Purpose of underscore for menuitems

General
1

I have noticed in some apps on Windows, when you press the alt key it puts an underscore under certain characters in menu items. What is the purpose of this?

Thanks

2

Its an 'accelerator key. For example Alt-X quit, Alt-S Save etc. You can set the same in a control by placing the & before the letter you want ‘underscored’ when setting the caption on a control.

3

Press and hold ALT , then pressing that letter activates the menu item.

The fact that you now have to press the key to SEE that the letter is useful , is yet another questionable decision made in the Windows OS over the last few years. (Its now a user configurable setting, defaulting to what I consider the least useful setting)

Those who grew up with Windows 3 onwards grew used to knowing what the keyboard shortcuts were because you dropped a menu down and there the shortcuts were…

OT:
I have similar issues with the ‘hide extensions for known file types’ option for Explorer.
Causes no end of confusion when you have a folder holding two files with the same name but different extensions (CSV and XLS for example)
And when trying to rename a file by giving it a new extension.

4

Ah I see. They have made something similar for the ribbon controls.
Thanks

5

[quote=55455:@Oliver Scott-Brown]Ah I see. They have made something similar for the ribbon controls.
Thanks[/quote]
I may find myself using this functionality in Windows. I have been too scared to touch the & symbol because I did not see the purpose for this underscore.

6

[quote=55452:@Jeff Tullin]Press and hold ALT , then pressing that letter activates the menu item.

The fact that you now have to press the key to SEE that the letter is useful , is yet another questionable decision made in the Windows OS over the last few years. (Its now a user configurable setting, defaulting to what I consider the least useful setting)[/quote]

Yep

The whole point of the underscore is to have an overview of letters you can hit to select a menu item at a glance and quickly memorize them, hiding the underscores until you hit alt as a default setting is retarded.