273233 - Inconsistent / hard to access keyboard shortcut for "Save Link As..." in context menus

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Menus, defect, P5)

Description

[pocemit]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.2; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

Load any website.
Right-click on any link.
The context menu that pops up, has the following:

"Save Lin&k As..." (&k meaning the letter 'k' is underlined, signifying a
shortcut key).

This is rather difficult to hit, especially if the mouse is in the right hand,
as this would require either taking right hand off the mouse to press 'k' on
keyboard, or pressing it with the left hand, by moving it off the normal typing
position.

The reason bug report says "inconsistent" is because in majority of
applications, on the "File" menu, the "Save As..." shortcut is triggered by the
'a' hotkey, such as Alt-F-A in order to "File->Save As...". Firefox itself uses
the same hotkey for "Save As..." in the "File" menu.



Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. open www.mozilla.org
2. right-click any link
3. notice "Save lin&k As..." displayed

Actual Results:  
To save the link, I had to take my right hand off the mouse and press the 'k' key.
This was very difficult and wasted 0.5seconds of my time


Expected Results:  
I wanted to see the context menu like this:

"Save link &As..."
which would require hitting 'a' key in order to "save as".
Since my other hand is already positioned on the left side of the keyboard,
right-clicking a link and pressing 'a' to save it is easy.

I propose changing the default keyboard hotkey for "Save Link As..."

from 'k' (currently)

to 'a'.

The menu would look like this:
"Save Link &As..."
where &A means underlined letter.

Comment 1

[Jesse Ruderman]

See also bug 258508.

Changing the "Save Link As..." accesskey from "k" to "a" is probably a good idea
(for consistency with IE and using the left side of the keyboard).  There is one
problem, however: if bug 257143 is fixed (and I hope it is), the menu item could
become "Save Link To Desktop...", which does not contain "a".

Comment 2

[pocemit]

that would be a horrible solution.
every other browser out there uses "Save Link As...".
I never save "to desktop".
Calling it as such would be totally misleading, unless there was no file dialog
that would pop up after clicking such link, literally forcing the save to desktop.


I still think the hotkey needs to be changed from (k) to (a),
keeping the wording of the menu item same ("Save Link As...").

Comment 3

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

> become "Save Link To Desktop...", which does not contain "a".

surely I'm missing something? What's the second letter of "Save"?

Comment 4

[pocemit]

the menu in question is in chrome\en-US.jar\locale\browser\browser.dtd

-<!ENTITY saveLinkCmd.accesskey        "k">
+<!ENTITY saveLinkCmd.accesskey        "a">

Comment 5

[Jesse Ruderman]

Ok, I guess "a" would work in English even with "Save Link to Desktop", and
other languages have their own constraints on accesskeys anyway.

Comment 6

[pocemit]

Attachment: patch to browser.dtd to fix this problem its been over a year...

the patch to replace hotkey from 'k' to 'a'

Comment 7

[pocemit]

taking this bug, does that mean it'll happen sooner?

Comment 8

[Elmar Ludwig]

This bug has a one-line patch attached that is awaiting review for more than a year... :-(

Is there someone who can review this? I'm not sure who owns this part of the code.

Comment 9

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

I'm sorry, I don't understand why there is an issue with an accesskey in a context menu that is difficult to access if your hand is already on the mouse :-\

It's very easy to hit if your fingers are still on the kb.

Comment 10

[Jesse Ruderman]

Majken, the majority of users use the mouse with their right hand.  That means that if they have a hand on the keyboard, it's most likely their left hand, and it's most likely (still) on the left side of the keyboard.  So it's good if context menu shortcuts for common items are on the left side of the keyboard.

Comment 11

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

I understand why you need shortcuts on the left side of the keyboard if your right hand is on the mouse. What I *dont* understand is *why* the access key needs to be easily reachable if you DO have a hand on the mouse.

Comment 12

[Jesse Ruderman]

It's faster to press a key than to click in the correct spot on the context menu, especially if you're trying to save a bunch of links at once.

Comment 13

[pocemit]

This is also the standard access key for save as on Internet Explorer, Opera, and various Linux-based mozilla knockoffs. (a, not k).

Comment 14

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

ahh now THAT is a different story!

Comment 15

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Comment on attachment 168100 [details] [diff] [review]
patch to browser.dtd to fix this problem
its been over a year...

clearing this, a is used for copy link location now anyway, so the patch isn't helpful as-is...

Comment 16

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Unfortunately at this point changing the access key is likely to upset enough people to outweigh the usability enhancement of a better access key.