- From: John Foliot - WATS.ca <foliot@wats.ca>
- Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 11:08:42 -0500
- To: <wai-xtech@w3.org>, <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Hi All, Not sure how many of you monitor the GAWDS (Guild of Accessible Web Developers) mailing list, but you might be interested in some recent developments (on, what else, my favorite topic). Gez Lemon of Juicy Studios has worked up a basic PHP script (subsequently being tweaked and converted to a PHP Class by Rich Pedley) which allows end users to do their own key mapping: http://juicystudio.com/experiments/ak.php http://cms.elfden.co.uk/2005/12/16/access-keys-a-user-centered-approach/ Preferences are stored in a cookie, but the balance of the script is server side (yipee!). Another developer has already taken the idea and ported it to an ASP script: http://www.tjkdesign.com/clients/noteworthy/set_accesskeys.asp There is currently some discussion regarding setting some type of "default" that could be quickly selected (via a checkbox? or...) to address users with mobility impairments, but these are wrinkles. More news on this as it unfolds... ************* I am getting very tired arguing this point, but I will not give up. The above examples illustrate exactly the type of functionality that end users require, and nowhere within the above is there a need for the author to supply *any* specific key - rather, the flexibility and ultimate accessibility of the above is that the end user has total control; no need to worry which key may be claimed by any particular user configuration - generally there are _some_ unreserved keys available to the end user regardless of the configuration. Based on the work above, can anybody really continue to advocate the author need to supply key mappings? Can I get *any* support to convince the HTML authors that the @key attribute is archaic, potentially dangerous, and, simply dumb? It must be removed from the current XHTML 2 Draft! The cavalier and dismissive "Official" responses I am receiving are not even grounded in logic or fact: (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html-editor/2005OctDec/0037) - my "favorites" are suggesting that JAWS is flawed because the W3C webmaster mapped Accesskey "T" (which breaks* just about every Windows based browsers' native mapping to "Tools"), and that the mobile community requires the absolute need to map a keystroke due to the number of keys they have available, all the while refusing to understand that if I mapped to the letter "S", the same mobile community is further behind than ahead. I am doubly troubled that the response lacks even the basic requirements for Dissent Resolution as outlined within the W3C Charter: http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/policies.html#FormalObjection Food for thought. Season's Best y'all. JF -- John Foliot foliot@wats.ca Web Accessibility Specialist / Co-founder of WATS.ca Web Accessibility Testing and Services http://www.wats.ca Phone: 1-613-482-7053 * Breaks = If you press ALT and T simultaneously, it takes you to the "W3C Technical Reports and Publications" page in Firefox and puts the focus on the link to that page in IE; if you press Alt *then* T, it opens the Tools dialogue in both of those browsers... However, I wonder aloud how many users know that there are 2 ways of performing this action, with different results?
Received on Tuesday, 20 December 2005 16:09:47 UTC