"Alt" keycodes used twice in german translation

[Bug Importer]

Some (I found 2, but there might be more)
key-combinations "alt+<letter>" are assigned to some
operation, but actually open the menu that happens to
start with the given letter.

The two are "Klon Erzeugen" (Create Clone), assigned to
"Alt+D", while Alt+D opens the "Datei" (File) menu, and
"Kopie als Bitmap" (Copy as Bitmap), assigned to
"Alt+B" that opens the "Bearbeiten" (Edit) menu.

[Horkana-users (horkana-users)]

Please try not to file anonymous reports. instead please
get an account and login so we can ask for follow up
information if necessary.

As a workaround you can edit keys/default.xml and set
another keybinding.

The top level menus should take precedence (especially since
they cannot easily be customised to workaround the problem).

The German localisation team will need to pick another
keybinding for this in the German version of Inkscape. I'm
sure some of the existing keybindings are extremely awakward
on German keyboard layouts anyway.
This shows the downside of trying to have keybindings for
absolutely everything, and inkscape should really use a lot
less keybindings with Alt in them.

[nightrow (jb-benoit)]

duplicate of bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/168839

[Alexandre Prokoudine (alexandre-prokoudine)]

It's a pity, but I'm closing this. Alt+D for Datei seems to be usual mnemonic key for German translations; breaking it would be a not quite cool thing. And we cannot satisfy every language. You can use a workaround of adjusting keys.xml.

[Erich Schubert (erich)]

We need a well-defined way of fixing this. I'm sure similar things will occur in various languages.
Indeed, Alt+D and Alt+B are well standardized key bindings for German (opening the File and Edit menus).

The proper way of fixing this is to give translators a way of "translating" keybindings as well.

I know that this conflicts with the interest of allowing the user to choose keybindings similar to other applications (i.e. adobe illustrator like keybindings etc.)

Maybe the keybindings xml syntax could be extended to allow locale customization. E.g. give the alt+d keybinding an attribute locales="-de" and have a replacement keybinding with locales="de".

Not having a (working) keybinding is just a missing feauture. But showing "Alt+D" in the menu when it is in fact not working is an actual bug that should be fixed.

Regards,
Erich

[Jonathan Hofinger (jhofinger)]

This is being discussed in https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inbox/issues/1374 in Inkscape's new bugtracker on GitLab, for those who are interested.