Hot keys can be disabled by the user. When they do this, they must hit return to get DLG to respond to a selection. The advantage is that they can stack commands before hitting return (more on that in a moment).
Hot keys do not work for most numeric entry, however, as it's difficult to predict how many digits are going to be typed in.
An example can be seen if you go to the File menu. Suppose you were browsing files when you received notification that you had received a private message. You could backtrack by hitting M then M again to get to the message menu, or you could enter the command stack MM and get there immediately.
The astute reader may have noted that the command stacking can not work if hot keys are turned on. This would be completely true if not for a bit of cleverness embedded in the hotkey command processor.
To stack commands while using hotkeys, simply start your command with a semicolon, ";". The command processor sees the semicolon and immediately goes into stacking mode. WARNING Once you have entered stacking mode, you cannot get out until you hit RETURN.
The semicolon has one other special function. When embedded in a command stack, it simulates the RETURN key. Thus, to exit the file area browser and enter the message area browser in area 200, you could use the command stack:
;MMJ200;
to jump into that message area (the "J" command is for "Jump to Area" in this case).
Another example of Smart Menus at work is when an action simply isn't relevant. For example, if a user has not read any messages, that user can't very well forward a message to someone else. Thus, the Forward command would be missing. Once the user had read a message, the Forward command would be available.
The user can always get the full Novice level menu by selecting the ? command at the command prompt.