Keyboard accelerators are incoherent

Thank you for your bug. Could you try to figure the difference between the case where the accelerator work or not? It seems to work correctly when you have a category selected already. What version of Ubuntu do you use?

My version of Ubuntu is Feisty Fawn, german localization.
1. Selecting "Anwendungen" (Applications), "Orte" (Places) or "System" with the mouse or my personal
keyboard accelerator: Not possible to jump to a category by pressing "b" for "Büro" or "g" for "Grafik.
2. Selecting "Anwendungen" it is possible to go down with the mouse or arrow key to "Büro", then the "g" or "b"
accelerator is working
3. Say you have only one category with accelerator key "s"; after pressing s the focus is correctly on the first item of the next
subcategory.
4. Say you have two categories with accelerator key "s"; it is possible to jump from one to the other with "s" but there is no way of going to the subcategory. This should be possible with "Enter"
5. Say you are in a subcategory and want to go back one step in the hierarchy (from "Gimp" to "Graphics"). This should be possible with "Esc" but currently the whole menu disappears.

the description is really confusing, should be sent to bugzilla.gnome.org by somebody who understand the request

It is _really_ simple:
Try to open an application from the gnome panel with the keyboard.
Don't use your mouse.
Don't use the arrow keys of your keyboard.
It is not possible.

Under Windows (the OS with the biggest market share, remember?)
I use the following combination on my keyboard:
"Win", then "P", then "F". Voila, Firefox starts.

Same under Ubuntu:
"Win", then "I"... well, the focus is not at "Internet" as it should be.

If it is not clear now please let me know and I try harder to explain.

ok, so the problem is that you have to use use the down arrow to move from the applications menu to the categories. Not sure if that's a bug because when you have the menu bar highlighted the key are used to move between applications, places and system. Do you consider having to use the arrow during key navigfation as a bug? Under windows you don't get the bug because there is only one menu so the key event can go directly to the menu content

When "Anwendungen" (Applications) is selected the menu is shown.
With keyboard accelerators.
But you can't use them.
This _is_ a bug.

And notice that going to "Orte" (Places) is possible by pressing "O".
But then the first item in the "Orte" menu is selected and you can't go
to "Anwendungen" or "System" anymore.

So sometimes the first item in the categories is selected and sometimes not. (Bug)
And you can't go back (with ESC) if one is selected. (Bug)

Hmmmmmm.

you can use it, alt-f1, down and hit the corresponding key

I've sent the bug upstream on http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=463934