239175 - Enable tabbing to links by default on OS X

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Keyboard Navigation, enhancement)

Description

[jonathan chetwynd]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040206 Firefox/0.8
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040206 Firefox/0.8

This is an 'accessibility' issue.

How do mac users who cannot use, or prefer not to use a mouse navigate using
mozilla or firefox?

Alt + tab key does not allow keyboard access to links in browser window

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.

Comment 1

[jsp]

You can turn on tab (not alt-tab) navigation in Mozilla using the Keyboard
Navigation preferences pane (under Advanced).

Firefox also offers tab navigation, but you can't currently select it with the
preferences dialog. There's a bug about this; see
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=223328.
 
Until the bug is fixed, there's a rather cryptic way to change Firefox's
behavior. Enter "about:config" in the URL bar, then press return. This will
bring up a list of all the browser preferences. Locate "accessibility.tabfocus"
(this will be easier if you type "tab" in the "Filter" textbox), double-click
it, enter "7" in the dialog box that comes up, and click OK. That should do the
trick.
 
The value is a bit-field. It appears that bit 0 (0x0) does nothing, but is
always on unless you use about:config to turn it off, bit 1 (0x2) controls
tabbing to buttons, radio buttons, checkboxes, and lists, and bit 2 (0x4)
controls tabbing to links. Tabbing to text fields is always enabled. So, you
have four supported values for this preference:
 
1: tab to text fields
3: tab to text fields, buttons, etc,
5: tab to text fields and links
7: tab to text fields, links, buttons, etc.
 
Any other value acts like 1.

Comment 2

[Aaron Leventhal]

Reporter, please REOPEN if you find the suggestions in comment 1 unsatisfactory.

Comment 3

[jonathan chetwynd]

tabbing should be enabled as the default
The process as described is possible for an able and intelligent user.

However for anyone else with a disability it would not be possible.

I know of no reason why tabbing should not be enabled as the default.

Comment 4

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

This falls under the "what should the Mac do by default" category.  The default
was set this way based on Mac user feedback.

per bug 223328 comment 8, safari doesn't enable tabbing to links by default, but
does offer the option.  Except for Mac IE, all other browsers seem to default to
what we currently offer.

Confirming, assigning to ben (pink is Camino, not Firefox, although leaving him
cced since he might have useful info).  Also, this isn't a crasher/dataloss
issue, its a request to change the default.  We could (and probably should) add
UI on Mac for this pref, which means the theoretical user could in fact easily
change the default if so desired.

Comment 5

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

*** Bug 233706 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Peter da Silva]

There's an entry in the main Mac OS X Preferences, under Keyboard, marked "Turn on full keyboard 
access". Firefox should honor this option: there's no need for a new element in Firefox' own 
Preferences.

Comment 7

[Aaron Leventhal]

(In reply to comment #6)
I agree, Firefox should honor "Turn on full keyboard access" on Mac OS X

How do we do that? I've been told that's not possible, but I don't believe it.
Can someone provide a code snippet for testing this pref on OS X?

Comment 8

[jonathan chetwynd]

OK that's:

system preferences,  keyboard, keyboard navigation, turn full keyboard access on
or off ^F1 
for this toggle

Comment 9

[Peter da Silva]

In "~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist" look at "AppleKeyboardUIMode", it looks like bit 1 
toggles Full Keyboard Access.

Comment 10

[J. J. Ramsey]

(In reply to comment #9)
> In "~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist" look at
"AppleKeyboardUIMode", it looks like bit 1 
> toggles Full Keyboard Access.

I would further suggest that if Full Keyboard Access is toggled to "on," then either

1) accesibility.tabfocus is set to 7 or
2) accesibility.tabfocus is set to 3 and Option-Tab is used to tab to
links--emulating the default behavior of Safari.

Comment 11

[Peter da Silva]

> 1) accesibility.tabfocus is set to 7 or
> 2) accesibility.tabfocus is set to 3 and Option-Tab is used to tab to
> links--emulating the default behavior of Safari.

#1 matches the behaviour of standard Cocoa applications under FKA? Then this is probably the 
best model for Firefox.

#2 should be the behaviour without FKA or should be selected by a separate Firefox/Mozilla 
preference, but by the principle of least astonishment it shouldn't be the default under FKA.

Comment 12

[Aaron Leventhal]

Doesn't Safari now have a separate option for what to do with the tab key? Or
does Safari obey the system setting for universal kbd access.

Comment 13

[Peter da Silva]

Trust me, you don't want to use Safari as your guide. Safari's FKA support only showed up in Safari 
1.2. And there was much rejoicing: http://macslash.org/comments.pl?sid=4263&cid=65519 .

Comment 14

[Jo Hermans]

*** Bug 259307 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 15

[Jo Hermans]

see also bug 223328

Comment 16

[Aaron Leventhal]

By default Mac doesn't tab to everything unless you turn on universal keyboard
access. Unfortunately we don't automatically follow the system pref: that's bug
187508. There are hints in the bug on how to fix it, if anyone's interested.

In fact I think this show probably me marked a DUP of that, or WONTFIX. We
should just follow the system prefs, right?

Comment 17

[Ben Willmore]

 
> In fact I think this show probably me marked a DUP of that, or WONTFIX. We
> should just follow the system prefs, right?

Perhaps what's needed is an option in the preferences pane: behave-like-safari
or behave-like-firefox-on-other-platforms?  This could collect together options
like this, each of which takes some time to find a solution to invidually.

Comment 18

[Peter da Silva]

(In reply to comment #17)
> Perhaps what's needed is an option in the preferences pane: behave-like-safari
> or behave-like-firefox-on-other-platforms?  This could collect together options
> like this, each of which takes some time to find a solution to invidually.

That may be a useful feature, but it's not really relevant here since the global system
preferences provide both options and any user who cares will already have set them.
Whether Safari obeys the global system preferences is really something for Apple to
fix, not Mozilla/Firefox.

Comment 19

[Mike Pinkerton (not reading bugmail)]

well the real question, which apple has answered by their pref, is would users
want different tab behavior in their browser from the rest of the OS. eg, do
people want additional tabbing in the content area yet don't care about it
everywhere else. Apple says yes. Do we have any idea ourselves?

Comment 20

[Peter da Silva]

I suspect that what you're seeing in the Safari preferences is a result of Safari's history as much as any 
kind of statement on how full keyboard access is applied. In Jaguar, Safari completely ignores Full 
Keyboard Access in the browser window. You can't tab to anything but text fields even in the address or 
bookmarks bars, let alone in the body.

And, besides, Safari's behaviour isn't as simple as enabling or disabling full keyboard access. Instead, 
it's toggling whether option-tab is needed to tab to links. That's a useful option for both Windows and 
OS X, but it's an enhancement for Firefox no matter what the default or user interface is.

Comment 21

[Rich Ellis]

*** Bug 262526 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 22

[Krishna Sethuraman]

FYI, re: the original comment

> How do mac users who cannot use, or prefer not to use a mouse navigate using
> mozilla or firefox?

I personally end up using typeaheadfind or find-as-you-type for links, and set
the accessibility.tabfocus to 3 to tab to buttons, fields, etc.  Both are
accessibility settings.  The combination provides complete keyboard navigation,
after a fashion.

Comment 23

[jonathan chetwynd]

Krishna,

general keyboard accessibility is outside the scope of this bug.

you appear to agree that it isn't currently possible to tab to links, which is a
default mechanism afaik in many OS/browsers.

Comment 24

[Arthur Wiebe]

*** Bug 243561 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 25

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

(In reply to comment #16)
> By default Mac doesn't tab to everything unless you turn on universal keyboard
> access. Unfortunately we don't automatically follow the system pref: that's bug
> 187508. There are hints in the bug on how to fix it, if anyone's interested.
> 
> In fact I think this show probably me marked a DUP of that, or WONTFIX. We
> should just follow the system prefs, right?
> 

Right. The work on bug 187508 is pretty done. wontfixing.

Now, if someone comes up with a usability test (comment 19) which shows that
many users choose different options in Safari's advanced pane vs Full Keyboard
Accees, please reopen bug 187508.

Comment 26

[Asaf Romano (gone)]

> please reopen bug 187508.

bug 223328, sorry for bugspam.