Re: Looking for access to keyboard shortcuts for web apps

On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 10:30 AM, James Craig <jcraig@apple.com> wrote:

> Hi Jeff, this sounds like a reasonable idea. Perhaps this is one potential
> solution to the #9 request on the following page.
>
> http://esw.w3.org/topic/PF/XTech/HTML5/AccesskeyRequirements


If all 9 of those items were adopted and actually implemented, I would be
more than content! But addressing #3, #4 & #9 are the most critical from the
our perspective as a developer of an external process to a browser trying to
improve the user's experience within the browser.


> A couple initial nits with the format though:
>
> 1. Since we're talking about keystrokes and keycodes, perhaps being
> plist-based (<key>) overly complicates the readability of the markup. It may
> be better to define a custom XML DTD or Schema, rather than just a simple
> plist.


Certainly. That was just something quick to get the concept seeded.


> 2. How would you define the down arrow key? You may need a reserved NMTOKEN
> or to use '40' as the keyCode. However, defining some characters as
> accesskeys (@, $, %, &) may be more difficult to define with keyCodes since
> they may require a modifier key and tend to change key positions depending
> on locality. If you continue on this path, start thinking about possible
> NMTOKENs that may be useful in addition to the literal characters you've
> defined for keystrokes.


There are definite issues with characters requiring modifiers to be
produced. And even more issues once you start getting into encodings. (We
wrestle with these pretty much constantly in terms of reading and writing
text.) Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer but can certainly suggest
that simpler is better, and a primary consideration is to avoid key-combos
that the would be intercepted by the browser. So perhaps an initial, smaller
character set might be worth considering.

  jeff