Spacebar activates menus

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
September 16, 2020
4 replies
6836 views

Hello hello!!! I am thinking this might be a Windows thing, not sure, but it's frustrating.

75% of the time, if I hit the spacebar to stop playback and edit, it just keeps on rolling and does drop-down menus instead.

Anyone else?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Black Ghost Audio

Participant

You're accidentally hitting [Alt]+[Spacebar]. The default Windows key command to open the menu bar in programs like Premiere is [Alt]+[Spacebar], which is why you won't be able to override this behavior using Premiere's Keyboard Shortcuts interface.

Here's the workaround that I use, pulled from this article:

Download Autohotkey and install it.

Create a new file in Notepad or your default editor and insert these two lines:

; it allows to make a rule which is applied only when windows contains the given title
SetTitleMatchMode, 2 

; obviously below you write the title that is contained in your program's window 
#IfWinActive, Kdenlive
!Space::Return ; ! stands for Alt key

Save it somewhere easy to access, as Whatever.ahk (and not as .txt)
Double click on it (or Run as Administrator) and it will trigger AutoHotkey, executing and loading the program. Now the [Alt]+[Spacebar] hotkey does not call the Windows default action.
Add this program to your startup programs so you don't need to manually run it at startup.

B

BrandonPax8

Inspiring

Can't imagine doing that, but you never know. I'll keep an eye out for that errant Alt key - hitting certainly would pull down a menu, so maybe?

B

BrandonPax8

Inspiring

Well, it's 2022 and just to follow up - this is not a preferences thing or hitting Alt or anything like that. It happens in various programs such as Audition and Premiere.

You hit Space to pause/play and it pulls down a menu instead, wrecking your carefully timed edit point.

Am I the only one?

G

gerardw25826685

Participant

Check your Keyboard shortcuts.

Go to drop down menu EDIT >keyboard shortcuts> when the keyboard menu opens highlight the Space bar. At the bottom to the right it will show what's assigned to that key of your keyboard. See if there is any command prompt to activate a drop down menu. I had an issue with ctl+v pasting to an untargeted track. It turned out the was a prompt in the keyboard shortcuts menu that was causing the issue. Deleted that prompt and it worked.

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BrandonPax8

Inspiring

If you cannot nail down what's happening on the Windows side to cause this, use L to start playback and K to stop it instead of Spacebar.

Thanks for the idea - I'll keep it mind.

I think I've just learned to live around it thus far since nothing seems to work.

MyerPj

Community Expert

FWIW: Make sure you don't have an errant ALT key press in there, the two keys right next to the spacebar. That activates the menu, and the space bar would then open the default menu. That works in the browser also but not when editing a reply.