So I tried to enable it on my ixus120 and the new ixus115 port. This behaves as follows :
- If you start the camera in playback mode and press the playback button again, the camera shuts down.
- If you start the camera in shooting mode (or go to shooting mode after starting in playback) and then press the playback button, you go into <ALT> mode.
- If you start the camera in shooting mode (or go to shooting mode after starting in playback), go back to playback mode with a long press and then press the playback button, you go into <ALT> mode.
The first option is bad, the other two are okay. I think reyalp predicted this sort of behaviour here.
If the code is implemented correctly, any of the canon actions should only happen on a long press. Then what you describe is normal canon behavior for this button. If a short press triggers any canon action when play is selected as the alt button, then it's not implemented correctly.
edit:
The sx150 worked fine with play as the alt button.
edit 2:
As I mentioned earlier on IRC, some canon buttons already have a long/short press behavior (notably the print button on the cameras where canon lets you assign other functions), so assigning alt to those can cause problems. I don't think that ever applies to play though.