Comments on: Bloglines Gets Key Commands, Hijacks Browsers

By: W. Andrew Loe III

W. Andrew Loe III — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definatly is an issue with bloglines, disables all keyboard shortcuts in any browser. (OS X 10.4.2 & Safari)

By: Mark Wubben

Mark Wubben — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

You can use access keys, which will override the browser behaviour. And it’s a HTML attribute…. On Windows it’ll probably be Alt+W, but on the Mac that’s Command+W.

By: Gabriel Mihalache

Gabriel Mihalache — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

That makes a lot of sense, especially for [2]. I use Bloglines a lot, and I can tell it’s a good idea.

Regarding [1], since I’m on Windows, I haven’t noticed anything.

By: Sam Hastings

Sam Hastings — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m a Windows user and my keyboard shortcuts have been broken by these new changes implemented by Bloglines :(

By: Lola Lee

Lola Lee — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Did not they test it in-house before releasing to the public?

By: Mark Wubben

Mark Wubben — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Things like this, I think they just didn’t realize. “Wow, this makes things so easy! Let’s roll it out!” and then you forget side-effects.

By: Zeerus

Zeerus — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve never really used Bloglines for anything, but it seems pretyt interesting. I wonder if this shortcut bug is the same across all browsers, or is it Safari only? You can definitely tell these new features were forced thanks to pressure from Google.

By: James Asher

James Asher — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Maybe it’s just me, but in Firefox 1.5b – soon to be 1.5rc1 – Ctrl keys work just fine.

Can anyone else verify that?

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I see a bigger problem–some of the characters from whichever font it is that you mac folks are getting on bloglines looks quite similar to Comic Sans when bolded. Truly a shame… If I ever switch to Mac am I doomed to be haunted by reminders of 1998 by this font? :)

By: neil

neil — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Interesting. Not only is Bloglines new hotkeys breaking system shortcuts for me - my Powermate doesn't work at all.

By: Erik A. DrablÃ¸s

Erik A. DrablÃ¸s — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

@James Asher: Yep, Ctrl+T and such does indeed work on Firefox 1.5b. But it’s just one browser out of many, so it should certainly be fixed on the site.

As for problem #2, while I don’t find it annoying the way it is, Mike’s suggestion would certainly be better.

By: John

John — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I have unsuccessfully tried to write a greasemonkey script to remove the Bloglines hotkeys. It doesn't seem like it would be hard to do, but I can't remove the onkeypress event listener and/or disable the "hotkey" function that it calls. Anyone have an idea on how to accomplish that?

By: Roger Johansson

Roger Johansson — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

@Mark: Accesskey shortcuts are invoked by pressing Control + Key on the Mac, not Command. In Safari, pressing Command + a number key will load the corresponding bookmark from your Bookmarks Bar.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It works fine in Camino on OSX, no problems, no ‘hijacking’ of keys. It isn’t an OS issue, it is a Safari BUG.

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Scott: Cmon! That’s Verdana, baby! It just looks a little different (better IMHO) on Macs because we have true anti-aliased fonts. ClearType isn’t really true anti-aliasing… it’s more just “smoothing”.

Paul: Read my entry and the comments. It is *not* a Safari issue. It’s happening on Firefox too, and apparently also on PCs.