Enable jumping between menus using left-right arrow keys

[rootAvish]

If there is no sub-menu to a menu-entry, I would like to switch to the next menu when I press the left/right arrow keys. Also when I'm on the last nesting level in a sub-menu, I'd like to switch to the next main menu entry. If the said feature already exists it does not work for me on Ubuntu 14.04 using Atom version 0.187.0.

To clarify what I'm saying:

In the above scenario, I would like to be able to switch to the "Selection" menu when I press the right arrow key, other than when I press it on the "developer" menu-entry, which will open the sub-menu like it already does. However, inside the developer sub-menu also pressing the right arrow key does not take me to "Selection".

Another such issue is that once I've opened a menu with "alt+ ", say "View" with alt+V, I'm not able to open selection with "alt+S" unless I close the view menu first.

Thanks.

EDIT:- It's UbuntuMATE 14.04, so I'm in a MATE-desktop environment.

[mnquintana]

What shell are you using with Ubuntu? To your first issue, I can't reproduce this in Unity – pressing arrow keys switches between menus as expected.

The second issue is unrelated, but is consistent across all applications I tested on Unity, so that is not an Atom bug.

[rootAvish]

I'm using UbuntuMATE 14.04.

For the second issue: you're right, it does seem to be the case accross all third party applications I have installed. I'll edit the issue to reflect that. However, I tried the arrow keys in sublime text and Firefox, and they do switch menus as expected. Not in Atom though. So the arrow key issue is specific to Atom for me.

[izuzak]

Just wanted to mention that this works for me on OSX.

[mMerlin]

I am getting the same symptoms as the OP.

Left / right arrow keys do not change from one main (IE Edit <===> view) menu to the next. They will open/close, move in and out of submenus (IE: Edit <==> Edit/Lines)

Moving between main menus using arrow keys works for the Terminal program, so this does seem to be atom specific behaviour.

Environment info:
Fedora 21
Linux 3.18.9-200.fc21.i686 #1 SMP Mon Mar 9 15:48:51 UTC 2015 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
atom 0.187.0-abf368e

Installed Packages

# User
tabs-to-spaces, v0.8.1

# Dev
No dev packages

[mnquintana]

@mMerlin Are you running GNOME 3?

[mMerlin]

@mnquintana Yes,
$ gnome-shell --version
GNOME Shell 3.14.3

[jhasse]

It works on OS X and Unity, because there the menu isn't handled by Atom/Chromium but the Desktop Environment.

[kolAflash]

related bug:
#4057

[rootAvish]

I decided to give Atom a try again, but I'm afraid I'm having the same problem with Atom 1.0.5 on Windows 8.1. Have not tried it on Linux this time though. Thought I should let you guys know.

@kolAflash alt + {letter} does work for me. Would you possibly be having a workaround for the arrow keys as well?

/cc @mnquintana @izuzak

[kolAflash]

@rootAvish No, sorry. I don't have a workaround for that.

[manishmalik]

+1

[neojp]

👍

[stuaxo]

Same thing happens when running gnome-shell, seems like a pretty basic ommision for keyboard navigation.

[rootAvish]

@mnquintana Just want to say that this is still not fixed in the latest version for me.

[Ben3eeE]

@rootAvish Thanks for reporting back 🙇‍♂️ I have reopened the issue and added the Windows label because I can reproduce this on Windows as well.

I'm sorry that the bot closed the issue without also adding a warning comment. There is an open issue for this on the bots repository /cc: probot/stale#26

[stuaxo]

Every few months I will try atom, or something based on it like VS code, and then see this behaviour is still broken - next time I hit it, I will double check this ticket is still open.

[stuaxo]

Does anybody know where the code for menus + keyboard handling is ? Surely this isn't hard to fix.

[rootAvish]

Is this something that needs to be fixed in Electron itself?

[daviwil]

This is indeed an issue with Electron as it implements its own menu system instead of using the native OS menu behavior. You can read more about it here: electron/electron#2504.

I can also reproduce this issue on Windows with both Atom and VS Code so it's definitely not specific to Atom or Linux.

[asdf23]

I get the same issue in Fedora 28+ and in Windows 9 (sorry 10 forgot that they skipped 9 due to there genius)

[areographe]

hey, same issue w/ atom 1.45.0 on manjaro cinnamon. should i open another bug on electron? this one seems to be closed w/o having been fixed electron/electron#2504

[stuaxo]

People in the other bug mention it being an accessibility issue.

Maybe a way to raise visibility would be to add a PR for their accessibility docs, for blind people mentioning that Alt to show menu shortcuts doesn't work and left / right navigation is not implemented either.