Re: agreement: user disposes; disagreement: author proposes [was: Re: When actions speak louder than words]

My good mate John Foliot - WATS.ca <foliot@wats.ca> wrote:

> Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
>> I am happy for it to be optional, but believe that is should be there
>> - it is useful to us, and anyone else who has an implementation that
>> doesn't conflict with basic system functionality.
>>
>
> And here lies a major issue - what good does an author suggested
> (hinted) @key provide if it conflicts with:
>
>  1) User determined keys (Conflict Resolution scheme awards to
> end user)
>  2) Software determined keys (Conflict Resolution scheme awards
> to end user)
[...]
> I question the usefulness of a hint that more often than not MAY be
> wrong for Opera, will CERTAINLY be wrong for some other
> configuration(s), and, according to the specs will likely be over-ridden
> anyway.

Actually it is relatively unlikely to be wrong for Opera, unless either  
there are a lot of configured roles, in which case the case will arise  
rarely. The fact that something can be overridden isn't a big deal.  
Implementors are free to ignore it from the get-go, although they "should  
not".

> I keep going back to my little chart
> (http://wats.ca/resources/accesskeysandkeystrokes/38):  If you were a
> content author that needed to "hint" a custom access @key, which one
> would you choose, and how would you convey that information to the end
> user?

You would choose the one that makes sense, knowing that in the many  
systems where it causes a problem it will somehow be mapped, or you won't  
bother to choose one, since it is optional and you know that it won't  
appear like that.

And you don't tell the user, unless you want to write a page about  
accesskeys you have assigned, the roles you have used, and an essay on why  
the original implementations turned out to be so horribly broken (and  
presumably in some cases will be even a couple of years after a decent  
access spec appears, not to mention old browsers still hanging around...).  
You leave the responsibility to the user agent, just as you do for making  
links "visible" and usable by some magic or other of the particular user  
interface.

cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles McCathieNevile                     chaals@opera.com
   hablo español  -  je parle français  -  jeg lærer norsk
      Peek into the kitchen: http://snapshot.opera.com/

Received on Monday, 2 January 2006 15:31:28 UTC