microsoft / microsoft/terminal

the Terminal's system menu (alt+space) doesn't have keyboard accelerators

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#15,726 9 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
Area-Windowing Help Wanted Issue-Bug Product-Terminal
Dominant language
C++
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

### Windows Terminal version

-

### Windows build number

-

### Other Software

-

### Steps to reproduce

run it

### Expected Behavior

I intentionally categorize this as a bug, not as a feature request.
Windows has had comprehensive keyboard navigation for more than two decades.
I do not know what happened, but recently everything is gone.
Open a context menu, no shortcuts. They take longer to appear, do fancy animations or whatever, but they are unusable without the mouse.
Same deal with this disaster here.
Try to use it without a mouse. Try to use *all* of it without a mouse and you will understand.

conhost: alt-space, `Properties` and `P` is underlined. It has a shortcut.
wt: alt-space, there is a `Settings` entry, but no shortcut. Why.

conhost: ctrl-tab, cycle through various settings tabs, as fast as the keyboard can send keypresses.
wt: we use tab. It changes the focus of the item selected. Tab to go down to the list of categories. Categories do not change: one must press return. _Okay_. Startup, press down, press enter, see "Interaction" tab. Press down, press enter, see "Appearance" tab. ... Where did the focus just go? Oh look, at the _bottom of the window_ a new button has appeared. Now you have to hold up to get focus back where it should have been. _Okay_. Press enter on "Color schemes". Now focus has gone _in_ the tab contents? Why? Escape does not go up the hierarchy. Did 4 shift-tab to get back at the list.
'Actions'. Moving focus up-down shows the pencil button, but there is no way to actually activate it. You _have_ to use the mouse button. I mashed my entire keyboard. Nothing at all happened. The only two keys that do something are 'up' and 'down'.
No idea why we must, but we click the mouse. It's like I'm playing diablo all over again.

conhost: alt-space, p, ctrl-tab (as needed), press a letter/digit or alt+letter/digit and you've accessed or changed any available setting immediately. _Any_ configuration option available to the user is 4(min) 8(max) keypresses away.

I'm not gonna sugarcoat it.
Your efforts and the sheer amount of work you have put are both astounding
But you are focusing so hard on features and fanciness that you've completely ignored _usability_
Keyboard navigation is _not_ something you can tack-on after the fact. Yes, I see the Actions list. That, is not keyboard navigation.
Thank you for your time.

### Actual Behavior

Impossible to use without a mouse.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reproducing the Terminal system menu with Alt+Space and compare its keyboard behavior with conhost, especially the missing accelerator for Settings. Done should include usable keyboard accelerators and keyboard-only navigation for the menu and settings interactions described in the report.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
accessibility, desktop
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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