Closed Bug 575279 Opened 14 years ago Closed 8 years ago

Add keyboard shortcut for the Firefox menu button

Categories

(Firefox :: Keyboard Navigation, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Keyboard Navigation
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED WONTFIX
Tracking Flags:
Tracking Status
blocking2.0 --- -

People

(Reporter: davidb, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Keywords: access, Whiteboard: [target-betaN][strings])

Attachments

(1 obsolete file) 

Currently you can still use alt or F10 to bring up the regular menu bar, but I didn't find a shortcut for putting keyboard focus on the new menu button. Do we have one?
Do we need one? This new menu doesn't provide any functionality that the old menu doesn't, and keyboard free shortcuts are in short supply, I believe. Perhaps it should be tabbable, though...
I think ideally the Firefox button will be brought up instead of the menuBar once development is complete.
blocking2.0: --- → final+
In that case it can just re-use the current "Alt" shortcut...
(I don't see that happening for Firefox 4)
(In reply to comment #1)
> Do we need one? This new menu doesn't provide any functionality that the old
> menu doesn't, and keyboard free shortcuts are in short supply, I believe.
> Perhaps it should be tabbable, though...

That gives us checkbox accessibility (UAAG 4.1.1), but I bet it will annoy sighted keyboard users. I really think we should do this.
I worry that the route to often-used menu items will become longer if we do away with the classic menu bar. For example I use Alt+T to bring up the tools menu and then use shortcuts for often-used items, and arrow to those I don't use that often. Same for the History menu which I use quite a lot.

If this all gets put into the Firefox button menu, and you activate that with the alt key, there is at least 1 more keystroke for those items that I want to open, making a three-keystrokes step longer by a good chunk all of a sudden. Keyboard users will view this as a usability regression.
In Firefox 3.6 F10 is bound to the file menu and it should not be bound to the file menu, that is what the ALT key is for.
This keyboard shortcut should be alt-f, for consistency with similar interfaces on Windows.  This is a bit complicated in that we would otherwise show the menu bar on upclick of alt (like windows explorer), but if the user hits f, we should send them into the new interface just as Office applications do.
(In reply to comment #9)
> This keyboard shortcut should be alt-f, for consistency with similar interfaces
> on Windows.  This is a bit complicated in that we would otherwise show the menu
> bar on upclick of alt (like windows explorer), but if the user hits f, we
> should send them into the new interface just as Office applications do.

Hear hear!  I just said the same thing in that dupe bug (I searched before filing, honest!).  I'm a heavy keyboard user, but trying to get used to the new Firefox menu button.  I constantly find myself pressing Alt+F to try and drop it down, because it works all across Office 2010.
Assignee: nobody → fryn
Version: unspecified → Trunk
Attached patch patch (obsolete) — — Splinter Review 
I use oncommand="this.open = !this.open;" to open the menu, since I couldn't find the standard way to make accesskeys trigger opening the menupopup of a <toolbarbutton>. Absolutely let me know if there's a better way.

AIUI, this bug depends on bug 589146 and other stuff to make the Firefox menu actually keyboard navigable.
Attachment #491401 - Flags: review?(dao)
This simple patch works, because the accesskey applies to the first element with that particular accesskey, which is the Firefox button. However, after pressing Alt to display the classic menubar menu, pressing F will naturally open the classic File menu.

Alt+E, Alt+V, etc. will still open their respective classic menus.
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Depends on: 589146
Attachment #491401 - Flags: ui-review?(faaborg)
Faaborg just mentioned that it is preferable for the accesskey 'f' in the word Firefox or Minefield on the button not to be underlined; I'm not aware of how to override the default underlining behavior. Help appreciated.
Comment on attachment 491401 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

There's no point in doing this as long as the menu content isn't keyboard-accessible. Cancelling review request for now.

I also agree with comment 9. It doesn't seem that there's been significant demand for this among beta and nightly users either.
Attachment #491401 - Flags: review?(dao)
(In reply to comment #15)
> I also agree with comment 9.

Err, comment 6.
(In reply to comment #15)
>
> I also agree with comment [6]. It doesn't seem that there's been significant
> demand for this among beta and nightly users either.

The menu button is similar to the Office button in MS Office 2007 / 2010.  Alt+F gets me the menu in Word, Excel, etc., which is why I expect it to work here as well.
(In reply to comment #14)
> Faaborg just mentioned that it is preferable for the accesskey 'f' in the word
> Firefox or Minefield on the button not to be underlined; I'm not aware of how
> to override the default underlining behavior. Help appreciated.

I don't think that you can.  I don't see any code to customize whether we draw the underline or not, seems like we draw it for all non-appended accesskeys.

Not to say that you can't file a bug to request this feature though...
Attachment #491401 - Flags: ui-review?(faaborg) → ui-review+
>There's no point in doing this as long as the menu content isn't
>keyboard-accessible. Cancelling review request for now.

sure, my ui-review was just meant to indicate that this does what the specific bug summary asked for, but obviously we need to make the menu keyboard accessible from there.

>It doesn't seem that there's been significant
>demand for this among beta and nightly users either.

It would be interesting to see to what extent our beta and nightly users are running Office, compared to our actual user base.  This is mainly an external consistency issue.
Windows has the convention for a hidden menu bar to appear when pressing Alt or F10. Gnome doesn't, so on Linux both of these shortcuts could be bound to the Firefox button if the menu bar is hidden. (...assuming the Firefox button becomes keyboard-navigable.)
Whiteboard: [target-betaN]
Beltzner wants to take another look at this one - tagging appropriately and minusing pending re-eval
blocking2.0: final+ → -
Whiteboard: [target-betaN] → [target-betaN][d?][strings]
Unassigning self, unless its dependencies are resolved, its scope is clarified, it becomes a blocker.
Assignee: fryn → nobody
Status: ASSIGNED → NEW
Comment on attachment 491401 [details] [diff] [review]
patch

Obsoleting, since the behavior isn't quite right in a couple cases, and it's likely that the final patch will look nothing like this.
Attachment #491401 - Attachment is obsolete: true
(In reply to comment #24)
> Comment on attachment 491401 [details] [diff] [review]
> patch
> 
> Obsoleting, since the behavior isn't quite right in a couple cases, and it's
> likely that the final patch will look nothing like this.

Also the code in that patch only works for the windows case.  There should also have been equivalent code added here to make this work under Linux as well:

http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/base/content/browser.xul#810
Ultimately I don't think we need to do this for Firefox 4; mouse access to the button works, and the old menuBar is accessible by keyboard for those looking for it.

I agree the Alt-F design is right, but I don't see how we can merge that and alt-brings-up-the-old-menuBar.

UX: renominate if you think we should be disabling the old menuBar and replacing it outright with the Firefox button.
Whiteboard: [target-betaN][d?][strings] → [target-betaN][strings]
>I agree the Alt-F design is right, but I don't see how we can merge that and
>alt-brings-up-the-old-menuBar.

the old menu bar currently displays on upclick of alt, while the firefox button would display on the downclick of F, so they can be combined.  (but I agree that this is out of scope for Firefox 4 give our schedule).
Based on the position of the Firefox button, Ctrl+0(zero) should be the shortcut IMO.
(In reply to comment #28)
> Based on the position of the Firefox button, Ctrl+0(zero) should be the
> shortcut IMO.
Ctrl+0 is used for resetting zoom. Sorry for the spam.
Is Ctrl+M used anywhere?
Why talking about alternative keyboard shortcuts if ALT+F was already (wisely) chosen and only ALT as a good alternative respectively?
We are going to use alt-f, it's just slightly more complex since it is overloaded with multile behaviors:

downclick on alt-f: display the firefox menu
alt upclick (no f): display the traditional menu bar
alt upclick, followed by f downclick: display the file menu in the traditional menu bar
Component: General → Keyboard Navigation
QA Contact: general → keyboard.navigation
(In reply to Martin Baranski from comment #31)
> Why talking about alternative keyboard shortcuts if ALT+F was already
> (wisely) chosen and only ALT as a good alternative respectively?

Because ALT-F is already taken by the File menu of the menubar, and that's a shortcut that's been used in pretty much every program since Windows 2.0.

Plus, it makes no sense when you don't have Firefox as the button name. And will make even less sense in Australis.
(In reply to Terrell Kelley from comment #34)
> (In reply to Martin Baranski from comment #31)
> > Why talking about alternative keyboard shortcuts if ALT+F was already
> > (wisely) chosen and only ALT as a good alternative respectively?
> 
> Because ALT-F is already taken by the File menu of the menubar, and that's a
> shortcut that's been used in pretty much every program since Windows 2.0.
> 
> Plus, it makes no sense when you don't have Firefox as the button name. And
> will make even less sense in Australis.

That might be true, but on German versions of Windows, it's Alt+D (like "Datei") and hence Alt+F would be available.
However, IMHO, your argument is still not valid, even when looking at the English version, because the File menu is meant to be the main menu - and that's exactly what Firefox offers there.

Fortunately, the UX team heads into the same direction as I suggested as stated in comment #32.
Closing this as this button no longer exists.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 8 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
See Also: → 1259818
(In reply to Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s] from comment #37)
> Closing this as this button no longer exists.

Huh? In the most recent version on my computer 45.0.1 (it just updated itself to that version), it does exist, so I am a bit confused. We are talking about the button with three horizontal lines on top of each other (≡), right?
(In reply to J Hertel from comment #38)
> (In reply to Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s] from comment #37)
> > Closing this as this button no longer exists.
> 
> Huh? In the most recent version on my computer 45.0.1 (it just updated
> itself to that version), it does exist, so I am a bit confused. We are
> talking about the button with three horizontal lines on top of each other
> (≡), right?

No - this was referring to the pre-Australis menu that was at the top left of the window (e.g. http://img.wonderhowto.com/img/19/27/63439021071670/0/private-browsing-for-firefox-chrome-internet-explorer.w654.jpg ).

Bug #1259818 that YF linked above is the one for the new menu.
(In reply to Aru Sahni from comment #39)
> this was referring to the pre-Australis menu that was at the top left
> of the window (e.g.
> http://img.wonderhowto.com/img/19/27/63439021071670/0/private-browsing-for-
> firefox-chrome-internet-explorer.w654.jpg ).

Ah, thank you so much for clearing that up for me – and with such an illustrative picture! That was very kind of you.
Is there a bug for adding a keyboard shortcut to the new Firefox menu button?
(In reply to Greg K Nicholson [:gkn] from comment #41)
> Is there a bug for adding a keyboard shortcut to the new Firefox menu button?

Yes, that would be Bug #1259818 as YF and Aru mentioned above.
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