Re: Proposal for Keyboard Shortcuts for HTML5

At 13:08 +0200 UTC, on 2007-09-22, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:

> On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 07:52:33 +0200, Sander Tekelenburg <st@isoc.nl> wrote:

[...]

>> Sounds awfully semantic to me. Wouldn't it be better if HTML would allow
>> authors to mark up such *meanings*, and leave it up to the UA to provide
>> the appropriate keyboard shortcut?...
>
> This is indeed the sort of thing that @role is designed for - and in
> particular the extensibility of @role was meant to cope with such a case.

Thanks. OK, so @role, or something similar, then seems to be something to
seriously consider for inclusion in HTML5. (But I seem to remember there are
objections?)

> If the UA has no idea what the role is, then it is helpful if the author
> has requested a shortcut (or 6) that the UA can use as a mnemonic if it is
> available in some way.

Agreed.

>> The main problem with this would be that with a predefined set of such
>> "roles", there could still be cases where authors wish to provide
>> keyboard access to non-predefined "roles".
>
> The current design of role allows for this with extensibility. But there
> is a proposal on the table with a lot of support that in order to have
> @role in HTML 5 it would lose the xtensibility

Sorry, I can't follow that last sentence. What proposal, on which table, and
what "support"? (By parties?)

>> Possibly the old @accesskey can be upgraded
>
> Well, it could just be used. It doesn't provide much useful info, but it
> does provide some.

Right. I meant "upgraded" just in the sense that it be specced more clearly
(than HTML 4.01 does), so that authors can know how to use it, and that gives
interoperability.

>> it just isn't a good idea at all to let authors define key combos.
>
> I think everyone who has though about this recognises that the author's
> suggestion should not be automatically followed, since it may introduce
> conflicts.

Exactly.


-- 
Sander Tekelenburg
The Web Repair Initiative: <http://webrepair.org/>

Received on Sunday, 23 September 2007 17:33:49 UTC