"edit cell" shortcut assignable?? cant find!

[daniel rucci]

I'm trying to reassign a shortcut command.

How do you change the hotkey (shortcut) for "edit cell"?

By default the "Edit Cell" command is mapped to control+U, and can
also be accessed by double-clicking on the cell. this allows you to
edit the data in the cell.

I'd like to map this command to F2, like in Excel for windows.

In the menu: tools > customize > commands tab > keyboard button
I cant' find the "edit cell" command. I don't think it's listed.

this is totally bad design and It needs to be changed. Any ideas?

 

[J.E. McGimpsey]

I'm trying to reassign a shortcut command.

How do you change the hotkey (shortcut) for "edit cell"?

By default the "Edit Cell" command is mapped to control+U, and can
also be accessed by double-clicking on the cell. this allows you to
edit the data in the cell.

I'd like to map this command to F2, like in Excel for windows.

In the menu: tools > customize > commands tab > keyboard button
I cant' find the "edit cell" command. I don't think it's listed.

this is totally bad design and It needs to be changed. Any ideas?

take a look here:

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/f2.html

 

[Guest]

Thanks so much! I'll try this at work tomorrow... but
seriously I'm so dissapointed in the designers on this one.
Control+U is practically the most difficult command
combination ever! there are about 931,441 more convenient
combinations that control+U physically present on the
keybaord. and "U" doesn even have phonetic reference to
"Edit cell"

just what the hell is going on here?

 

[J.E. McGimpsey]

Thanks so much! I'll try this at work tomorrow... but
seriously I'm so dissapointed in the designers on this one.
Control+U is practically the most difficult command combination
ever! there are about 931,441 more convenient combinations that
control+U physically present on the keybaord. and "U" doesn even
have phonetic reference to "Edit cell"

For me, reaching up to F2 requires that I take my fingers out of
their typing position, if not off the keyboard entirely. Ctrl-u I
can reach with the little finger of my left hand and the index
finger of my right hand, so it's much more ergonomic and convenient
(at least on an extended keyboard - laptops are almost by definition
non-ergonomic). Don't know about the 931,441 other combinations...

As for phonetics, you're right. It makes about as much sense as "v"
for "Paste", and that's not widely considered an issue - perhaps
"update" works for some people.

MacXL also adheres to the Apple Human Interface Guidelines in
mapping F2 to Cut by default (though I'm not sure whether the Aqua
HIG still recommends that mapping - I'd have to check)

just what the hell is going on here?

I don't really recall, but I suspect that Microsoft failed to follow
the keyboard shortcuts that it had established for years in Excel 1
and 2 (Mac) when it designed its first Windows version.

 

[Guest]

take a look here:

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/f2.html

fantastic! I've wanted this for quite a while.

Now, can you suggest similar magic to get the toggle of
absolute/relative references that should be on F4?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Now, can you suggest similar magic to get the toggle of
absolute/relative references that should be on F4?

Well, again, as with any application developed for the Mac, F4 *should*
be Paste - was on XL1.0, should be on all other versions. Unfortunately,
when Microsoft ported XL to Windows, they screwed up the keyboard
shortcuts.

Besides, toggling absolute/relative references isn't even an XL
*function* (it can't be called from the worksheet - only invoked within
the Cell Editor), so it shouldn't have been associated with a *Function*
key on any platform. Again, deduct points from WinXL designers.

Instead it's a Cell Editor feature. In this respect it's like CMD-B for
bold: you can reassign the CMD-B keyboard shortcut, say, to format as
Italic. Selecting a cell and pressing CMD-B will then format the entire
cell as italic. When editing the cell, however, CMD-B still toggles the
Bold property.

And you can't use a macro since VBA/Macros are halted when the Cell
Editor is active, you can't reassign the keyboard shortcut to a macro.
One could write a macro to look at the formula and change any references
found, but that would play havoc with formulas with multiple references.

AFAIK, there are no external hooks into the Cell Editor, so you're stuck
with CMD-T.