420766 - Access keys on websites are overwritten by Firefox access keys

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Keyboard Navigation, defect)

Description

[Gary]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9b3) Gecko/2008020511 Firefox/3.0b3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9b3) Gecko/2008020511 Firefox/3.0b3

Access keys on websites are overwritten by Firefox access keys. For instance, the code <input accesskey="p" type="submit" value="Preview" /> should allow users to hit ctrl-p to select this button, but that is not the case because Firefox uses ctrl-p for 'Find Previous'. 

Speaking from an accessibility point of view, shouldn't access keys generated by websites supersede those generated by Firefox? 

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[[:Cww]]

Actually, I that's the reason there are the ui.key.contentAccess and ui.key.chromeAccess and ui.key.generalAccessKey prefs in about:config.  You can set the access key you want for webpages (contentAccess) and for jumping to parts of the browser (chromeAccess) or use one key for both (generalAccessKey).

Comment 2

[[:Chris78]]

I have to support Gary's opinion. We often use accesskey s for form submits for example. Still we do want to use Alt as accesskey for the chroma because everybody is used to do so.

Imho there should be a priority variable like "preferablyAccessContent". 

So *if* there is some content element with accesskey='f' this should be accessible by Alt+F (assuming Alt is the Accesskey for the content (Ui.key.contentAccess=4)). If *no* content element claimes to be accessed by accesskey 'f' the file menu should open.

Comment 3

[u318697]

> So *if* there is some content element with accesskey='f' this should be
> accessible by Alt+F (assuming Alt is the Accesskey for the content
> (Ui.key.contentAccess=4)). If *no* content element claimes to be accessed by
> accesskey 'f' the file menu should open.

No, the preference should be the other way about.  It's up to web site owners and designers like myself to avoid those keys in use by common browsers, which I have carefully done.  But it's also up to new browsers like FF to avoid those keys in widespread use by existing websites, and I understand that the use of Alt-S for the History menu has been unfortunate in this respect.

My big annoyance is that since FF3, even those keys not grabbed by the browser only work with the addition of the SHIFT key, seriously diminishing their usefulness (this is FF3 for Windows, BTW).

The behaviour should be that if the browser is not using the key, the content can.  Website owners like myself need to choose access keys carefully to avoid conflict with the popular browsers. This means that Alt A, B, E, F, G, H, S, T, V cannot be used, as currently they are taken by IE, FF, and Opera.

Comment 4

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This bug was reported using Firefox 3.0 or older, which is no longer supported. The bug has also not been changed in over 500 days and is still in UNCO.
Reporter, please retest this bug in Firefox 3.6.10 or later using a fresh profile, http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/managing+profiles. If you still see this problem, please update the bug. If you no longer see the bug, please set the resolution to RESOLVED, WORKSFORME.

This is a mass search of unconfirmed bugs that have no activity on them, so if you feel a bug was marked in error, just remove the CLOSEME comment in the whiteboard within the next month.

Comment 5

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.