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BamseIsUnix
Posts: 108
Joined: 2/18/2004
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An interesting HTML attribute, accesskey - 6/7/2004 15:15:37
This is my first tip for the community by the way. Hope that even someone might find this one helpful.
I was just reading through Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 and ran across this very interesting HTML attribute, accesskey. It's the 4th row of Priority 3 checkpoints. I've never heard about this one before. It's some sort of way to give links and form elements a function to access them using your keyboard.
The accesskey definition for HTML 4.01 is here.
I'm going to test this one as the first thing in the morning. If someone has experiences on this attribute's function, please comment. How does it actually work? Does it work in "mainstream" visual browsers? What happens e.g. if you have "find as you type" enabled in Mozilla?
quote:
Example.
In this example, if the user activates the "C" key, the link will be followed.
<A accesskey="C" href="doc.html" hreflang="en"
title="XYZ company home page">
XYZ company home page</A> from http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#link-accesskey
EDIT:
By the way the CSS style for accesskey-focused anchors are defined with a:focus. Something I know... 
Regards,
Bamse
< Message edited by BamseIsUnix -- 6/7/2004 15:18:39 >
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d a v e
Posts: 4167
Joined: 7/24/2002
From: England (but live in Finland now)
Status: online
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RE: An interesting HTML attribute, accesskey - 6/7/2004 16:22:04
the problem is that it isn't very widely used and it's partly because you have to explain the syste, you're using, and some of the keys might conflict with OS or even browser specific settings. it becomes a little tortous to start using spans to define and underline on one letter in a word for example (like the traditional way in OS menus, at least on windows e.g. File. although you can also (i think) use numbers.
Joe Clark has more to say on it here http://www.joeclark.org/book/sashay/serialization/Chapter08.html (about half way down, do a search in the page for access key) though i would suggest reading thw whole online book ( http://www.joeclark.org/book/sashay/serialization/ )
would be a nice thing if it could work properly!
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David Prescott
Gekko web design
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lois wakeman
Posts: 23
From: lyme regis, dorset, UK
Status: offline
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RE: An interesting HTML attribute, accesskey - 6/16/2004 3:27:11
As David says, a nice idea, but....
I wrote an article on this a while back, which includes a link to pages explaining exactly what the practical difficulties are. Even the diehard folks who subscribe to the WAI mailing lists are generally agreed that they are not ready for use yet: which is a shame.
http://lois.co.uk/web/articles/access-keys.shtml
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Lois Wakeman
http://lois.co.uk
http://communicationarts.co.uk
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d a v e
Posts: 4167
Joined: 7/24/2002
From: England (but live in Finland now)
Status: online
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RE: An interesting HTML attribute, accesskey - 6/16/2004 3:39:10
one idea - possibly - is to use alt (or cmnd) + [number]
e.g. alt + 1 = home, etc and use it as an 'optional extra', if people use it then fine, if they don't also fine. pity because it could be good for example for using a skip link/skip to content target and identifying it with a letter or number.
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David Prescott
Gekko web design
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davids
Posts: 211
Joined: 1/26/2003
From: Belgium (American)
Status: offline
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RE: An interesting HTML attribute, accesskey - 6/16/2004 6:12:58
I just used these for the first time recently. I am doing a conversion of a DOS-based application into web-based. The users are very used to keyboard navigation, and unhappy to always use the mouse.
So, I think this represents a situation where access keys can be useful: users that are willing to learn them, known browser (IE Explorer), consistent usage within the application.
It's not accomplishing any of the accessibility objectives mentioned above, but for reasons already cited, I wouldn't use them on a public site.
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Davids
International Relocation Technology
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Mary Mary
Posts: 24
Joined: 3/9/2004
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RE: An interesting HTML attribute, accesskey - 6/16/2004 16:14:27
Last year I replied to a thread on accesskeys at A List Apart: http://www.alistapart.com/discuss/accesskeys/7/. I'm sticking with the letter 'n' for navigation. Keep in mind that when using IE or Netscape, accesskeys work by pressing Alt + the accesskey. In Opera, accesskeys work by pressing Shift + Escape + the access key.
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BamseIsUnix
Posts: 108
Joined: 2/18/2004
Status: offline
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RE: An interesting HTML attribute, accesskey - 6/29/2004 7:31:55
At least the W3C Validator page uses acceskeys. I guess some people use them, no?
Regards,
Bamse
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