Gabriel Wicke wrote: You can change them in JavaScript *after* they're set to defaults in the HTML. Shall we change all the "http://foo" URLs to "javascript:document.location='http://foo'"? After all, accessibility only means blind people using JavaScript, right! Sigh........ Thanks for your sympathy. -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Gabriel Wicke wrote: I don't think we're communicating here. :) An access key that you don't know about will just not do anything until you know it's there. Once you know about it, it's a helpful addition. An access key that conflicts with preexisting keyboard shortcuts *that one is already using* is a big big problem: it actively interferes with the user's ability to work with the application. This is why the conflicting defaults must be changed; they are very damaging to usability. If you don't do it, I will. The labels are a separate issue from the existence of the access keys. Misleading labels are quite obviously bad, and it's better that the labels be set *correctly* via JavaScript instead of using hardcoded *incorrect* labels. Having *no labels* (but the access keys being listed prominently in the editing help and the site's accessibility statement) would also be acceptable. This would be the natural state with JavaScript disabled if the accesskeys were being set in the HTML (as they were until recently). Do you then agree that the access keys should work even if JavaScript is disabled or unavailable? Accessibility isn't just about adding alt tags for the blind; it's about not unnecessarily cutting people off from or complicating their usage of your site. Anyone who hasn't already, I highly recommend reading Mark Pilgrim's 'Dive Into Accessibility': http://diveintoaccessibility.org/ -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Gabriel Wicke wrote: I already provided a list of keys to avoid. Why don't you see what's left and make some recommendations from that that you'd like? Exactly what I've been saying! That's why I don't understand why you keep talking about blind people and screenreaders and why I don't understand why you refuse to remove the usability-destroying shortcuts that are in there now. That shouldn't be necessary. Why won't the master data carry through? 80 calls to wfMsg sound very inefficient. Why not use one? Reduced page source size? 'accesskey="x" ' is 14 bytes including space. And, we gzip the output, so that'll reduce further. -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Timwi wrote: It's not necessary to assign a key to every conceivable function! Overriding browser functionality, however, is never ever acceptable. I'm sorry if this seems awkward to you, but I assure you it's a lot more awkward to have the computer to unexpected things in response to standard keystrokes. No conflicting access keys will be kept. -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Nathan Hamblen wrote: That would probably be very few access keys then. Do more than a handful of people actually use these access keys, and have any significant number of people requested them? I'd wager there's more Wikipedians who use Firefox on Linux than there are Wikipedians who use alt + . to visit their user page. -Mark

Brion Vibber wrote: One of the many things I've learnt about user interface design is that the programmer should never impose an arbitrary decision upon the user with regards to what options are supposed to be more important or more commonly used. That said, not everything *has* an access key (the "summary" field on Edit screens, for example). But if it is possible to assign an access key to *all* of the links that are visible on *every single pageview*, then it should be done. But then again, my argumentation here is moot, because I don't really care. Whatever you do, my monobook.js is going to override it anyway. So feel free to ignore me. :-) Timwi

On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 03:06:00 +0100, Timwi wrote: Then cut down on the access-key ambitions. -- Greetings from Troels Arvin, Copenhagen, Denmark

On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 15:07 +0200, Troels Arvin wrote: Forgot to mention: 'What links here' is using 'j' since yesterday, so b isn't used anymore. Gabriel Wicke