Closed Bug 240707 Opened 20 years ago Closed 20 years ago

Pressing Ctrl+(left/right) arrow should be equivalent to clicking (previous/next) in Site Navigation Toolbar

Categories

(Core :: DOM: UI Events & Focus Handling, enhancement)

x86
Windows 2000
enhancement
Not set
normal

Tracking

()

RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 102909

People

(Reporter: massmailers, Assigned: aaronlev)

Details

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113

I don't know if this is an RFE or a bug.

There ought to be a keyboard shortcut for "Previous" and "Next" on the Site
Navigation Toolbar, using the arrow keys. The associated key ought to be Alt or
Ctrl... probably Ctrl but I'm open on it. Mousing over either button should
state the shortcut key at the end of the tooltip, at the end of the existing
description that pops up.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
Ctrl-left and Ctrl-right are commonly used window manager shortcuts (for moving
the mouse pointer, changing desktops, etc).

Alt-left and Alt-right are session history forward/back and have been for 8
years now in Netscape and Mozilla.
Boris, I believe this person is talking about the site navigation bar, not the
"normal" navigation bar. The site navigation bar (in Mozilla, I don't know about
Firefox) can be turned in using View | Show/Hide, and you'll see it contains
Previous and Next buttons, and many others, that serve purposes defined in LINK
tags in the head of the document.
Robert, I'm well aware of what Chris is talking about (see the CVS log for the
relevant files).

All I'm pointing out is that the keyboard shortcuts he suggested using are
already taken.
Robert Morris is correct about which toolbar I'm talking about. It's one of the
most underappreciated features in Mozilla, I think.

Alt+left/right used in History is a good argument for it not being used for this
- so Ctrl+left/right are best.

As for Window Manager - any keyboard shortcut, including many already in
Mozilla, has a use in some other app or OS component or plugin, so its presence
in Window Manager doesn't mean it shouldn't be used in Mozilla. I and many, many
Moz/Windows users would find no conflict with the shortcut, and would find it
very convenient.

However, given the potential for conflict, the shortcut should be able to be
configured - in its simplest it should be disabled for any install that has
Window Manager on it.
> so its presence in Window Manager doesn't mean it shouldn't be used in Mozilla

Except that Mozilla will never see the keystrokes.

> in its simplest it should be disabled for any install that has Window Manager
> on it

You must mean "a window manager"?  And this would mean every single Linux
install, then.  You can't use ctrl-left and ctrl-right for the same reason that
you can't use alt-tab (which is _also_ a window manager shortcut, not only for
Linux window managers but for the Windows one as well).

The point is, the shortcut is not usable, since a large fraction of the user
base would never be able to use it.  It's been suggested for various mozilla
functions before, and shot down for precisely those reasons.  I have nothing
against adding a keyboard shortcut for this functionality, you just have to find
one that's not commonly coopted by the OS or window manager on any of the
Mozilla platforms and not used for anything inside Mozilla.
What about the numpad keys? Are the left and right there free? I suppose those
might be intuitive.
Dunno.  Not exactly my field of expertise (I'd just seen the other brought up in
bugs several times).  Someone would have to do some research into it...
Dupe of bug 102909 via bug 141989

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 102909 ***
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 20 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
Component: Keyboard: Navigation → User events and focus handling
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