trying to create a shortcut to open activity monitor

[schmintan]

i go to system preferences, keyboard and mouse and then keyboard shortcuts. once there i click the plus sign, select activity monitor, i type open activity monitor in the text box, and use alt space 9 for the shortcut, but that doesnt work. what am i doing wrong here?

 

[Eraserhead]

Why not just put it in the dock?

 

[jeremy.king]

If you want/need to be a keyboard junkie, you might enjoy Quicksilver - it can assign keyboard shortcuts and much, much more...

 

[mkrishnan]

True that... but, what you are doing enables you to set a keyboard shortcut to a menu command of a program that is running. You can't use the menus of activity monitor to start activity monitor because that's a... catch-22.

If you really want to do what you describe, try one of these applications:

http://scriptsoftware.com/ikey/
http://versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19421

(or, of course, the excellent quicksilver)