Earlier last year, I started to use the first version of Google Chrome as my main web browser on Windows PC. It is sleek, fast, and behaves well with the accesskey HTML attributes. Also, it conforms with my minimalistic UI philosophy perfectly.
However, with the advent of the very next version, Chrome 2, the accesskey support was unceremoniously broken. It is a big deal for me to use the accesskey attributes, since my customized GTD PHP and other online applications use a ton of them. I cannot image myself using the web apps without keyboard shortcuts. Life is too short for mousing around, also, screens are too big nowadays.
I promptly switched to Firefox. It supported accesskey attributes exquisitely, with the about:config options, one can easily change the default accesskey from Alt-Shift to a more convenient single Alt key.
Last month, the much anticipated Firefox 3.6 came out. It is faster, better looking, and more Chrome look-like. The new tab opens next to the originating tab, similar to Chrome. Persona is just another moniker for Chrome Theme. The accesskey functionality is intact. I like this new version.
In the mean time, Chrome underwent two more incarnations, version 3 and 4. Both restored the accesskey support, but with some variations. With Chrome 3, one can use the accesskey D, E, F, but with Chrome 4, those keys are used by the browser itself.
Normally, I expect the accesskey overrides the default browser keyboard shortcuts, for example, if Alt-A is used by both web page and browser, the browser should honor the web page first. But a lot of browser treats them differently and inconsistently. For example, Alt-D always put focus on the address bar in Internet Explorer, and Chrome, but Firefox honors the web page accesskey first.
In Internet Explorer, Alt-A goes to the favorite menu, but when web page uses accesskey A, it honors the web page first. But Alt-D is a different story. Maybe Alt-D is too important to mess around, since it puts keyboard focus right to the address bar? By the way, in Chrome and Firefox, Ctrl-L does the same in addition to Alt-D.
Anyway, Chrome 4 chose to ignore the Alt-D, E, F in the web pages. Instead, Alt-D goes to the address bar, Alt-E opens the page icon, and Alt-F to opens the tool icon. If the web page happens to contain D, E, F accesskey links, one must use Shift-Alt-D, Shift-Alt-E, and Shift-Alt-F to access them.
For now, Firefox 3.6 is my main browser on Mac OS X and Windows. Consistency is always good.
