When the layer dialog is selected and a single key is pressed, a text box comes up over the layer dialog and the letter you pressed is displayed in the box. I have not found a function for this box, and the small text box literally prevents any actions in the program while the text box is visible. It takes several seconds for the box to disappear and you cannot use the mouse or do anything until it leaves. There is no way that I have found to make the box disappear more quickly than it does on its own. The box hinders workflow considerably because when I need to change layers and I press the shortcut for a tool the textbox comes up. To prevent this I have to make sure I focus the main window before using any keyboard shortcuts. When the fill and stroke dialog is focused I have no issue with using keyboard shortcuts.
Example case:
Select tool is active.
Clicks the eye icon on the layer dialog to hide a given layer.
Presses the 'b' key to switch to bezier tool.
Instead a text box above the layer dialog pops up now containing the letter 'b'.
User curses loudly.
Windows 7 professional v6.1 build 7600
Inkscape 0.47 r22583
reproduced with Inkscape 0.47+devel r8958 on OS X 10.5.8
Happens often when working with layers (hide/show, lock/unlock, changing active layer...). Hitting <escape> twice returns the focus to the main window else any keyboard shortcut is caught by the dialog and not further processed. Changing the focus with a mouse click works of course but kind of defeats the purpose of using keyboard shortcuts ;)