One of the most commonly forgotten attributes of
form tags and
links (including
image maps) is the
accesskey attribute. In fact, the most common reason that this attribute is used is by sites that have an
accessibility requirement - having an access key on links and form fields means that customers without a mouse or pointing device can still navigate relatively easily through the links and fields. But that isn't the only value to this attribute. In fact, these days, many people are
building Web applications and trying to get them to
look and act like applications on the local machines. One thing that most local applications have that Web pages often don't, are "hot keys." These are keyboard characters that when used with the Alt (Windows) or Ctrl (Macintosh) keys will perform an action. For example Ctrl-N/Cmd-N in most word processors will open a new document. With the accesskey attribute, you can create similar shortcuts on your Web pages.
| 