[wp-hackers] Usability problems with accesskeys

[Roy Schestowitz]

_____/ On Thu 10 Nov 2005 13:41:35 GMT, [Donncha O Caoimh] wrote : \_____

> Just try pressing ALT1-7 in Firefox when you have a couple of tabs open.. :)


Oops.  I  have used these shortcuts for almost a year, but I get  ALT  and
CTRL mixed up sometimes. I wound up using ALT8-10 in my portal due to *ex-
actly* that issue.


> I never use access keys myself either, and when I hit ctrl-a to 
> select all and instead get a url pop-up that's annoying.
>
> The browser needs some way of "capturing" special keystrokes when a 
> textarea is selected, the users eyes are looking at the textarea, or 
> some other magic way of knowing what the user wanted to do! heh.
>
> Donncha.


How   about  a  user-configurable  set  of  shortcuts?  PHP   can   handle
accesskey="<KEY>"  on the fly. In fact, last year I conceived a project of
dynamically  assigning shortcuts and underlining letters in all Web pages.
I still have it among my list of ideas.

Would  user-configurable  (or  changeable) shortcuts ruin a  globality  or
break  some conventions? It would only affect WordPress after all.  Short-
cuts will be preserved when the Webmaster moves from one machine to anoth-
er  as the settings will be in the installation (/database). I think  that
enabling  the  users  to at least change default accelerators would  be  a
valuable  thing.  Imagine yourself users switching off keyboard  shortcuts
altogether because of one critical collision...

Roy