Panel keyboard shortcuts totally fail if panel is minimized

[jackbrannen_pl]

Adobe, this bug is easy to reproduce and has been documented for years.

Can we please get a speedy fix?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

You mean like F5 for layers - if I remember correctly? 

Works perfectly fine for me on Windows - in all versions of InDesign - and never had a problem with that. 

What is your platform, OS and InDesign versions? 

[jackbrannen_pl]

@Robert at ID-Tasker Thank you, no, I'm referring to Panel Menu keyboard shortcuts.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

To open this specific dialog box? 

[jackbrannen_pl]

@Robert at ID-Tasker No, when a keyboard shortcut is assigned to a Panel Menu command. For example, from my screenshot, a keyboard shortcut assigned to "Assignment: Check In."

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Don't most of these require interaction with panel elements, such as files and components that need to be selected before the command has a context? Even if there is only one, I can see the UI logic needing the 'target' specified for the command execution.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@James Gifford—NitroPress

Elements on the list with "..." at the end are Dialogs - the rest are "single" commands.

[jackbrannen_pl]

@James Gifford—NitroPress Thanks for your question. I'm playing around with this, and actually while I thought it was a lot of keyboard commands, maybe the only one is the Relink command from the Links panel. This should work if the linked object is selected on a page. No need for the Links panel to be open.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@jackbrannen_pl

Yes, not all commands will work - if conditions are not meet - in most case - no or wrong selection.

[Dirk Becker]

@James Gifford—NitroPress is right.

Beyond scripting, the callback methods for the menu actions receive a pointer "widget" to the related widget, and work their way down to determine the actually referenced object. Another considered parameter is the mouse location, e.g. for a layout hit-test.

UpdateActionStates() is the equivalent to "beforeDisplay" - check/uncheck, enable/disable or rename the action. DoAction() is "onInvoke".

If the action is tied to a panel, it may look up the selection of the panel's listbox - that can even allow for multiple selected items.

This works beyond the panel selection: you can directly hit an unselected list item with a context menu click (passing the list item as widget) and address that instead of the panel's selection.

Think about panels where you can have multiple instances - library, book.

[Dirk Becker]

In other words, a "speedy fix" would have to consider and modify each action.

Specify the particular action "check out" and tell what it is supposed to address. When the panel is minimized or closed (so there is no in-panel selection), should it address the selection? If so, differentiate by selection type - text selection in galley view or within the notes panel, xml item in structure view, empty selection in the layout window, could mean all. Do you really mean that, or would a "check-out" across the entire document be undesirable?

Furthermore, actions are scriptable, not only the scripting-backed actions. You can find them by ID.. You can look at them for their name which may refer to the targeted item, and also to their enabling, you can even invoke them. If you change semantics of the action, you may break things somewhere.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Dirk Becker

I think you've gone way too far 😉

[jackbrannen_pl]

@Dirk Becker @Robert at ID-Tasker Okay—since I've reeled in some experts!—any way you guys know to activate that relink command without the panel being open? (It also fails from the Quick Apply palette, btw.) If I colud get that one working, I'd be pretty happy.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

A script to pop the pane open, execute the relink, close the pane?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

A script to pop the pane open, execute the relink, close the pane?

By @James Gifford—NitroPress

Normal scripts can't interact with contents of the dialog box. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I've list of ALL menu actions - approx 2000 - and dialogs in my tool:

But for dialogs - most of the times they just "blink" and nothing happens - kind of if you would press ESC key.

Although some dialogs will "block" even my tool:

[Dirk Becker]

Thanks for bringing up Quick apply, I missed that. Neat opportunity for a crashing bug - the widget pointer is NULL in that case.

@jackbrannen_pl While it is possible to attach scripts to native actions, I'd refrain from that because the particular action is complicated.

Please open another thread "Relink script" for the particular purpose and add the scripting tag. Describe how a script should work - e.g. we can look at the native action and trigger that if enabled, but for the case of the closed palette, we'd start from the selection.

Also think about some edge cases: Your selection holds a group of 10 images, or 3 images individually, one of them with a bad link state. What should happen. Or, there is also a text frame. Relink that (different link kind), or better only the anchored images within?