55679 - front-end buttons should consistently have keyboard shortcuts

Status: VERIFIED INVALID

(Core :: DOM: UI Events & Focus Handling, enhancement, P3)

Description

[James "Kovu" Russell]

Front-end buttons should consistently have keyboard shortcuts. Currently only
Back, Forward, and maybe a couple others have shortcuts. If you look at
Microsoft Office (I know, boo hiss), this is the case. I can finish typing an
e-mail message and send it with Alt+S, for example. There's no reason Mozilla
can't be this easy to work with, as well.

In Windows (I can't speak for Mac shortcuts, given the different keyboard),
currently Back and Forward have shortcuts, but they use Ctrl+, not Alt+. I would
argue that Alt+ should be used for consistency with menu shortcuts and other
Windows programs. This would be easy enough to do as long as the Alt+ shortcuts
don't clash with the menu shortcut (for example, Alt+F would be out since it
brings up the File menu). If a shortcut did clash, such as Bookmarks and Back
would, you could add or substitute a Ctrl+ or Shift+ in there somewhere, or make
it a 3-button shortcut to solve the problem. I think simply Alt+ should be used
whenever possible though, to preserve as much consistency in the interface as
possible.

Bug 47708, a narrow version of this bug which I wrote, is dependent on this bug.

Comment 1

[don]

Yep, we should look into this ...

Comment 2

[Viswanath Ramachandran]

Since Don has left, Vishy is taking his bugs in bulk, pending reassignment.
thanks,
	Vishy

Comment 3

[u12624]

How about Alt+ (or Ctrl+) the arrow keys: left=back, right=forward, up=reload,
and down=stop.

Comment 4

[James "Kovu" Russell]

Alt+Left Arrow and Alt+right arrow already work as you mention (you being
Jeandre), at least in Win32. The up and down combos are an interesting thought,
though.

Comment 5

[AriB]

Stop is Esc. Reload is Control R-should that be Alt R? We have so many other
shortcuts using control. 

Comment 6

[timeless]

no. if you want to make all accelerators use alt you can, 
edit>preferences>debug>{don't remember}

this is in the relnotes. reload is accel-r. (control-r on win/lin, command on 
macos, ideally switchable on beos)

Comment 7

[Aaron Leventhal]

www.mozilla.org/projects/ui/accessibility/mozkeyintro.html
www.mozilla.org/projects/ui/accessibility/mozkeylist.html

Comment 8

[Aaron Leventhal]

AFAIK, all the front end buttons do have keyboard shortcuts:

Back = Alt+Left
Fwd = Alt+Right
Reload = Accel+R
Stop = Escape
Print = Cmd+P
Home = Alt+Home

Comment 9

[Aaron Leventhal]

If you have something you need a keyboard shortcut for, please don't reopen this
bug - you can file another bug.

However, I doubt that you will find any keyboard shortcuts missing in the bug
database (if they're not already in the software).

Comment 10

[Terri Preston]

Agreed, marking verified