Although I got a short answer to my question what the ACCESS attribute was about I just found a site that explains it perfectly and has a complete article covering the subject. Here is what you do:
(I use the ACCESSKEY attribute twice on this site. '1' brings you to the home page and '9' brings you to the contact page. I guess I should let '4' point to the search form to reflect the accessibility statement from Mark Pilgrim.)
I do not use accesskey, because it doesn't have any practical use because of conflicts with other programs. Joshua Kaufman tells us screen reader users don't use them for that reason.
UA should only be doing shortcuts. Plain and simple sweeties!
I stick to having accesskey="s" on all form submit buttons on my site (except for the little search box that appears on every page, as that would cause problems). Also, I use it for all pages in the CMS Back-end, as those are 95% form submission pages, and using alt-s for them makes it a hell of a lot easier.
But I agree that that's the only really worthwhile use of accesskeys at the moment. "S" has not been reported to conflict with anything, as far as I know, and I've never had anyone complain about it either.
Actually, no, our dear friends in Ottawa have manifestly not explained the access attribute. I submit that nobody can; it's the usual half-baked horseshit we expect from XHTML 2.0 (codename "Vapourware").
"S" has not been reported to conflict with anything, as far as I know, and I've never had anyone complain about it either.
Faruk: the accesskey S is one of my personal pet peeves as it conflicts with my RSS/Atom aggregator (the Sage extension for FireFox). Of course, I am only one user, but an accesskey of S hijacks my ability to use my reader. Quite often people use "S" for skip to content links, so when the accesskey hijacks my keystroke, it simply moves me around the page. When "S" is used for other items, I find I am sometimes jumping to the "Search" form (with no visual feedback onfocus so I don't even know I'm there), or, I submit an incomplete form unknowingly.
Incidentally, there are other conflicts with "S", but they are, admittedly, rather obscure. See Accesskeys and Reserved Keystroke Combinations for more.
Having said that, it sounds like you are using it in the perfect way -- for use in the CMS back-end. It is for an isolated audience where it will: 1) cause few to no conflicts, 2) be used by a limited audience, and 3) have a chance to enhance productivity.
Actually, no, our dear friends in Ottawa have manifestly not explained the access attribute. I submit that nobody can; it's the usual half-baked horseshit we expect from XHTML 2.0 (codename "Vapourware").
Whether or not XHTML 2.0 is "Vapourware" is up for debate, and has nothing to do with my interpretation (and explanation) of what is written in the current version of the XHTML 2.0 Working Draft.
In the beginning I used acceskeys, because they had it on the site CSS Zen Garden, but after a while it was a mess on my site.
I have so many questions about that.
title the right way to tell the user that there is an acceskey? Ad 1 - you can show them where they are.
Ad 2 - you can show them how they are defined.
Ad 3 - no, and accesskeys are not only for the blind.
Ad 4 - there is no single 'right' way. You may use many methods. See my site.
If you want to satisfy everyone at the same time, you can give up at the outset. I'll gladly take a two-digit percentage over zero.
M.
Moose, you are right about: Ad 3 - no, and accesskeys are not only for the blind.
Computerprograms have shortkeys, why not websites? (mousearm)