[HN Gopher] Using accesskey attribute in HTML forms and links (2...
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       Using accesskey attribute in HTML forms and links (2006)
        
       Author : tweetle_beetle
       Score  : 28 points
       Date   : 2024-03-06 10:26 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (jkorpela.fi)
 (TXT) w3m dump (jkorpela.fi)
        
       | extra88 wrote:
       | "Date of last update: 2006-05-08."
       | 
       | The MDN page about accesskeys has useful information, including a
       | table of the modifier keys used in different OS+browser
       | combinations.
       | 
       | https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Global_att...
        
       | crtasm wrote:
       | Please don't do this. Every day I use standard browser shortcuts
       | and find a site has hijacked them.
        
         | mixmastamyk wrote:
         | Breaking "/" or Ctrl+F makes me furious.
        
           | crtasm wrote:
           | Those and ctrl+k , alt+d , etc.
        
       | AlienRobot wrote:
       | Imagine you had an application that could do cool stuff.
       | 
       | But nobody knew what cool stuff it could do unless they digged up
       | a webpage from 2006.
       | 
       | That's the modern web browser.
       | 
       | The lack of discoverability in modern UI design is reaching
       | utterly ridiculous levels. And I firmly believe the lack of main
       | menus and statusbars is to blame.
       | 
       | Look at how ridiculous this is https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
       | US/docs/Web/CSS/Alternative...
       | 
       | Firefox used to have this in its main menu. You could stumble
       | across it. Now nobody knows it even exists and they think
       | light/dark themes are a real alternative to the full spectrum of
       | colors and designs we could have before (if only webmasters
       | implemented it, which they never did (but anyways I blame
       | browsers for this because very few people even knew they could
       | add alternative stylesheets to their own websites and users had
       | no notification that they could switch rendering the incredible
       | feature pretty much useless all the time)). Then browsers look at
       | their metrics and how nobody is using the feature they told
       | nobody about and decide to stop supporting it because why would
       | they support a feature nobody uses, right?
       | 
       | Reddit had entire subdomains to do what Firefox could do with a
       | single click in the main menu.
       | 
       | There could be a key that if I press it Chrome sends me to the
       | search box at the bottom of this page, and I will never know
       | about it because when I click the search box there isn't a status
       | bar unintrusively hinting to me "hey, heads up, you can press
       | Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S to quickly go to this box ;)" and I don't think
       | we'll ever get that back.
        
         | icedchai wrote:
         | Absolutely. As a Firefox user for 15+ years, I'd never tried
         | View/Page Style before seeing this post...
        
         | crooked-v wrote:
         | On that note, I think the best app I've seen for button hotkey
         | observability is Eagle (https://eagle.cool) (ironically built
         | in Electron), which uses a simple setup of unobtrusive tooltips
         | that give a label for the button you hover over and whatever
         | hotkey triggers it.
        
           | marcosdumay wrote:
           | You know, there used to be a standard on how shortcuts were
           | presented, that the developer didn't even have to think about
           | because it was handled by the GUI widgets, and didn't require
           | mouse interaction (but worked with the mouse too).
           | 
           | Every single application used to follow it.
        
         | extra88 wrote:
         | Firefox for Mac still has a menu bar and View > Page Style is
         | still there.
         | 
         | Alternative Style Sheets are cool but the idea needs to be
         | taken further In Firefox, if you browse full one page to
         | another on the same site with the same sheets available, it
         | still switches to the new page's default sheet. Imagine if
         | sites could have a persistent theme picker using a browser UI!
        
         | mixmastamyk wrote:
         | Alt+V, Y
         | 
         | I use this occasionally when Reader Mode can't rescue a page.
        
       | jt3rd wrote:
       | MDN docs recommend against using accesskey.
       | 
       | https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Global_att...
       | 
       | Keyboard accessibility on the web is fraught and overdue for more
       | attention from standards committees IMO. It's another thing
       | pushing people toward Electron instead of sticking with standard
       | web platform. Relying on modifier keys has too much risk of
       | colliding with browser or OS behavior.
       | 
       | The most sophisticated approaches I've seen opt for a modifier-
       | less multi-key "chord" approach, e.g. GMail/Fastmail web UIs.
        
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       (page generated 2024-03-07 23:02 UTC)