- From: Hy Cohen <hy@miplet.com>
- Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 08:29:02 -0700
- To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
I was trying to get access keys to work with IE but they don't seem to. I had GW Micro try it, and they said they couldn't get access keys to work in IE with or without Window-Eyes. Funny. Does anyone else have any info on IE and access keys? Thanks, Hy -----Original Message----- From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Lloyd G. Rasmussen Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 8:05 AM To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org Subject: RE: Access Keys - your collective help is urgently requested! In my opinion, Accesskey should never have been put in the specs until there was an understanding of a very small number of keys reserved for specific navigation purposes. Window-Eyes uses the alt numbers 0 through 9 for reading the contents of a frame or window of information from the screen. In WE 4.2 and probably earlier, the SET file which configures Window-Eyes for use with IE has alt-0, alt-1 and alt-2 undefined. Alt-3 will read the whole IE application window. Since these "hotkeys" are handled by the screen reader, they are not passed on to the browser. I would think that HPR would intercept its hotkeys before an accesskey directive could see it. See if you can design the pages with only one accesskey or none. At 04:24 PM 9/13/02 +0300, you wrote: > >John Foliot wrote: > >> - -a large group of institutional developers have >> been recommended to implement a series of "Standardized" Access Keys >> assigned to "Skip Nav" functionality across multiple web sites. - - >> they have recommended the use of "Alt+1" and "Alt+2". Users of IBM's >> Home Page Reader may recognise these as being "Alt+1 = Headings >> Reading Mode" and "Alt+2 = Text View". > >This is a mess. > >> It's a mess. > >It's a frustrating mess. > >I had thought, and the consensus of some discussion has been, as far as >I know, that using digit keys as access keys is the safest way to avoid >clashes with browsers' built-in shortcuts. I had even documented and >recommended such usage: >http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/accesskey.html#assign > >I hadn't used IBM HPR enough to have noted the problem. How serious is >it in practice? How often are those shortcuts used, and are there >alternative ways of doing what they do? > >> Current thinking is to move to "Alt+X", Alt+Y" and Alt+Z" > >I'm afraid any letters as access keys are reserved by one or (probably) >more programs for some use. But if you're going to use letters, then >those letters at the end of the English alphabet presumably have less >use than others, just because it's more difficult to treat them as >mnemonic in any way. (Well, X could be eXit, Y might be Yank, Z might >be Zoom. Actually, Opera seems to use Alt+X and Alt+Z for moving within >the history list; don't ask me why.) > >It is virtually impossible to test all the browsers, since the shortcut >assignments vary even between different language versions. And it is >not sufficient to consider shortcuts in assistive technology. The great >majority of users use browsers that have some support to access keys, >and this means that some built-in shortcuts will be overridden _without >the users even knowing_ before they try to use some shortcut they are >familiar with and observing something strange. > >For "Skip Nav", are access keys needed at all? Isn't it sufficient that >there is a link to the start of the main content, or otherwise past the >navigation? It could be a "visually hidden" link, i.e. a transparent >single-pixel GIF with something like alt="Main content of the page." >Such links have their problems, but I'd say that they are, as a whole, more >tolerable than the harmful side effects of access keys. > >-- >Jukka Korpela, senior adviser >TIEKE Finnish Information Society Development Centre >http://www.tieke.fi/ >Diffuse Business Guide to Web Accessibility and Design for All: >http://www.diffuse.org/accessibility.html > > > > Braille is the solution to the digital divide. Lloyd Rasmussen, Senior Staff Engineer National Library Service f/t Blind and Physically Handicapped Library of Congress (202) 707-0535 <lras@loc.gov> <http://www.loc.gov/nls> HOME: <lras@sprynet.com> <http://lras.home.sprynet.com>
Received on Friday, 13 September 2002 11:29:19 UTC