What does the & (ampersand) inside the string do?

[Ann Maybury]

In the wxruby samples there is a file called dialogs.rb.

When setting up the menu on the windows a bunch of lines of the form

file_menu_appen d (DIALOGS_CHOOSE _COLOR, "&Choose colour")

exist. What does the ampersand inside the string do?

Ann

[Rabbit]

Probably To allow for keyboard shortcuts.

[Ann Maybury]

Thanks for your quick response.

In the line

file_menu.append(DIALOGS_CHOOSE_COLOUR, "&Choose colour")

I tried alt c without success. Which keyboard shortcut would you guess.
cntrl c closed the window.

This line is from the dialogs.rb sample distributed with wxruby 1.9.2.
I could include the full code, but don't think it necessary since it executes well and I understand most of it.

[Rabbit]

If it's adding it to the file menu, then the shortcut would be alt+f and then c.

[Ann Maybury]

Thank you. I now understand what is going on here.