RE: accesskey shortcuts.

I have always shown that accesskeys are available by including them in
the alt text of an image (that is a link) and including them in the
title attribute of text links. For accesskeys in forms I have always
specified what accesskeys are what in the introductory information at
the beginning of the form.

-----Original Message-----
From: charles [mailto:charles@w3.org]
Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2001 6:02 PM
To: Gian Sampson-Wild
Cc: w3c-wai-gl
Subject: Re: accesskey shortcuts.


This shouldn't go in the guidelines as a permamnent requirement. But
until
more browsers are smarter about adapting the accesskeys to their own
capabilities it is a useful technique - they are certainly the most
widely
available keys.

For browsers that do a reasonable job of accesskeys there are plenty
more
though - and it is possible to implement accesskeys in a way that makes
tsomething available for the user to find out what they are, and be able
to
use any control that has an accesskey assigned without having to
restrict
them this far - there is a lot of value in having mnemonic accesskeys,
and as
someone who uses them a lot (in iCab, where it is just the key with no
alt or
ctrl or whatever) I appreciate the functionality.

cheers

Charles

On Fri, 7 Dec 2001 gian@stanleymilford.com.au wrote:

  When using accesskeys I have always stuck to the numbers zero through
to
  nine - the reason being that the other ascii keys are used with the
Alt
  key (or Apple key on Macs) in various instances.  Perhaps we should
  include this in the guidelines?

  Gian

  -----Original Message-----
  From: Mathew.Mirabella [mailto:Mathew.Mirabella@team.telstra.com]
  Sent: Friday, December 07, 2001 3:43 PM
  To: w3c-wai-gl
  Subject: form controls: acesskey shortcuts.


  All.

  A further query and item for discussion.

  Excluding the provision of a separate page with a list of accesskeys,
  how do
  you highlight the fact that keyboard accesskey shortcuts are available
  without making dramatic changes to a page.

  An example:

        <label for="username">Username:</label> <input name="username"
  id="username" type="text" value="" size="30" tabindex="1"
accesskey="u">

  I have seen one way to indicate to users that there is a keyboard
  shortcut
  combination.  Place some text on the page explaining the
alt-combination
  shortcuts, and also underline the respective character in the text of
  the
  label.  What are your thoughts on the following example of underlining
  characters.

        ...<span style="text-decoration: underline;>U</span>sername...

  This is, of course, visual, and not descriptive to a screen reader
user.
  So
  there are problems with doing this without non-visual equivalents.  It
  would
  also be a problem with links, as link text is supposed to be
underlined.
  Maybe you could use a bolded character instead of an underlined
  character?

  What do you all think?

  Cheers.

  mat.


  Mat Mirabella
  Telstra Research
  03 9253 6712




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