Minimizing ID from the keyboard? (Strange...)

[Andy_Fielding@adobeforums.com]

This may seem like a relatively small thing---and it probably is, but:

Why doesn't InDesign CS respond to the normal Windows keyboard shortcut for activating the control menu?

I'm referring to the small menu in every normal Windows app-window, which you can also activate by clicking the icon at the left end of the title bar.

Specifically, this menu contains the Minimize command, which unthinkingly I use about 10,000 times each day. Except, as I've mentioned, ID doesn't let you. It's the only windowed Windows app I've ever seen that didn't.

I just wondered: Was that an oversight? Or is it Adobe doing their let's-show-everyone-how-different-we-are-from-Microsoft thing? (Which isn't necessarily bad, mind you---though it can be, shall we say, unexpected.)

And is there another way to minimize ID from the keyboard?

Wonderingly, Andy

[Uwe_Rottkamp@adobeforums.com]

> And is there another way to minimize ID from the keyboard?

Most comfortable to me, I set-up one of the additional keys of my
5-key-mouse (MS-Intellimouse optical) to "minimize" the selected programm.
So just one click minimizes any activ programm - extremly useful to my kind
of work.

Uwe

[Mike_Williams@adobeforums.com]

"Alt-spacebar, n"

The "alt-spacebar" activates the menu, and "n" minimizes the app.

I learned this keyboard shortcut some time back, and use it dozens of times a day. AFAIK, it always works. (Now watch me find 5 places today where it fails!)

[J.R._Sanford@adobeforums.com]

Here's what works for me in InDesign® CS and 2.0.2. I press the Windows® key + M to minimize and Windows® key + Shift + M to Maximize.

Make sure your Edit > keyboard shortcuts are set to "Default". Maybe you assigned your Minimize keystrokes to mean something else.

Hope this helps.

J.R.

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Here's what works for me in InDesign® CS and 2.0.2. I press the Windows®
key + M to minimize and Windows® key + Shift + M to Maximize.




This minimizes and maximizes all applications windows simultaneously, not just ID.

All of these keyboard shortcuts are Windows, not ID, functions.

=-= Harron =-=

[Andy_Fielding@adobeforums.com]

Hi everybody,

Thanks for the generous selection of replies.

Mike Williams> "Alt-spacebar, n"... The "alt-spacebar" activates the menu,
and "n" minimizes the app.




Yes, that's exactly the shortcut I was referring to. And no, it doesn't work in ID CS.

Try it. Instead of activating the Windows control menu, it temporarily activates ID's Hand tool.

I know what you're saying: "But I thought I could do that by pressing Alt (in text mode) or Spacebar (in select mode)." And yes, you're right. But Adobe also lets you press Alt+Spacebar to show the Hand tool in either of those modes. This is presumably a consideration for its older users who can't remember which mode they're in at the moment. :?P

As a result, there is apparently no way to minimize ID CS from the keyboard. (I'd be glad to be wrong, of course; that's why I started this thread.)

ID is the only Windows app I've seen that did this. After years of using this shortcut, I must now reprogram myself to grope for the mouse every time I want to minimize ID's window. Quite silly.

Uwe Rottkamp> Most comfortable to me, I set-up one of the additional keys
of my 5-key-mouse (MS-Intellimouse optical) to "minimize" the selected
programm.





Great! I'll email you my phone number so you can convince my wife to let me buy one. ;?)

J.R. Sanford> I press the Windows® key + M to minimize and Windows® key
+ Shift + M to Maximize.




As Harron mentioned, that minimize all windows. It's great for viewing the desktop, but I'd just like to minimize ID (to see the windows behind it).

Harron K. Appleman> All of these keyboard shortcuts are Windows, not ID,
functions.




Exactly. That's why a properly-written Windows app would not mess with them.

I think it may have been an oversight. Adobe does occasionally tinker with standard Windows GUI conventions (sometimes, it seems, just to say, "Look, we're doing this differently from Microsoft"). But I can't believe they'd intentionally thwart such basic window-handling, especially for the sake of such a redundant in-program shortcut (which, by the way, you cannot customize).

Well, if anyone finds a way around this, I'll be grateful.

Cheers, Andy

[Uwe_Rottkamp@adobeforums.com]

Andy,

> Yes, that's exactly the shortcut I was referring to. And no, it doesn't

work in ID CS.

> Try it. Instead of activating the Windows control menu, it temporarily

activates ID's Hand tool.

works fine here (CS). Remember to press Altkey and then the spacebar, not
both together.

Uwe

[Andy_Fielding@adobeforums.com]

From the ID CS Help (Keyboard Shortcuts > "Keys for selecting tools"):

[Tool]





Temporarily selects Hand tool





[Windows Action]





Spacebar (Layout mode), Alt (Text mode), or Alt+Spacebar (both)




I have no idea why that doesn't happen on your system---and I'd love it if it didn't on mine. Anyone else care to contribute?

[Mike_Williams@adobeforums.com]

Andy--

I stand corrected (and as shocked and dismayed as you are). My copy of ID CS does the same thing yours does.

FWIW, after I posted my first comment, I *did* remember a program--Photoshop 7--where the shortcut didn't work with any consistency that I could discern. Photoshop CS and Illustrator CS appear to be the same way.

Here's hoping for a fix.

[Andy_Fielding@adobeforums.com]

Of course, Adobe may have figured that ID CS was such a fabulous app, we wouldn't want to minimize it. ;?)