Any way to fix alphabetical selection behavior in list widgets in Windows?

Posted by KP on Super User See other posts from Super User or by KP
Published on 2010-03-20T17:36:03Z Indexed on 2010/03/20 17:41 UTC
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In every version of Windows I've ever used (95 through Vista), the following apparent bug has been present in every list widget, whether drop-down, multi-select, or Explorer folder view:

If you use the keyboard to select some item alphabetically, the selection gets "locked" on that item. If I have a list with the contents below, and I press D, then Delta will get selected. At this point, pressing A, B, or G will do nothing unless I first switch focus to another window or control, or remove focus by pressing Esc.

If, at the beginning, I press G, then I can keep pressing G to cycle through the Gamma entries, but A, B, or D will do nothing unless I clear the focus.

Alpha
Beta
Beta2
Delta
Gamma
Gamma2
Gamma3

I don't think I've seen this aggravating behavior on OS X, KDE, or Gnome shells, and I can't imagine why this behavior would be "by design."

Does anyone know anything about this bug or how to get around it?

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