windows 10, Autodesk Design Review

Message 12 of 12
sheevpickle
in reply to: davidd

The problem arises when Design Review is open but not actively in focus; pressing the "Alt" key sporadically triggers the application's menus as if it were the active window, disrupting my workflow. This occurs approximately 75% of the time and often leads to unintended menu selections, especially when I'm typing in another program. To regain control, I have to press the Escape key repeatedly until a small "F" button disappears from the screen.

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