Mac – Use keyboard for accessing Emacs Menu

emacskeyboardmenu bar

I am using the 

brew install emacs

version of gui-based emacs. After using the mac shortcut to access the Menu bar, I am able to use the mnemonic to access the individual top level menu items: e.g.

  ALT-F  for file

The problem is that then hitting down arrow key or return does not dropdown the menu items. Well .. with two exceptions: the 

Alt-E (Emacs) and 
Alt-H (Help)

dropdowns actually work. The others? Nothing happens. Only by using the Mouse (which is unacceptable to me for common commands in an editor).

Any hints/ideas on this?

Best Answer

I found a good workaround in emacs (beta) forum:

https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/3911/access-menu-bar-using-keyboard-on-mac-os-x

(define-key global-map (kbd "C-<f2>")
  (lambda ()
    (interactive)
    (x-popup-menu (list '(0 0) (selected-frame))
                  (mouse-menu-bar-map))))
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