How to access mnemonics in Intellij 2017+ on Mac?

Question

There is some evidence in the Intellij codebase they support ALT(/Meta)+CTL - (mnemonic) in Mac.

E.g: in platform/platform-api/src/com/intellij/openapi/MnemonicWrapper.java

  if (SystemInfo.isMac && Registry.is("ide.mac.alt.mnemonic.without.ctrl")) {

And the corresponding resource value in ./platform/util/resources/misc/registry.properties is set to true :

ide.mac.alt.mnemonic.without.ctrl=true

However pressing those two modifier keys together with .. say .. F (for File in the main menu) does not work for me on Sierra with the latest 2017.1 intellij.

Is this supposed to work? Is there any other way to get mnemonics working on Mac.

Note: please do not comment/respond "mnemonics are not encouraged/supported on mac". I am more than well aware of this terrible shortcoming on OS/X. However in previous versions of Intellij it has been possible to use mnemonics on Mac: and it would be a big boost to have them working again.

Update A YouTrack issue was requested by the Intellij Jetbrains support lead. It is here https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-175624

CTRL-ALT-(Mnemonic) DOES work.

The JetBrains lead Serge Baranov also mentioned that ALT-(Mnenomic) is supposed to work. It did not / does not for any of my laptops on 2017.X.

The Jetbrains support team led by Serge Baranov worked diligently on this - but were unable to reproduce. I expressed surprise since a half dozen installations on my side - all do not work. Apparently for their testing team it does work. One of my Mac's was factory new in June 2017 with Sierra and I installed IJ Ultimate 2017.1 without any changes from defaults. It did not work.

It is unclear what conditions were required for the Alt-Mnemonics to work on 2017.X.

* Another update* . Jetbrains has provided a fix for this: see last answer.

Improbity

Do you have mnemonics enabled in IntelliJ IDEA settings? Does it work with just Alt? – Dyad

@Dyad Is there such a setting - and if so where is it? – Improbity

Did you try typing mnemonic in the settings search filter like this? – Dyad

I did search for mnemonic in the keymap but not in the settings. Please make this an answer. – Improbity

Answer 1

Make sure mnemonics are not disabled in IntelliJ IDEA settings:

By default mnemonics should work with Ctrl+Alt and Alt on Mac.

If you prefer only Ctrl+Alt, add -Dide.mac.alt.mnemonic.without.ctrl=false in Help | Edit Custom VM Options (Processes Alt-based shortcuts for mnemonics in addition to Ctrl+Alt-based shortcuts. Affect MacOS only.)

There is also a bug in IntelliJ IDEA 2017.1.x versions which causes mnemonics to work via Alt in dialogs, but not in the menu. Adding -Dide.mnemonic.helper.old=true in Help | Edit Custom VM Options will workaround this issue. The fix will be available in 2017.2.x.

Dyad

This sounds great! It is not completely working yet for me: I did uncheck that option but ALT alone still does not work. However CLT-ALT is working now. I will try different combination of the -Dide.mac.alt.mnemonic.without.ctrl=true – Improbity

The -Dide.mac.alt.mnemonic.without.ctrl is not working: I tried setting it both true and false in the idea.vmoptions . Have you been able to find a way to get ALT alone to do the trick? – Improbity

ALT alone is not working ;( Any help appreciated. – Improbity

Do you run on JetBrains Runtime? – Dyad

I am running on the openjdk version 1.8.0.112 [boot, bundled] – Improbity

Any further thoughts on this? – Improbity

Feel free to file a bug at YouTrack. – Dyad

Is there any hope of it getting attention within say two years? Prior bugs I have created or upvoted have taken 3+ years or simply not been fixed. – Improbity

There is always hope, a lot of bugs get fixed within day or even hours. – Dyad

Ok I will try to get a bug report this weekend. – Improbity

Hi Sergey! I finally was able to create this bug. I have more details on this: it does not work in El Capitan either. Here is the YouTrack: youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-175624 – Improbity

Thanks so much for prioritizing the work from your team on this issue. I'm really sorry the Alt-(mnemonic) issue was not able to be resolved even after in depth troubleshooting. – Improbity

Answer 2

Thanks to Serge Baranov of JetBrains : we now have a solution

Add the following to Custom VM Options

-Dide.mnemonic.helper.old=true

In addition a fix will be added to 2017.2

Improbity

The The Jetbrains QA team did a great job of getting the info together and informing Jetbrains development. Jetbrains development briefly looked at the bug and in February 2018 passed on trying to fix it. Now I do not know what to do about this situation. – Improbity