[aklug] fixed: redefined keys in firefox

I finally found a fix for a problem that's been bugging me for
a while, so I figured I'd post about it for the benefit of current
or future users with the same problem.

One of the things that's been getting under my skin recently is when
Firefox's keyboard commands (Reload, Find, etc.) are "stolen" by a web
page. In particular, I use Alt-Shift-T to reopen the last closed tab.
If I was viewing a Wikipedia page, though, that command would take me
to the "Talk" page for the article instead. Quite irritating.

I've been using Firefox and its predecessors all the way back to the
beginning. Because of that tradition, I use Alt (not Ctrl) for
keyboard navigation (Alt-R to Reload, for example). It's the first
thing I change on a new browser installation, along with installing
NoScript.

By default, Firefox uses Ctrl as the "accelKey", so when I changed
it to Alt, I unwittingly caused a conflict. You see, in HTML 4.01,
the W3C introduced "accesskeys" that a web page can use to provide
keyboard shortcuts to page elements (like Wikipedia's Talk page
mentioned above). Firefox uses Alt-Shift for HTML access keys, so
while most keyboard commands worked (Alt-R, Alt-F, etc.), a few,
like Alt-Shift-T, would be handled by the web page instead of the
browser.

So here are the relevant settings (available via about:config):

 ui.key.accelKey
 ui.key.menuAccessKey

accelKey is the primary modifier for keyboard commands (Reload, etc.),
and menuAccessKey is for accessing the main menu bar (File, Edit, etc.).
Personally, I change accelKey to 18 (Alt) and menuAccessKey to 17 (Ctrl).

 ui.key.generalAccessKey
 ui.key.chromeAccess
 ui.key.contentAccess

generalAccessKey can be set to a keycode like 17 or 18, but if it's
set to the special number -1, the jurisdiction is divided between the
other two settings: chromeAccess tells which key to use to talk to
the browser itself, and contentAccess tells which key to use for the
web page's HTML accesskey.

Since I don't need the functionality provided by the HTML accesskey,
I set contentAccess to 0, and boom, no more commands stolen by web
pages.

By the way, kb.mozillazine.org is the place to go to learn what all
of these settings do.

I still have some pet Firefox bugs that get in my way, but at least
this one is squashed.

--
Bryan Medsker
bryanm@acsalaska.net
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