Last modified: 2008-02-19 21:16:46 UTC
Currently, ALT+SHIFT+P is the only accesskey for the "Preview" button in edit pages, when browsing the page with Firefox. If Windows Media Player version 10 is installed on a machine, however, ALT+SHIFT+P will open this software, and will not stimulate the preview button. (I checked this on a few machines with different configs, and it was easy to reproduce). With that in mind, and having that there are two accesskeys for "Submit" button (ALT+S and ALT+SHIFT+S), I propose "ALT+P" to be also added as an accesskey for the "Preview" button in Firefox. I will try my best to prepare a patch for it too.
Accesskeys are specified only as a letter. We specify "p" as the accesskey for preview. In Firefox 2.0, Alt-Shift-P will trigger it; in Firefox <2.0 or IE, Alt-P will trigger it; on Mac, Ctrl-P will trigger it; in Opera, Shift-Esc P will trigger it. We have no control over this. I would advise you to reconfigure your computer so that no Alt-Shift- combination is used by any program other than Firefox.
Actually, it is not a configuration I made. Media Player 10 opens with ALT+SHIFT+P from the time you install it.
It's presumably possible for you to change that on your own computer. Unfortunately, MediaWiki can't change it.
Sure! And that is why I think we should leave this bug as "invalid". ~~~~
Unfortunately, I figured that it is not a bug on my machine. I checked several other machines (including one with Windows XP and Media Player 10, and one with Windows Vista and Media Player 11). ALT+SHIFT+P opens Media Player on all of them, and thus cannot be used for "Show Preview". Having that, I think it is not a bug in my machine, but a bug resulted by choosing a bad letter for the accesskey, in MediaWiki. I'm reopening this bug, and asking for a different letter (other than 'p') to be used for the accesskey of "Show preview" button. One solution can be to use 'v' for "Show preview", and use a 'g' for "Show changes".
The bug is with the way accesskeys are implemented, frankly. There is no conceivable way that we can avoid all user shortcuts, because there are no shortcuts reserved for websites. We have to pick a key and hope no one else uses it. There's already a bug open for accesskey conflicts, so I'm marking this a duplicate. As a workaround, either 1) don't use a shortcut for previewing, just click the button; 2) disable the Media Player shortcut; 3) use a browser that has a different key combination for accesskeys (anything non-Gecko, e.g., Opera, Safari, or Internet Explorer); or 4) reconfigure Firefox so that shortcuts use a key combination other than Alt-Shift-. Using 'v' would conflict with a Safari shortcut, according to my brief investigation over a year ago at bug 477 comment 33. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 477 ***
A possible work around is posted on bug 477.
