Closed Bug 263228 Opened 20 years ago Closed 20 years ago

issues for online help: toplevel page, keyboard shortcuts

Categories

(Firefox Graveyard :: Help Documentation, defect)

Product:
Firefox Graveyard
Component:
Help Documentation
Version:
1.0 Branch
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED FIXED

People

(Reporter: bugzilla, Assigned: djst)

References

(
URL
)

Details

->Rafael. this is to track issues with the Firefox online help located at
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/support/
overall comment: when using acronyms (such as FASQ on the toplevel page), use
the <acronym> element to expand it.

comments for the toplevel page http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/support/

a. for the "release notes" link, should we just load
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/ --rather than jumping to the
installation section?

b. "Mozilla Community" link is broken:
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/support/community.html

c. "Chatzilla extension" link is at
http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/chatzilla --shouldn't we use the link
at upate.mozilla.org
(http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=16&vid=735), since u.m.o.
is the official extensions site?
for the Keyboard Shotcuts page,
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/support/keyboard.html

1. the accelerator key needs to be labeled as platform-independent. for Windows
and Linux, the accel key is typically Control (Ctrl), and on Mac it's Command
(Cmd). how about, near the top of the page, add a note explaining this, then
replace "Ctrl" with "Accel" (or whichever looks nicer) throughout the table?

2. moreover, Option is used on Mac --instead of Alt, which is used on Windows
and Linux. (Shift, on the other hand, works happily on the three main platforms.)

3. on a similar note, while Enter is applicable to Windows and Linux, on Mac the
appropriate label should be Return.

4. the function key (eg, F7, F4, F3, etc.) are only applicable to Windows and
Linux, since Mac OS X usually reserves those for other functions. this should
prolly be noted near the top of the page, too.

...will go through more on this page in a bit...
modifying summary so that this just covers the toplevel page and the shortcuts
--since this report is getting rather long! will spin off other bugs for other
sections of online help.

going over the individual shortcuts in
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/support/keyboard.html:

Back: due to bug 262905, Backspace on Linux might do PageUp instead of going
back in session history, so this might end up being a Windows-only shortcut. in
addition, the shortcut for this on Mac is Cmd+Left Arrow.

Bookmarks: Accel+I doesn't do anything with bookmarks --this shortcut brings up
Page Info, which should be added to this list.

Caret browsing: in spite of what I said in comment 2 (item 4), F7 does work to
toggle caret browsing on Mac OS X. however, if the user has already set this to
another function, then it won't work.

Complete .org address: doesn't appear to work on Mac OS X.

Downloads window: Accel+J works on Windows and Mac, but the shortcut on Linux is
Ctrl+Y.

Find Again (Find Next): should prolly list Accel+G before F3, as the former is
cross-platform.

Find Previous: Accel+Shift+G works cross-platform, should be listed first.

s/Find on Page/Find in This Page.

Forward: the shortcut for this on Mac is Cmd+Right Arrow. Shift-Backspace (see
comment for Back) might also end up being Windows-only.

Full Screen: F11 only works on Windows and Linux.

Help: F1 only works on Windows and Linux. On Mac OS, the Help button (extended
keyboards only) works.

Kill End of Line: no longer applicable when using the Gnome shortcuts.

New Mail Message: the problem with Cmd+M (on Mac), is that it should minimize
the window. see bug 204636; perhaps Cmd+Shift+M should be the shortcut on Mac.
for now Ctrl+M should be labeled as Windows/Linux only.

Next/Previous Tab: Ctrl+PageDown/Up and Ctrl+Tab also work on Mac, in spite of
what I said in comment 2 item 1 (expected behavior).

Open Address in New Tab: Alt+Enter works Windows/Linux, but on Mac the shortcut
is Option+Return.

(**add**) Page Info: Accel+I.

Redo: Accel+Shift+Z work on Linux and Mac. Ctrl+Y is Windows-only.

Reload: should list Accel+R first as it's cross-platform. F5 seems to work on
all platforms, too (but that might change on Mac if, again, the user changes its
setting).

Reload (override cache): should list Accel+Shift+R first. Ctrl+F5 works on both
Windows and Linux, but not on Mac (already has another behavior if full keyboard
access is turned on, to focus the toolbar).

Select Location Bar: should list Accel+L first. Alt+D only works on Windows and
Linux.

Select Next/Previous Search Engine: Ctrl+Down/Up Arrow also works on Mac, in
spite of what I said in comment 2 item 1 (expected behavior).

(**add**) Select Next/Previous item Auto-complete entry *or* Search Engine
entry: both Shift+Down/Up Arrow and AltDown/Up Arrow (Cmd+Down/Up Arrow on Mac)
do this. :)

Select Tab [1 to 9]: on Linux this is now Alt+[1 to 9]; see bug 256635. on Mac,
this is Cmd+[1-9].

Web Search: Accel+K is cross-platform. Ctrl+J additionally works on only Linux.
Ctrl+E no longer seems to do anything; see bug 250396.
Keywords: meta
Summary: issues for online help → issues for online help: toplevel page, keyboard shortcuts
this page, while oriented towards Mozilla (Seamonkey), has some good shortcuts
which are also applicable to Firefox:

http://www.mozilla.org/docs/end-user/moz_shortcuts.html
correction in comment 3:

(**add**) Select Next/Previous item Auto-complete entry *or* Search Engine
entry: Shift+Down/Up Arrow does this cross-platform.

from the Mozilla shortcut page (comment 4), these shortcuts are particularly
useful in Firefox and should be added:

Context Menu: Shift+F10 or the context menu key on the keyboard for Windows and
Linux. on Mac use Ctrl+Space.

Open Main Menu (switches to the first drop-down menu at the top of the window.
example: "File" in Windows): Windows, Alt or F10, Linux F10; Mac OS X:
Controlled through keyboard preference in Control Panel.

Go to Home Page: Windows/Linux: Alt+Home, Mac Option+Home.

Go to Bottom/Top of Page: End and Home keys, respectively.

Go Down One Page: PageDown/Space

Go Up One Page: PageUp/Shift+Space

Go Down/Up One Line: Down and Up Arrows, respectively.

Shift to Left/Right (when there's a horizontal scrollbar): Left and Right
Arrows, respectively.

Open Selected (Focused) Link in a Web Page: Enter for Windows/Linux, Return for Mac.

Move to Next/Previous Link or Form Element in a Web Page: Tab/Shift+Tab;
although not working on Mac; see bug 187508 and bug 239175.

Save Linked Page (when a link is selected/in focus): Alt+Enter for Windows/Linux
(Option+Return for Mac) in Firefox.


textarea shortcuts
------------------
* use Up, Down, Left, Right Arrows moves cursor 1 character at a time as
expected. ;)

* Move cursor a Word at a time from the left/right: Ctrl+Left/Right Arrow for
Windows/Linux, Option+Left/Right Arrow for Mac.

* Select a Line above/below at a time, starting from cursor position:
Shift+Up/Down Arrow.

* Select 1 character at a time from the left/right, starting from cursor
position: Shift+Left/Right Arrow.

* Select a Word at a time from the left/right, starting from cursor position::
Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right Arrow for Windows/Linux, Option+Shift+Left/Right Arrow for
Mac.

* Select from cursor position to beginning/end of line: Shift+Home/End for
Windows/Linux, Shift+Cmd+Left/Right Arrow on Mac.

* Select from cursor position to beginning/end of textarea: Ctrl+Shift+Home/End
for Windows/Linux, Shift+Cmd+Up/Down Arrow on Mac.


web form shortcuts
------------------
Note that in order to focus individual form elements (and links) on Mac, you
need to set accessibility.tabfocus to 7; again, see bug 187508 and bug 239175.

Select Radiobutton from Radio Group: Up/Down arrow keys.

Press Selected (Focused) Form Button, or Select Radiobutton: Space.

Select an Item from a List (listbox or drop-down menu): Up Arrow, Down Arrow, or
first letter of item name.

Check/Uncheck Checkbox (toggle): Space.

Open a Drop-Down Menu: Alt+Down Arrow for Windows/Linux, Option/Down Arrow for Mac.

another overall comment: in the left navbar, "Options Window" should prolly be
renamed, since it's Preferences on Linux and Mac. how about "Options (Preferences)"?
(In reply to comment #6)
> another overall comment: in the left navbar, "Options Window" should prolly be
> renamed, since it's Preferences on Linux and Mac. how about "Options
(Preferences)"?

Welcome to the world of cross-platform app documentation.

Incidentally, I presume you haven't looked at the built-in Help documentation,
because we've had to do some pretty serious hacking in order to make things work
correctly on all platforms (and we're still not there, although with one more
bigger bug fix and the last 10% completion of a patch on another we'll be 99%
done -- and certainly at the 1.0 level wrt Help platformization).

You're also going to have to worry about shortcut changes that affect one
version over another.  Once 1.0 is out, you should be good for quite a while
because a lot of stuff will be more or less frozen after 1.0, but in the interim
you'll have a great time.

I'm also not sure how much of the docs on the site are still completely
up-to-date.  Because many of the docs form the basis for built-in Help, I've
been working with them for a while trying to keep them up-to-date, so you may
find that working from them might save you some hassles in making any necessary
changes (as with keyboard shortcuts).

While I'm at it, I have a trivial quibble with this being in Firefox:Help
Documentation and not Firefox:Web Site because I thought this was for built-in
Help, but I can understand the reasoning.  It's not really a problem for me
because I'd CC myself here anyways.  If others watching
firefox.help-documentation@bugs have strong opinions, it might be worth making
the change.
Built-in Help really needs this to clean up after bug 259883.  I'd imagine
IE/Win shortcuts are relatively accurate, but I'm not at all sure of Opera or
IE/Mac shortcuts.  In particular, the disconnect between the use of Ctrl in
IE/Win and the possible (?) use of Cmd in IE/Mac is completely unknown, because
I don't believe any active Help developers actually use a Mac.  That sort of
hurts efforts in that area, and most changes come about from stumbling upon the
UI that results in the inaccuracies in the Mozilla source (e.g., scanning
browser-sets.inc and noticing inaccurate ifdef-ed shortcuts between platforms).

It'd be really, really, *really* good if we could have one or two people verify
all the shortcuts listed in Help (probably built-in, it's likely more
up-to-date) on Firefox on all supported platforms.  It'd also be great if some
people could verify IE/Mac, IE/Win, Opera/Mac, Opera/Win, and Opera/Linux,
because those shortcuts may or may not be accurate.  (I'm debating whether to go
over to the Opera forums and ask for help verifying the keyboard shortcuts
sometime soon, but I don't know whether I'm willing to put up with the possible
annoyances that would result from doing so.)
I verified MSIE 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158/Windows XP and found no
errors.
Looking at the help I found that "Ctrl-L" should be equivalent to "Ctrl-O" (so
no buggy information, but maybe that should be added).

I tested all Firefox 20041101 shortcuts under KDE. All worked except for Ctrl+F4
for Close Tab because KDE catches all Ctrl+F* shortcuts for virtual desktops
management. Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab didn't work for the same reasons.

I decided to try Opera 7.54 Final (my first experience with Opera) on Linux KDE
too :
Bookmarks shortcut CtrlCmd+1 does something else, not related to bookmarks.
Close Window shortcut CtrlCmd+W obviously doesn't work in some occasions, since
it's actually the Close Tab shortcut. It's stated twice...
Downloads shortcut CtrlCmd+5 does something else.
History shortcut CtrlCmd+4 does something else.
New tab shortcut is CtrlCmd+Shift+N instead of CtrlCmd+AltOpt+N (obviously wrong
since it appears twice).
Page Info shortcut seems to do something else, but I didn't find an equivalent
feature anyway.
Previous Tab shortcut "I" (letter) should read "1" (one) instead.
Select Location Bar shortcut should read H instead of CtrlCmd+H.

Notes about experience :
1. Checking Firefox help in Windows was displeasing because the font used showed
badly, more hardly readable. I was using 1024 resolution, the same as on Linux
but here the font, although it seems to be the same, is all right. Maybe someone
else should check if that is an appropriate font for Windows. The "+" sign
looked higher than other characters.
2. The shortcut for Help is not mentionned.
3. If I use Help Search and look for "shortcut", I get 6 results, 3 times
"Keyboard Shortcuts", twice "Mouse Shortcuts", one time "Shortcuts". Both "Mouse
Shortcuts" are the same, and the first result labelled "Keyboard Shortcuts" and
the last bring the same thing too.

I'm OK for testing Opera and Firefox on Windows when you say a first round of
fixes has been done.
I need to take on the task of adding Mac shortcuts in
http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/keyboard. Sairuh, thanks for the rundown
on what needs to be done. I agree on most of your comments, but I'm not sure
what would be the best way to list all the shortcuts. 

Here's one suggestion that would perhaps make it easy to navigate: 

By default, all shortcuts would be displayed, as they are now. (Pretty much the
way you suggested sairuh, but with "Ctrl/Cmd" instead of "Accel") On the top of
the page, there would be 3 links: "Only show shortcuts for: Windows | Linux |
Macintosh". When you click on one of the links, the page would change it's
apperance and hide the shortcuts that doesn't apply for the selected OS (for
example, "Cmd" would be used instead of "Ctrl/Cmd" if you click on Mac). This
would be handled with CSS and very simple javascript. 

So by default, an entry would look like this:

Command     Firefox                     Internet Explorer   Opera
Reload      Ctrl/Cmd+R                  ...                 ...
            Alt+Left Arrow (Windows)
            Cmd+Left Arrow (Mac)
            
And if you click on e.g. Mac, the same entry would look like this:

Command     Firefox                     Internet Explorer   Opera
Reload      Cmd+R                       ...                 ...
            Cmd+Left Arrow

This would all be "magically" possible using CSS and simple span classes, e.g.:

<span class="kb_win">Ctrl</span><span class="kb_hide>/</span><span
class="kb_mac">Cmd</span>+R
<span class="kb_win">Alt+Left Arrow</span><span class="kb_hide"> (Windows)</span>
<span class="kb_mac">Cmd+Left Arrow</span><span class="kb_hide"> (Mac)</span>

And by default:
.kb_win, .kb_mac, .kb_linux, .kb_hide {display: inline;}
 
 
What do you think of this? Basically, it would make the complete page work in
simple web browsers (e.g. links) and it would make it more space efficient in
modern browsers (e.g. Firefox).
For 1.0, I will probably just do it the easy way by omitting the <span> tags and
just list it the comprehensive way without the 3 links on top of the page. The
customization CSS/Javascript features will have to wait until after 1.0.

Taking.
Assignee: rebron → bugzilla
The textarea shortcuts and web form shortcuts only adds clutter to the table and
is btw not Firefox specific, but OS specific. I won't add these.
(off-topic)
Just in case you want recent screenshots: See bug 248264 comment 37.
FIXED
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 20 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
This bug was closed but the information in comments 8 and 9 doesn't seem moved.
Maybe Jeff or David can propose a better place?
Product: Firefox → Firefox Graveyard
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