Hard Me Failure With Opera 9

[nevada]

I have discovered that the following breaks Macro Express.

 

Using Opera 9.02 under Win98 SE, I start with Opera opened.

 

I key shift-alt-v. This should open the view menu, and it does.

 

The error appears at this point. Ordinarily opening any menu item with the keyboard opens the menu with the first menu item highlighted. However, with Opera, when I open view with shift-alt-v, most of the time, the first item is not highlighted. If the first item is highlighted, and it sometimes it is even with shift-alt, there is no problem. If the first item is not highlighted, and it usually is not, then ME, and keyboard entry, is doomed.

 

If the first item is highlighted and I key down, I go to another program. If I key a letter, to select a menu item, or escape nothing happens. If I click the mouse outside the menu to make it go away, it does. I them right click the Macro Express M icon in the system tray, no menu opens, and ME is "not responding" on the Win 98 task list.

 

It looks like when I key shift-alt-v something is going wrong, the first menu entry is not highlighted, and everything else follows from whatever error has happened.

 

I did not observe the problem with Opera 8. It is new with 9.

 

The same thing happens with other shift-alt menu combinations. It is not unique so shift-alt-v.

 

The shift-alt-menu letter combination performs an important function for ME. With programs that use a standard Windows menu bar, an alt-letter ME macro overrides an alt-menu letter function. That is how it works and should work. I have a complete set of alt-letter cross application macros that preempt the alt-menu function. Shift-alt-menu invokes the menu. So I have alt-letters for things I do all the time, and shift-alt-menu for menus, which I do far less frequently.

 

However, with Opera 9, things get broken.

 

Opera has its own keyboard key programming facility that gets keystrokes at a low operating system level. In the past, I think version 7 of Opera, Opera and ME didn't get along. Then they started working together. Now they are broke again.

 

I don't have access to an XP system with ME and can't try this there.

 

I have reported this as a bug.