March 18th, 2014

Why do I have to hit an arrow key before a keyboard-initiated Move operation will follow the mouse?

Raymond Chen
Raymond Chen

TehShrike wonders why you have to hit an arrow key before a keyboard-initiated Move operation will follow the mouse. I don’t know, but I think it’s just a bug. Mind you, it’s a bug with extraordinary seniority (probably going as far back as Windows 1.0).

The Move and Size commands from the system menu are operated by the same common function, and the keyboard-initiated Size command requires you to hit an arrow in order to specify which edge you are trying to resize. The Move command doesn’t need to let you pick a side (since moving is independent of sides), but the common helper function waits for the arrow key regardless of the underlying operation.

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Old New Thing
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Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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