Q 4.10 What is the difference between an accelerators and a hotkey? [top^]
A. Iain Clarke Quoted :-
People use the two names interchangably.
Hot Key is a common user name for an accelerator. Being pedantic... An accelerator is a part of an accelerator table. (LoadAccelerator, TranslateAccelerator, etc.) It only works when your application has the keyboard focus.
A Hot Key is a a system wide key (RegisterHotKey, UnregisterHotKey). When pressed, windows send a WM_HOTKEY message to you. It works all the time. You could use it to make a certain key combination do something even when your application is hidden. (eg. screen capture, etc).
I would not recommend having it active all the time, as it may collide with accelerators of other applications.
James R. Twine Quoted :-
Some also confuse one or both of those words with a "mnemonic", which is the underlined character you get on dialog controls allowing you to focus or activate that control using the <ALT>key along with the key of the underlined character. They (mnemonics) are also used on top-level Menus and Menu Items (although you do not need to use the <ALT>key when a menu or menubar is active).
