Alt modifier layer hotkeys not triggering in Adobe Illustrator

[Ralf_Reddings200244]

Adobe Illustrator and all of the other Adobe packages have had a long standing issue with their Alt modifier on windows, because Alt is often used to focus the menu bar, it will get in the way of triggering hotkeys that use alt.

Many threads on the Adobe forum raise this issue but the developers just blame Microsoft, one of them suggested the following though:

> This is a standard OS behaviour for Windows. This has nothing to do with Adobe Illustrator or any other adobe application...Solution for this is to press the Esc key so that the focus goes away from the menu bar and returns to the document

I solved the error sound issue by just disabling it system wide.

While I can trigger alt+ d manually, I cant trigger it or any hotkeys that have alt in them with AutoHotkey. I thought this would be an easy task with AutoHotkey but I have tried all my tricks and I am still stuck (also tried sendInput):

Code: Select all

Space::
;Send, !d                          ; does not trigger

;Send, {blind}!d                   ; does not trigger

;Send, {ralt down}d                ; does not trigger
;Send, {ralt up}

;Send, {blind}>!d                  ;triggers sometimes, if I spam it by holding down space


;Send, {ralt down}{esc}            ;the developers suggestion. this changes to the previously active window (its a windows hotkey)
;Send, {d}{ralt up}

Has anyone that uses Adobe Illustrator with AHK ever manage to solve this issue? If anyone that has Illustrator installed could take a look at this, I would appreciate it.


I am on windows 11 with Illustrator 2023

[andymbody]

Unable to test, but just a suggestion... have you tried keywait to make sure space is released?

Code: Select all

space::
	KeyWait space
	send !d

What is Alt+d in illustrator?

[Ralf_Reddings200244]

@andymbody
By default it does nothing, in this case its meant open to open the color dialog profiel dialog found in Edit. I tried your solution sadly, it does not trigger the command. Thank you though.