TYPO3 Core

Do the shortcuts need to be language specific? I think so. So they need to be defined in the locallang files, right?
How to show that there is an access key for this button? Maybe altering the alt tag, so it could be like:
"Save [S]"?

Errr... localized shortcuts have proved to be tough issue in my experience. They generate lots of problems (starting with docs) and solve only a cosmetic one.

So I'd tell against this, at least it could be a feature to be added later.

How to show -- yes, a tooltip (title) should be fine.

I like the idea. However I have no time to work on this right now.
Is anybody willing to submit a patch?

- michael

I would be willing to do that, but I want to know first if we localise the access keys. I think it is no big deal if we want to introduce them anyways. What do others think?
Sebastian

I think of the following access keys now (globally):
save and view - V
save and new - N
save and close - C
save - S
close - X
delete - D
there is a patch attached.

The patch has a capital C for the close shortcut (probably a typo). I don't know if these are case sensitive, but if so...
On the question of localised shortcuts: I think this is not needed. Did you ever figure out what Strg-W does mean in german? Or english? ;)

the big C is a typo... could somebody delete the attachment so i can upload it again?

done

I applied the patch, and see two problems: The "X" shortcut doesn't work at all. And the "D" puts the foxus to the location bar and selects the current URL. This is on FIrefox 1.0.2.

On Konqueror 3.3 I see the same behaviour, x and d don't work.

In Opera 8 (beta) everything works as expected.

With a german MSIE 6 x and d call up menu items.

Hi,
many of these "alt" keys are reserved for browser-internal stuff (didnt figure this out before).... Do you have other suggestions how to change the access keys?

Well, in theory acceskey and menu shortcuts should not interfere. In Opera one has to press Shift+Esc first, then use the accesskey -> it works.

In MSIE it should be possible to press Alt+accesskey together, this should activate the accesskey, whereas pressing and releasing Alt should activate the menu.

Hm. This seems to be a browser-behaviour issue, rather than a "bug" in the patch. What I've seen quite often, is the use of only number as accesskeys, as those are "free". This isn't as memorable, though.

Yeah, I don't know if it makes sense to use numeric access keys. Umm, could we "emulate" access keys by the use of "onkeypress"? Just an idea...

At this page you can find some helpful information (though in German only) about access keys:
http://www.barrierefreies-webdesign.de/knowhow/accesskey/empfehlung.php

They suggest to use numbers only. However I see a big risk there if one accidentally presses a wrong number (they are so close to each other) and the page would not be saved but deleted...

My conclusion is to either keep Sebastians suggested letters and ignore the problems with reserved keys (then they just don't work with this browser) or to completely drop the idea.

One more note:
In the long-term I believe that all browsers should adobt Operas two-step-way which uses <SHIFT> + ESC, <access key>.

This way the access keys should (hopefully) not conflict with any other combination...

Maybe borrowing at least the most needed shortcuts from e.g. MediaWiki would be reasonbbale?

MW Help on shortcuts: http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Help:Keyboard_shortcuts

MozillaZine on taken ones (at least by Mozilla): http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keyboard_Shortcuts (seems like only Alt-d on German Mozilla for Windows intersects but as we see "x" isn't safe too)

So maybe:

Alt-s to save,
Alt-q to close (quit),
Alt-w to save&close (hm, these three keys are a bit too near)

If these work, 80% of the annoyance is over and the rest could be added as feedback goes in. I wouldn't do a shortcut for Delete though, and was considering whether plain close w/o save is worth it.

But no numeric keys please :-) They could be more useful to travel record lists or so but definitely not here.

The MediaWiki shortcuts seem a bit braindead (sorry): They even use the same shortcut (e) twice. Go figure. Seems as if they didn't think too hard before implementing this.

It seems as if there is no way to find shortcuts that are usable everywhere, which is a pity. I can only agree with Michael, Opera has the best way of handling shortcuts (try it, if you haven't seen it - they even show all possible shortcuts on the page, after Shift+Esc).

(no hard/warm feelings for bytes :-)

Well then Gmail. Hm... (logging in after a while) they're using single-key shortcuts, mutt/vim-style. Borrowing that would be great but it's quite a job.

Michael, if it's possible to start with two or three basic action shortcuts (even disabled by default), then it could just make sense to "bootstrap" us.

Doing proper keyboard navigation for a CMS would be major advancement (comparable to what Gmail did with webmail standards) -- I can only mention mature non-web interface to access content from (e.g. shell) scripts "outside" TYPO3 and maybe Web Services support as things of similar magnitude to me. :-)

Oh well, sorry for dreaming way too much. But I've just "sold" TYPO3 to two more people last week :-)

There will be no change in TYPO3 3.8.0. I suggest we leave the ticket open until there is a well-defined standard/recommendation about using keyboard shortcuts.

OK; I'll try to put up the patches in my tiny collection and if I ever get around to customizing Dimitry's RPM packages for our distro (and our FOSS hosting), maybe soliciting feedback on those would help to judge the situation properly.

Thanks!

Because almost every key is used by some browser, we are waiting for an official recommendation before we start assigning shortcut keys.