1426958 - Allow ctrl+alt+letter as a commands keyboard shortcut

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1364784

(WebExtensions :: Frontend, enhancement, P5)

Description

[plaice.adam+persona]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:57.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/57.0
Build ID: 20171129230835

Steps to reproduce:

Create a webextension with a manifest.json specifying a default keyboard shortcut of "Ctrl+Alt+{letter}"

  "commands": {
    "action": {
      "suggested_key": {
	"default": "Ctrl+Alt+U"
      },
      "description": "The action."
    }
  }

and try to temporarily load it from about:debugging.


Actual results:

The extension is not loaded (error message: "There was an error during installation: Extension is invalid").


Expected results:

The extension is loaded and "Ctrl+Alt+U" is set as a shortcut for the given extension action.

Note:

I am aware that the current behaviour of forbidding "Ctrl+Alt+{letter}" is in line with the documentation and consistent with the behaviour on Chrome (where, according to https://developer.chrome.com/apps/commands

"Combinations that involve Ctrl+Alt are not permitted in order to avoid conflicts with the AltGr key."

).

However, considering that Ctrl+Alt acts as AltGr only on Windows (and many people won't use AltGr anyway, even on Windows), it seems overly restrictive to forbid the combination on all platforms, especially as finding memorable shortcuts that do not collide with the default Firefox ones and those of other extensions is often difficult. (Permitting the combination of Ctrl+Alt+{something else} would almost double the space of possible keybindings.)

Alternatively, if breaking compatibility with chrome in manifest.json is not an option, it would be useful if, (once a UI for the setting of extension shortcuts by the user exists), it were possible for the user to set shortcuts containing the combination Ctrl+Alt, even if they cannot be set by the extension by default.

Comment 1

[plaice.adam+persona]

See also the chromium issue:

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=426887

Comment 2

[Gingerbread Man]

Bug 1364784 is for Ctrl+Alt+any key.

Comment 3

[Caitlin Neiman [:caitmuenster]]

Hi plaice.adam, this has been added to the agenda for the January 30, 2018 WebExtensions APIs triage meeting. Would you be able to join us? 

Here’s a quick overview of what to expect at the triage: 

* We normally spend 5 minutes per bug
* The more information in the bug, the better
* The goal of the triage is to give a general thumbs up or thumbs down on a proposal; we won't be going deep into implementation details

Relevant Links: 

* Wiki for the meeting: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions/Triage#Next_Meeting
* Meeting agenda: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x80jYXicAotNjlitY5RZDcSRpRM3lmaSHp_q4co4OEg/edit#
* Vision doc for WebExtensions: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions/Vision

Comment 5

[Mihir Karbelkar(:fauxwizard_)]

Hi this will be my second bug and I would like to work on it. Can you get me started with what all should I know? Thanks.

Comment 6

[Gingerbread Man]

Shouldn't this be closed as Fixed given that the more broad bug 1364784 has been fixed? If not, see comment 5.

Comment 7

[Mark Striemer [:mstriemer]]

This is indeed fixed now, thanks.

If you're looking for another bug to work on related to commands you could try bug 1424708. There are some instructions on how to get started in bug 1424708 comment 3.