Alt+S occupied in 2.0b1

Discussion of features in Mozilla Firefox
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angelica
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Post by angelica »

thank you, that I changed as well! :)
Kain
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Post by Kain »

Sweet, I had this problem too but this thread has more or less cleared it up :)
Ionium
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Post by Ionium »

I changed both ui.key.chromeAccess and ui.key.contentAccess to 6 but it still wants alt+letter?
old zeniko
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Post by old zeniko »

Ionium wrote:I changed both ui.key.chromeAccess and ui.key.contentAccess to 6 but it still wants alt+letter?

Make sure that ui.key.generalAccessKey is set to -1 (its new default), otherwise that value will override the other two.
coth
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Post by coth »

it's really ridiculous. history does not supported "because developers follow majority". and what is here? why not to follow majority and return alt+s by default and to rename history menu to go menu back. it's nearly nobody use menus via alt keywords. but tones of people use alt+s for posting and there are only two options for changing layout - ctrl+shift and alt+shift. second is default and most popular. anyway using shifts is absolutely unwelcome for non latin users.
old zeniko
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Post by old zeniko »

coth wrote:why not to follow majority [...] it's nearly nobody use menus via alt keywords.

Please don't bother (again), unless you've got some statistics to share in order to prove your point.
coth
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Post by coth »

zeniko
statistics - 100% of winxp non english users have shift used in changing layout.
another statistics - tones of complaints about alt+s here on forum with tones of threads, when ff2 not even released yet.
supernova_00
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Post by supernova_00 »

coth: most users don't even know that enter submits in the location bar let alone that alt + s will submit on some forms. Normal users could care less about keyboard shortcuts since they just confuse them
taz42zero
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Post by taz42zero »

had a question on had to change the about:config, but figured it all out...............
Orulious
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Post by Orulious »

Why change this feature that has been around for so long all of a sudden? I've been using Alt+s to submit replies on so many forums now. I'm just comfortable with it. I try the new beta and all of a sudden my browser is doing things I'm not telling it to do. I can't stand this new so called "feature" forcing me to change my shortcuts. Oh but, I can pretend I'm a geek and change the settings somehow with this about:config thing you guys are talking about. Firefox Devs, please re-think what you guys have changed and put my shortcut back....
old zeniko
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Post by old zeniko »

Orulious wrote:Why change this feature that has been around for so long all of a sudden?

Have you read the bug which led to this? You would have been welcome to contribute a better solution -- but most possible solutions consisted in changing the content accesskey modifer away from Alt, I'm afraid.

We were aware that this change would affect many people and that not all of them would be happy about it. But we've yet to see a better alternative before it'll be worth to re-think that change...
Orulious
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Post by Orulious »

I would have suggested creating a UI interface then to give the option of setting preferences on this, instead of FF taking and changing something that is already default in MANY places including things like forums and webmail i.e. Gmail. The first time an Accesskey is used, have a pop-up that gives us the ability to change prefs.

The ironic thing is, even BugZilla uses accesskeys. I've seen about 15 or so Accesskeys I think, and about 5 of which become non-functional by default in Firefox2.
rickmans
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Post by rickmans »

zeniko wrote:
Orulious wrote:Why change this feature that has been around for so long all of a sudden?


We were aware that this change would affect many people and that not all of them would be happy about it. But we've yet to see a better alternative before it'll be worth to re-think that change...


If there was no better alternative there was always the option to not implement a bugfix. The bug was open for appr 4 years, some months extra will not hurt it ;).

I think you will limit firefox with this decision, e.g. the w3 describes that "one generally has to press the "alt" key in addition to the access key. On Apple systems, one generally has to press the "cmd" key in addition to the access key." (http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/interact/for ... #h-17.11.2). Also pressing three buttons instead of two will limit the possibility for persons with limited physical capabilities to navigate websites. I understand that if they have to use three buttons to navigate their browser also does not help them, however do not make this decision for them, let them make the decision.

Besides the fact of not really helping the persons with limited phuscal capabilities, you will also limit most forum users (not particurly this forum) because the most large forums do use alt+s as an accesskey to post new items. Users are used to do this in 4 years, instead if solving a bug, you are creating a new bug: you remove usability users are used to and probably also important: you will make switching from other browsers (e.g. IE) more difficult due to the fact that the usability will differ more.
old zeniko
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Post by old zeniko »

rickmans wrote:I think you will limit firefox with this decision, e.g. the w3 describes that "one generally has to press the "alt" key in addition to the access key. On Apple systems, one generally has to press the "cmd" key in addition to the access key."

Note that on Apple systems, the Ctrl key is generally the accesskey (for Safari, Firefox and old Internet Explorer) and on Windows systems, e.g. Opera uses Shift+Esc. With Mozilla/Firefox changing away from that IMNSHO pretty short-sighted W3C decision, only Internet Explorer (and all browser shells basing on the same rendering engine) uses the Alt key and thus suffers certain accessibility restrictions. We'll see whether that'll change for IE8 as well...

rickmans wrote:you will also limit most forum users (not particurly this forum) because the most large forums do use alt+s as an accesskey to post new items.

Repeating the same Alt+S argument over again doesn't make it more true. Alt+Shift+S works as expected. With the underlying design issue, it was pretty much unavoidable to change away from Alt+S.

Looking at the bright side, you do at least have an alternative to get it back (either through about:config or probably quite soon through an extension). So we don't really force our way, we just offer it per default...

As for accessibility restrictions, please answer the following question: Alt+S happens to focus the address bar in German version of Internet Explorer, Firefox, and many variants. Now focusing the address bar is most probably a more common operation than submitting a forum post, at least for keyboard users (others will click into the address bar and on the Submit button). Do you really want to restrict all these users just because they happen not to be that vocal a minority as you are in these English speaking forums?
rickmans
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Post by rickmans »

zeniko wrote:
rickmans wrote:you will also limit most forum users (not particurly this forum) because the most large forums do use alt+s as an accesskey to post new items.

Repeating the same Alt+S argument over again doesn't make it more true. Alt+Shift+S works as expected. With the underlying design issue, it was pretty much unavoidable to change away from Alt+S.
I personally think it is rather unkeen to change a usability that has been around before the first final release of FF was done (perhaps even before the FF project was started). Closing your eyes for this is also an option, because when you do not see a possible issue, there will be no issue. Arguments to keep it the old-fashioned way are as valid as changing them with the only difference there were not (that many) users that would like to change the original behaviour (at least I did not found that many entries in bugzilla)

zeniko wrote:Looking at the bright side, you do at least have an alternative to get it back (either through about:config or probably quite soon through an extension). So we don't really force our way, we just offer it per default...
You offered a default that is different from the last view years and different from most browsers. Depending on an extension is like saying: "we know it sucks, but probably someone else will also think it sucks and he will fix it". I agree it is rather late to implement in the release of 27th of October (if I am correct) but imho it is not too late to release the fix/feature in the first patch cycle after the original release.
zeniko wrote:As for accessibility restrictions, please answer the following question: Alt+S happens to focus the address bar in German version of Internet Explorer, Firefox, and many variants. Now focusing the address bar is most probably a more common operation than submitting a forum post, at least for keyboard users (others will click into the address bar and on the Submit button). Do you really want to restrict all these users just because they happen not to be that vocal a minority as you are in these English speaking forums?
As you already said in this thread: you probably have got some statistics to share in order to prove your point. ;).

Do you really want to have a lot of forum users which can not post by default in the way they are doing for the last 5 years (with alt+s). Do look at e.g. http://www.big-boards.com/ it shows how many forum users there are. The average market share of firefox is appr 10%, on for example gathering of tweakers (number 22 in the list) this maybe 20% due to the fact is more techrelated. It is said to see how easily you will disappoint many of these users just because you had to fix a bug which was already open for four years. Why not not fixing that bug and wait for an extension for that option? ;).
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