A mnemonic is an underlined
alphanumeric
Alphanumericals or alphanumeric characters are a combination of alphabetical and numerical characters. More specifically, they are the collection of Latin letters and Arabic digits. An alphanumeric code is an identifier made of alphanumeric ...
character, typically appearing in a menu title, menu item, or the text of a button or component of the
user interface
In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...
. A mnemonic indicates to the user which key to press (in conjunction with the Alt key) to activate a command or navigate to a component.
In Microsoft Windows, mnemonics are called "Access keys".
In Web browsers,
Access keys may or may not be engaged by the Alt key.
The usage of mnemonics in languages other than English is limited to the possibility of entering the underlined character using a single key stroke; for this reason,
localized versions of software omit letters that have diacritics which are input via
dead key
A dead key is a special kind of modifier key on a mechanical typewriter, or computer keyboard, that is typically used to attach a specific diacritic to a base letter. The dead key does not generate a (complete) character by itself, but modifies th ...
s.
See also
*
Keyboard shortcut
References
External links
SUN's definition of mnemonic termKeyboard shortcuts and mnemonics or accelerators are not the same thingMnemonics (keyboard) (book)
User interfaces
User interface techniques
Computer keyboards
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