Entourage 2008: pressing Delete key deletes message!

[Eric Tiffany]

I have just discovered that the Delete key is a shortcut for Delete Message.
This is true even if your are editing the message text or subject. There
seems to be no way to fix this, at least using the Entourage preferences.

The documented behaviour in Entourage help is that pressing the delete key
will delete the character to the right if you have the "Use Microsoft Office
keyboard shortcuts for editing text" check box selected in General
Preferences. If it is cleared, then the delete key is supposed to delete
left as in "Macintosh-style editing".

This is a Big Problem, since I (and just about everyone else) would expect
the delete key to delete a character. I've already deleted this message
once by accident.

In addition, the message is just GONE. Not in the Deleted Items folder, it's
just GONE.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Huh? Say wha?

I use the delete key all the time when writing messages and subject
lines. On my laptop (powerbook g4), it acts like a backspace key
regardless of whether that preference is checked or not. It doesn't
delete messages.

Now, the cmd-delete combo will delete the message you are working on,
although here I get a confirmation dialog (Erage 2008).

Is it possible that:
--you mean to be hitting function-delete to delete the characters to the
right of the cursor, but are accidentally hitting command-delete?
--something in your hardware setup, perhaps a utility to switch command
keys or somesuch, could be making delete or function-delete be read as
cmd-delete?
--check your keyboard shortcuts in system preferences?
--try a different keyboard?

 

[Diane Ross]

I have just discovered that the Delete key is a shortcut for Delete Message.
This is true even if your are editing the message text or subject. There
seems to be no way to fix this, at least using the Entourage preferences.

The documented behaviour in Entourage help is that pressing the delete key
will delete the character to the right if you have the "Use Microsoft Office
keyboard shortcuts for editing text" check box selected in General
Preferences. If it is cleared, then the delete key is supposed to delete
left as in "Macintosh-style editing".

This is a Big Problem, since I (and just about everyone else) would expect
the delete key to delete a character. I've already deleted this message
once by accident.

In addition, the message is just GONE. Not in the Deleted Items folder, it's
just GONE.

Command-Delete (deletes the word to the left of the cursor in Word) is
interpreted in Entourage to delete message. Entourage 2008 added a warning
message unless you have turned off this feature. Use command-z to undo the
action.

 

[Eric Tiffany]

OK, this is weird.

The Edit menu originally showed the "<x]" key symbol next to the "Delete
Message" command. This is why pressing the delete key caused my message to
disappear (and I had the warning message disabled). BTW, if you are
composing a new message, and it gets deleted in this fashion, then Command-Z
won't bring it back -- it is just GONE. The warning, if enabled, says
"delete permanently?", and in this case, it really is permanent.

I went into the System Pref panel and added a keyboard shortcut for Delete
Message of Cmd-Option-9 so the that the delete-key binding would be
overridden. That worked.

Then, while exploring the various options discussed by Dianne and Dalya, I
removed this key binding. And now the Delete Message menu item shows the
"normal" Command-Delete shortcut, and the delete key works as expected.

I can only imagine that this was messed up during installation, or possibly
as a result of something left over from Office 2004. Yet another mystery.

ET