P: Shortcuts using Alt key aren't working correctly (e.g. Alt-Backspace)

I face the same issue with both a pre fall creators windows and a system with it already installed.

Thank you David for the eye opener. Yikes. you need someone to write a program to run the test and compare the results someway to know that every keystroke combo works. 

Not whiny at all David! Thanks for the reply 🙂
As someone who have at least a little bit of experience with game QA (*shudder* network testing brr), I know what an monumental and often thankless job it is.
If we can assist in testing in any way too, just let us know, and I'm glad to help!

It's somehow sad to see that some individuals manage to build up so much pressure on you,  that you feel the need to justify yourself.
While I'm partially in agreement, that this issue shouldn't have happened at all, I, and I'm sure many others, totally get that it still can happen.I'm looking forward to finally be able to use V19.0 soon.

Is the Pre-Release Version instanced from the regular Photoshop installation?If so, I would be happy to participate.
BestMastey

@5734194... I feel your pain and admire your restraint. Rather than 'leaving the room' I just employ my full arsenal of Nerf balls and slingshots so they leave my room 😉

Getting this level of information is certainly informative and appreciated.  I know software testing takes time, bugs can be introduced by fixes, one thing can break the next, etc.  I'm aware of all that.  The only thing I take issue with regarding your explanation is that I feel that I could "test drive" any version of Photoshop within an hour and discover whether or not the major tools and functions are broken.  Every last filter, every last key combo, every single scenario - no, definitely not.  But just basic functionality like filling with a color?  Yeah, I encountered this bug within 5 minutes of using CC2018, and I find it very difficult to grasp that anyone using Photoshop under simulated "real world" conditions would miss this.

 I haven't even mentioned the bug I've discovered with leading/line spacing in the Character panel - that's annoying as well but not like this one.  Adobe's business direction the last 5 years or so has colored much of what I have to say on the matter, but putting all that aside - the source of my immense frustration about this Alt-keystroke issue is the extremely basic nature of this function. That is what makes it so unbelievable that it was missed.  But anyway, thanks for your candor on the matter, it's much more than we usually get on a software forum.

Howdy Julie, Ursula, and John,

You should get an email today.  I was offline last night to bring my toddler trick-or-treating...

As for testing the shortcuts, well, I'd like to share with everyone just a glimpse of how it works.

I think I did about a full day's testing.  Now, that might sound like a lot -- eight hours should be more than plenty to find this, right? -- but if you keep in mind that the average US keyboard has 101 keys, 42 of which are valid for ALL shortcuts and 25+ more for certain ones, with three different modifiers (CNTRL, ALT, and SHIFT) and that Mac has one more (CMD) and that if I had ten seconds to set and test just the universal shortcut combinations only, an English-only pass over the application would take more than three weeks (42 x [3+2+1+1]+[4+3+2+1+1] *10 / 60*8*5).  And that's just customizable menu commands -- that doesn't include panels, tools, hardcoded, or undocumented shortcuts, many of which require putting the app in a particular state to verify.  Heck, those three weeks would NOT have caught this particular combo, since Backspace is one of the "sometimes valid" keys...!  Now, add the seven completely different writing systems we support (usually via 102 keyboards!) as well as the other 19 languages (and don't forget to double it to check both OSes), and well, I believe it comes out to more like nearly two solid years doing nothing else (it should be a lot more, actually, but many European languages have the very similar layouts, so they can be skipped/grouped)...and I still haven't even included checking a single non-English version of the application yet...those numbers are just with the US app and non-English hardware...=8-O

Now, the logical follow up question is, why didn't I find this particular high-traffic issue, other than I squeezed all that into an eight hour day?  Well, it might have been introduced after my pass or that I do tend to press CNTRL, then SHIFT, then ALT when using a right-handed mouse...but that's MY workflow process.

And that's where prerelease comes in.  We do rely on those testers to try what we can't due to logistic/scalability limitations -- to experiment with their workflows and processes.  But, unfortunately, not one of them found this either.  Nor did any of the testers who validate our localized versions.

Rereading my message, it sounds like I'm being defensive or whiny -- I'm not trying to be -- I know I do good work.  My goal is to illuminate and personalize the process for you.  Insight usually leads to understanding.  Yes, this was a serious bug and I'm sure it would have annoyed the heck out of me if I had run into it, but we ABSOLUTELY did not ship it on purpose.  I fully agree with and appreciate John Maguire's comment about catching bugs -- Photoshop is actually a pretty massive and complicated application and as a result, it's quite possible for the unintended consequences of fixing a bug to trigger or create another one.  In fact, in retrospect, I believe that might have been what happened here.  And it's for that precise reason that dot releases take time -- the last thing in the world we want is to make the situation worse by rushing out a fix that includes new bugs.

Does that make sense?

Again, sorry for the problem and please believe that we are actively working on a solution.  In the future, you can be part of that process via prerelease.  Emails are on their way...8-)
Thanks,
David

p.s. -- full disclosure: The machine I'm typing this post on still has my 102 Turkish-layout keyboard connected that I was using for testing shortcuts (I touch type, so I don't look at the keys when I'm writing in English).

I think it's more that it's just not important to some people's workflow.  I was ranting to the other graphics guy I work with about how ridiculous it is that this issue could be overlooked.  I told him that Alt-Backspace was broken and he just shrugged and said "what does that do?"  I rolled my eyes and asked "how do you even fill stuff in Photoshop?"  And he replied that he uses the Paint Bucket.   I nearly had to leave the room.

It has absolutely nothing to do with that.  I am on Windows 7 at work.

Am beginning to wonder if the alt+backspace problem may have something to do with the latest windows update. Could it be something in the Fall creators update. I myself have it and Alt+backspace doesn't work. Just a thought!

Am wondering if the people that it does work for don't have the update yet?