Dear All,

We use UE on Windows and Linux at the same time for different projects.

What struck me the most is that the shortcuts on Linux are not the same as on Windows (nor as described here UltraEdit Keyboard Shortcuts).

This is quite frustrating as it breaks our habits. For example search->Find Prev is Ctrl+F3 on Windows but Shift+F3 on Linux. Another example, the wrod wrap is Alt+X on Windows and Ctrl/Alt+X on Linux.

Is this normal ?

On Windows we use UE 17.00.0.1025 and on Linux we use 4.0.0.7

Many thanks in advance,

Paul

Paul wrote:For example search->Find Prev is Ctrl+F3 on Windows but Shift+F3 on Linux.

I'm a user like you and therefore just write what I think are the reasons for the differences. I'm using only UltraEdit for Windows.

UltraEdit for Windows has a 19 year old history. UE was already available for Windows 3.1 before Microsoft defined for Windows 95 common shortcuts for common commands. Most of the shortcuts of common commands have not changed since I used UltraEdit the first time (more than 10 years ago). Also there are differences between Windows and Linux as you can see on Keyboard Shortcuts.

Find Previous is not a common command on Windows and therefore there is no common shortcut for this command on Windows. Shift+F3 is the common shortcut for command Find Previous as you can see on the referenced page. In UltraEdit for Windows the combination of Shift plus Find Next or Find Previous has a special meaning. It results in creating or updating (mostly expanding) a selection from current position of the caret to next / previous occurrence of found string. So F3 just finds next occurrence and Shift+F3 finds next occurrence with making a selection. And Ctrl+F3 just finds previous occurrence and Ctrl+Shift+F3 finds previous occurrence with making a selection. I don't know if this Find + Select feature is also available in UEX.

Paul wrote:Another example, the wrod wrap is Alt+X on Windows and Ctrl/Alt+X on Linux.

The standard shortcut in English UltraEdit for Windows is Ctrl+W for command Edit - Toggle Word-Wrap. As Alt+ letter works as mnemonic key for the menus in main menu on Windows, there is only Alt+C for toggling column mode predefined in uedit32.exe. If you are also using English version of UltraEdit, Alt+X is definitely already a custom key assignment.

In UltraEdit for Windows you can very easily find out what is a custom assignment and what is standard. Open Advanced - Configuration - Key Mapping and click on button Show key mapping in editor. close the configuration dialog with Cancel and make a Save As on the file created by UltraEdit. Save it to any directory for example with name UE_Shortcuts_custom.txt. Now exit UltraEdit and open in Windows Explorer the directory %appdata%\IDMComp\UltraEdit. If there was at least 1 custom key assignment, you will find in this directory a file named uedit32.uek. Rename this file to something different. Then start UltraEdit, open again the key mapping configuration dialog, press again on button Show key mapping in editor, cancel the configuration dialog, save the file as UE_Shortcuts_default.txt and exit UltraEdit. Rename the *.uek file back to uedit32.uek to get your custom key assignments back. Start UltraEdit, open the two files from recent files list and compare them.

Mofi,

Thanks for the answer. This provides some nice background info.

I'm also using UltraEdit for a long time now. But, as a general rebuke, I still doubt the fact that applications should harmonize their menu to the OS they are running on (especially because they all do it in their own manner adding even more granularity). For example take Eclipse : you can use it on one OS you can use it on all. Another example very little applications have the same "Goto Line" shortcuts regardless of the OS they run on.

To me it is the other way, the application should provide you an abstraction layer. I wouldn't like it when my Chrome changes my shortcuts when I swap from one OS to the other. A metaphoric way of putting things would be (programming) languages : you can do the same in php and java but it is written differently and it is OS independent. Would you expect VisualStudio and Eclipse to have the same menu and shortcuts on Windows ?

Thanks,

Paul

While I agree that it would be nice to have a program use the same shortcuts across all OSes, not everyone feels the same. There are a number of Mac users that if the shortcuts in place aren't the standard shortcuts for other programs on a Mac, then they get quite angry about it and complain about them not getting a square deal. Some Linux users are the same way.

What I feel should be available, however, is the following scenario (which perhaps some people will decide to request this from IDM for future versions). It would not be difficult to implement.

• Each OS version should have its own shortcuts that reflect the OS it is run on.
• There should be a configuration option to switch to shortcuts to match a different OS, so that someone running on multiple OSes can standardize the way they work on each one, say, matching all three to the Linux shortcuts, or matching all 3 to the Windows shortcuts, or whatever.

My thoughts. Worth about 1/4 cup of coffee on a good day (already brewed, not the grounds or beans.)

I agree with rhapdog. I'm using UltraEdit only on Window. I'm not using any other operating system like most likely the majority of the UltraEdit users. All users using UltraEdit only on one operating system most likely want that the common commands having the shortcuts which other applications on same operating system have to.

A built-in list of default shortcuts for Windows, Linux and Mac from which a user can select in key mapping configuration dialog would be fine for those UltraEdit users using UE on multiple platforms. So you should send a feature request email to IDM support. In the meantime you can customize the key mapping in all your UltraEdit to get same shortcuts on all platforms.

rhapdog, Mofi,

I would be definitively convinced by some shortcuts template for each OS that I could import whenever I want. If I understand correctly what me miss would be something like 'export current shortcuts settings'. We do it once on all OS, then bundle the config files in the UltraEdit installation directory.

I will send a feature request.

Thanks,

Paul