Esc in Task Manager

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warrenrh
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Sep 11, 2009 2:02 am

Esc in Task Manager

Post by warrenrh »

There is a user interface - key stroke that has bothered me.

In the Task Manager -- hitting the Esc key -- Cancels whatever task were selected. Cancel basically removes the item from the Task Manger. Similar to a delete type of action.

I usually see hitting an Esc key -- as a back me out of here function.... please don't perform what ever action you thought I was getting ready to ask for. <smile>

I wish that instead of using the Esc key to Cancel - you would assign another key stroke. Anybody else feel the same?
alex
Posts: 4514
Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2003 5:57 pm

Post by alex »

Noone complained about the key for many years.

From Wikipedia:

"...the escape key was appropriated by application programmers, most often to mean Stop. This use continues today in Microsoft Windows's use of escape as a shortcut in dialog boxes for No, Quit, Exit, Cancel, or Abort, as well as a common shortcut key for the Stop button in many web browsers."

It doesn't delete the headers, it just cancels/stops the action, and since there is no more task - the task disappears from the task manager, but headers are still there in newsgroups, you can mark the same headers for download again. Did you reassign the escape key in Windows, I think it is not possible.

Did it happen only just now? - you used the words "has bothered", it doesn't mean it will be a systematic issue.

The problem here also the keyboard customization is third party code and it takes precedence at least for within the main window, so some keys like the space key I hardcoded so it won't interfere e.g. with the edit controls, with the escape key may be some issue as well, the third party code catches keystrokes very early, also the code limitation is it doesn't allow to assign the same key to do different functions in different views.
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