- From: Matthew Thomas <mpt@myrealbox.com>
- Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 17:45:18 +1300
On 11 Nov, 2004, at 4:26 AM, James Graham wrote: > Matthew Thomas wrote: >> >> More common, perhaps, would be for UAs to automatically create (and >> display on the page) shortcuts for form controls that had been used >> frequently in the past. > ... >> (Well, it's a problem, but only because UA vendors haven't bothered >> to implement the necessary underlining, not because of any spec >> deficiency.) > ... >> UA vendors have had over six years to come up with non-awkward >> support for accesskey=. > > I don't understand. What makes you think that vendors would implement > the complex code/UI needed to enble custom, per-site accesskeys when > you note that they've already failed to implement simple enhancements > that would make the current accesskey scheme more user friendly? Good question. History has shown that UA vendors find it much easier to implement UI features (tabbed windows, download managers, customizable toolbars, etc) than to implement layout engine features (full HTML4 support, full CSS2 support, a "Fit to Window" function, smart table header scrolling, etc). (This is probably also why there are many more graphical UAs today than there are layout engines.) Unfortunately, implementing accesskey underlining would require a new layout engine feature -- a :-foobrowser-accesskey pseudo-class, which could then be selected for underlining -- which is apparently why UA vendors haven't bothered. Implementing the automatic shortcut key creation scheme I described above, however, would require only CSS2 generated content (to display the shortcut in the document), and that is already supported in all major layout engines except for Trident. -- Matthew Thomas http://mpt.net.nz/
Received on Saturday, 13 November 2004 20:45:18 UTC