Accesskeys aren't working

Memrise Bug Control Web Bugs
1

Accesskeys are not working for me. (I’m on Firefox, where the accesskey modifer is control+option.) Whether it’s previous level (Z), next level (C ), mute/unmute (M), pause (P ), show help screen (L), or anything else, it doesn’t work at all. Nothing happens. I’ve tried other accesskey modifiers just in case, without success.

AdBlock and tracking protection are turned off on Memrise, so that isn’t the issue. I also don’t have any extensions that would affect Memrise. (Edit: I double-checked by launching my browser in Safe Mode.)

2

I don’t know if the developers ever plan to do anything about some things.

The problem could be related to how they designed the app to dynamically load the page.

I have written a script to add some accesskeys back to learning sessions but it will break any other script that waits for a page change: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/388574-add-accesskey-shortcut-to-pause-button-and-star-word-for-memrise

I would also recommend holding option+shift +accesskey

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3

Thanks for letting us know about this. We will be looking into it. Apologies, I will let you know when this is fixed

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Any luck so far?

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Hi, unfortunately no updates yet. This is currently low priority so sadly I can’t give you a timeframe for the fix right now, but I’ll let you know when I do.

I’ve marked this message as the solution (even if not solved yet) as it’s the latest, up to date info that I can share on this. It will also appear at the top of the thread.

Our internal tracking code for this issue is 1676. This is for staff to easily locate the ticket in the future.

Thanks for your patience

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​I was looking for the same info, tried doing the same but it didn’t worked.

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Hi @SavannahJ, thanks for the original post raising this issue.

Keyboard shortcuts are used for a variety of actions in the web product, such as tabbing through elements on the screen and replaying media. An issue with Accesskeys is they can conflict with our inbuilt keyboard shortcuts and differ by browser/platform, making supporting them very complex.

This Mozilla article describes some of the issues. Here they are for reference:

Accessibility concerns

In addition to poor browser support, there are numerous concerns with the accesskey attribute:

  • An accesskey value can conflict with a system or browser keyboard shortcut, or assistive technology functionality. What may work for one combination of operating system, assistive technology, and browser may not work with other combinations.
  • Certain accesskey values may not be present on certain keyboards, especially when internationalization is a concern. So adapting to specific languages could cause further problems.
  • accesskey values that rely on numbers may be confusing to individuals experiencing cognitive concerns, where the number doesn’t have a logical association with the functionality it triggers.
  • Informing the user that accesskey s are present, so that they are aware of the functionality. If the system lacks a method of notifying the user about this feature, the user might accidentally activate accesskey s.

Because of these issues, it is generally advised not to use accesskey s for most general-purpose websites and web apps.

Because of the issues noted above, our approach is not to support accesskeys. We’re sorry for the inconvenience that may bring advanced users who use accesskeys. On the positive side we’ll be adding further keyboard shortcuts and documenting them so they are easily discoverable and usable, in the coming months.

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