I picked out a tip while browsing other posts. It said "funckey m move" would give me a shortcut for move, by just hitting "M" on my key board. I set that up, along with shortcuts for Rotate and Spin. It worked for awhile, then quit working, and re-entering it didn' help. I also expected it to be a permanent setup, being available every time I ran Allegro.
Also, when I use spin or rotate, and I have a group of parts selected, each part rotates about its individual origin, instead of around a reference point. Is that the way it's supposed to work?