RE: Accesskey - spec proposal

accesskey is used not only in Japan, but all over the world.
It's true that its application is very important for usability in mobile
environments where there is no mouse or other pointing device
(hardware-based or emulated).
Example:
- user's direct access to the application embedded in a web page (media
player etc)
- user's direct access to the low-level API via mechanisms similar to
WAPForum's EFI.
- proprietary solutions with desktop-sized viewport, but without
pointing device.

>>Before this thread started, I didn't even realize that the major  
>>motivation for accesskey was mobile-targeted content in Japan, rather

>>than aiding accessibility for the disabled in desktop browsers.
I am not sure whether the motivation for accesskey (years ago) were only
mobile-targeted content or accessibility for disabled.
But I am quite sure there are applications nowadays that benefit from
the accesskey existing in the current HTML specs. Therefore it would be
worth keeping accesskey in HTML5 for backwards compatibility.

>>WML is not the web. Has anyone done this on a mobile device for HTML?
Yes.

What could be a recommended replacement for accesskey based on the
current draft?
I assume these could be: onkeydown, onkeypress, and onkeyup.
Drawbacks:
- the actual functional keys available in the web page are not known to
the UserAgent, i.e. they cannot be presented for fast access as it was
suggested
- some scripting will be required.


Kind regards,
Marcin

-----Original Message-----
From: public-html-request@w3.org [mailto:public-html-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of Maciej Stachowiak
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 8:50 AM
To: Michael(tm) Smith
Cc: Charles McCathieNevile; public-html@w3.org
Subject: Re: Accesskey - spec proposal



On Jul 4, 2007, at 10:22 AM, Michael(tm) Smith wrote:

> Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>, 2007-07-03 10:55 -0700:
>
>> 2) Something that is used only on mobile-specific sites will not  
>> help us
>> design a feature for mobile devices that can browse the real web,  
>> not just
>> the "mobile web". Are any of these sites even using real HTML? My
>> impression is that Japanese mobile-specific sites are coded using a  
>> variety
>> of mutually incompatible mobile-specific languages, like cHTML, XHTML
>> Basic, XHTML-MP, etc.
>
> That would not be an accurate description of the current state of
> things in Japan, but I guess this isn't the place to go into
> details about it.

Could you go into more detail? Factual information would be helpful to  
making decisions. Ideally we could record it in the wiki as well.  
Before this thread started, I didn't even realize that the major  
motivation for accesskey was mobile-targeted content in Japan, rather  
than aiding accessibility for the disabled in desktop browsers.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Tuesday, 31 July 2007 11:49:54 UTC