One annoyance that has gotten me quite a few times lately is inconsistent Ctrl+Del key behavior. If you weren't aware, in most programs this is supposed to delete one word to the right of the cursor's current position (and usually one of the spaces). Similarly, Ctrl+Backspace deletes one word to the left of the cursor.
Some programs don't play nice with Ctrl+Del (I have found Ctrl+Backspace to be fairly consistent). Would Microsoft please clean up their act? Here are some results (all tested in Windows Vista, but I know I've seen some of the same in XP also):
- Notepad: deletes entire line to the right of the cursor
- Wordpad: deletes one word
- Word 2007: deletes one word
- OneNote 2007: deletes one word
- IE7 Address Bar & Search Box: deletes entire line to the right
- IE7 Textbox: does absolutely nothing
- Windows Live Writer: deletes one word
- Start Menu Search Box: deletes entire line to the right
- Visual Studio 2005: deletes one word
- Editing File Names in Explorer: deletes entire line to the right
So we see three entirely different, largely unpredictable results, from one company. The closest thing to a trend is that the "major" word processing tools have the correct behavior, while simple things such as text-boxes and Notepad are wrong. At least Ctrl+Z (undo) is there to save you when that whole line disappears.
- Log in to post comments