Keyboard Accelerators

You've probably noticed that most menu items contain an underlined letter. In Visual C++ (and most other applications), pressing Alt-F followed by S activates the File Save menu item. This shortcut system is the standard Windows method of using the keyboard to choose commands from menus. If you look at an application's menu resource script (or the menu editor's properties dialog), you will see an ampersand (&) preceding the character that is underlined in each of the application's menu items.

Windows offers an alternative way of linking keystrokes to menu items. The keyboard accelerator resource consists of a table of key combinations with associated command IDs. The Edit Copy menu item (with command ID ID_EDIT_COPY), for example, might be linked to the Ctrl-C key combination through a keyboard accelerator entry. A keyboard accelerator entry does not have to be associated with a menu item. If no Edit Copy menu item were present, the Ctrl-C key combination would nevertheless activate the ID_EDIT_COPY command.

If a keyboard accelerator is associated with a menu item or toolbar button, the accelerator key is disabled when the menu item or button is disabled.