Are you converting a traditional desktop application to a web application? Have you been the end-user of a desktop application that's been converted to a web application? If you are, you've no doubt discovered that some users really don't like taking their hands off the keyboard to use a mouse. Sure, many keyboards today have integrated touchpads, trackballs, or those little eraser-like thingies between the G and the H keys, but they still don't give the speed of function keys or control-key combinations. Oh, to be able to get that on a web application!
Fear not, there is a way to make hyperlinks work with alt-key combinations! The HTML >a< tag contains a very nice little attribute called “accesskey.” Put a single key into the accesskey attribute and the user who is browsing the page can just hit the “alt” key plus the access key and go right to the resulting link.
I lied. On Netscape 6, pressing the alt-key combination jumps right to the link. But if you are using Internet Explorer, the alt-key combination simply highlights the link; the user then needs to press the Enter key to actually jump to the link. (Let me know about other browsers!)
But the next time someone says, “I could do it faster on my old green screen” put some accesskeys on your links and watch their fingers fly!