Dangerous Command-Tilde Behavior!

[land]

Hello,

I've been a Mac user since 1986 and an Excel user for so long that I
have spreadsheets for which there is no living version of Excel that
can open them (they were created in 1.0!).

On the Mac, as you probably know, there is a valuable distinction
between command-tab (switch apps) and command-tilde (switch windows in
an app).

This is dangerously broken in Excel, which brings the next workbook
window to the front as expected, but leaves the keyboard focus on a
now-hidden workbook.

On more than one occasion, I have lost data by using command-tilde (a
habit developed in many other applications) to switch to a workbook,
then typing (or pasting or...) and destroying the contents of the other
workbook. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Has anyone figured out a way to make this work as in virtually all
other well-behaved Mac apps?

Thanks!

 

[CyberTaz]

Howdy-

Have you tried CMD+F6? Or CONTROL+TAB?

HTH |:>)

 

[CyberTaz]

BTW-

Have been playing with CMD+~ and have had no trouble at all. Not only does
the foreground sheet become active, but the selected cell is the same as
when the sheet was sent into the background.

It sounds like you may have an isolated issue that bears a little more
analysis. Any certain wkbks or conditions that cause the problem? Does the
focus _eventually_ come to the foreground sheet? Anything else you've
noticed?

Regards |:>)

 

[Neill Massello]

On the Mac, as you probably know, there is a valuable distinction
between command-tab (switch apps) and command-tilde (switch windows in
an app).

This is dangerously broken in Excel, which brings the next workbook
window to the front as expected, but leaves the keyboard focus on a
now-hidden workbook.

On more than one occasion, I have lost data by using command-tilde (a
habit developed in many other applications) to switch to a workbook,
then typing (or pasting or...) and destroying the contents of the other
workbook. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Has anyone figured out a way to make this work as in virtually all
other well-behaved Mac apps?

Upgrade to Excel 2004.

 

[Dave Land]

Thanks for the quick reply, CyberTaz...

Control-Tab and Command-F6 work as advertised: I may have to develop a
new habit, although I reserve the right to whine and complain a little
bit -- 19 years of Mac usage have made it very automatic for my thumb
to go to the command-key, and my pinky to that upper-left corner .

Oh, worth reporting, perhaps: If I use Command-Tilde, then try to use
Control-Tab or Command-F6, they don't do anything at all.

As to the very fine troubleshooting questions in your second message:

- It does not appear to be specific to certain workbooks.

- Focus never comes to the foreground workbook (well, never is a mighty
long time... not for a reasonable period of time, anyway).

- I considered that it might be a problem with VBA and the
WorkbookActivate event, but there's no VBA in sight.

- I turned off System Preferences:Keyboard & Mouse:Keyboard
Shortcuts:Universal Access, but it made no difference, so I turned it
back on.

- I turned off System Preferences:Keyboard & Mouse:Keyboard
Shortcuts:Keyboard Navigation, but that just restored Command-Tilde to
its usual Excel Function -- show formulas, so I turned it back on.

- "Anything else I've noticed" includes the fact that one of my
workbooks that has Preferences:General:1904 date system unchecked
sometimes loses this setting -- it reverts to checked (making a mess of
dates), even though the workbook has done nothing but sit around on my
hard drive for a day or two...

And one more thing: in lots of apps (not just Excel), Command-comma
doesn't bring up the preferences dialog until I have selected it once
with the mouse (by clicking <app_menu>references). After that, it
works just fine.

Big respect for your rapid reply,

Dave

 

[Dave Land]

CybertTaz,

I'm running Excel X for Mac Service Release 1 on 10.4.3.

I have not tried repairing permissions in a couple of weeks, will give
that a shot tomorrow AM.

I'll also *move* the prefs file out of its normal place (to restore
later, if it makes no difference) to see if that helps.

Props,

Dave

 

[Neill Massello]

I'm running Excel X for Mac Service Release 1 on 10.4.3.

I have not tried repairing permissions in a couple of weeks, will give
that a shot tomorrow AM.

I'll also *move* the prefs file out of its normal place (to restore
later, if it makes no difference) to see if that helps.

None of that will make a difference. It's a bug in Excel X that was
fixed in Excel 2004. If you stick with X, you'll need to get used using
Control + Tab to cycle through windows in Excel.

 

[CyberTaz]

Now that you specify version, I believe Neill hit the nail on the proverbial
head. I didn't use v. X much, so that didn't come to mind right off the bat,
although it did ring a (distant) bell when I saw his first post suggesting
the '04 upgrade.


Neill - Thanks for the input!

Regards |:>)