Poll: Do you use access keys ?

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Reply #1 - 2009 November 19, 4:17 pm
ファブリス Administrator
From: Belgium Registered: 2006-06-14 Posts: 4021 Website

Just curious, does anybody use access keys?

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/accesskeys/

It looks easy to implement.. however support seems very shaky. In Firefox I can press Alt + Shift + a letter, but if I set the accesskey to a digit, then it doesn't seem to work with the Numeric Keypad.

Reply #2 - 2009 November 19, 5:16 pm
wildweathel Member
Registered: 2009-08-04 Posts: 255

No, but given a chance to use the web without a mouse, I'm interested. 

The mouse is arguably one of the worst inventions in UI design: it's not precise enough for graphics work (hence, the drawing tablet) and it's more awkward than the keyboard for general-purpose stuff.  I wish it would just go away.

Reply #3 - 2009 November 19, 5:54 pm
lerris Member
From: Orlando Registered: 2006-06-17 Posts: 44 Website

wildweathel wrote:

No, but given a chance to use the web without a mouse, I'm interested. 

The mouse is arguably one of the worst inventions in UI design: it's not precise enough for graphics work (hence, the drawing tablet) and it's more awkward than the keyboard for general-purpose stuff.  I wish it would just go away.

hah... I mostly agree with you (I'm big on keyboard driven stuff), but I have to say... I don't know how I ever lived w/o mouse gestures for the browser. My right arm rests on the stand my mouse is on anyway, so a quick flick to the left is much easier for 'back' then backspace or alt+left ever was.

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Reply #4 - 2009 November 21, 10:02 pm
Zarxrax Member
From: North Carolina Registered: 2008-03-24 Posts: 949

wildweathel wrote:

No, but given a chance to use the web without a mouse, I'm interested. 

The mouse is arguably one of the worst inventions in UI design: it's not precise enough for graphics work (hence, the drawing tablet) and it's more awkward than the keyboard for general-purpose stuff.  I wish it would just go away.

And replace it with... what? A keyboard and a drawing tablet?
The mouse has stood the test of time because it WORKS, period.

Reply #5 - 2009 November 21, 11:09 pm
mafried Member
Registered: 2006-06-24 Posts: 766

I'd never heard of it, but having read the article I'm all for it.  In the forum for example I'd love to have keys to jump to post reply, quick reply, beginning of thread, next page, last page, most recent posts, etc.

Reply #6 - 2009 November 21, 11:39 pm
uberstuber Member
Registered: 2007-03-27 Posts: 238

If you're a fan of vim, vimperator is pretty awesome.

Reply #7 - 2009 November 22, 3:28 am
Yesterbean New member
From: Australia Registered: 2009-10-19 Posts: 9

uberstuber wrote:

If you're a fan of vim, vimperator is pretty awesome.

+1
Don't know how I ever lived without it. Access keys are pretty much redundant for vimperator users as far as I can tell.

Zarxrax wrote:

The mouse has stood the test of time because it WORKS, period.

Sure but the mouse is far from being the most efficient input method, and is unnecessary for many tasks. A lot of apps can be made more efficient if they are designed to use a keyboard primarily instead of the mouse. E.g. with vimperator if I wanted to google "kanji" in a new tab I would just type "tkanji(enter)". No moving the mouse/clicking on anything involved. Hands do not need to be moved back and forward between the keyboard and mouse. If I was forced to use a mouse to click on some sort of search bar thing, or click on some menu to open a new tab I'm pretty sure it would be slower and less efficient overall. I think the only time I need to use my mouse when browsing is for flash (which I do find annoying).

Reply #8 - 2009 November 22, 4:24 am
ファブリス Administrator
From: Belgium Registered: 2006-06-14 Posts: 4021 Website

wildweathel wrote:

it's not precise enough for graphics work

You'd be surprised how precisly I could draw in Deluxe Paint on the Amiga computer ... back in 1990 or something. Turns out that the mouse pointer acceleration is what makes it impossible to sign your name properly with a mouse or do other drawings just like with a pencil. I could do these on Amiga without problem because the resolution was so low, there was no need for mouse acceleration, hence the mousemat area and mouse movements mapped directly to the screen space. In retrospect I suppose that means in the early days of the mouse, in the hand of the inventors who made it, it WAS a really precise pointing device.

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