Therefore, keep your title
text fairly succinct. If you need a much longer piece of text, implement the technique
described in the ???Adding pop-ups to images??? section later in this chapter.
USING LINKS AND CREATING NAVIGATION
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assigned modifier key (Alt for Windows and Ctrl for Mac), you press the key to highlight or
activate the link, depending on how the browser you??™re using works.
Home pageAn ongoing problem with access keys is that the shortcuts used to activate them are
mostly claimed by various technologies, leaving scant few characters. In fact, research conducted
by WATS.ca (www.wats.ca/show.php?contentid=32) concluded that just three
characters were available that didn??™t clash with anything at all: /, \ and ]. This, combined
with a total lack of standard access key assignments/bindings, has led to many accessibility
gurus conceding defeat, admitting that while there??™s a definite need for the technology, it??™s
just not there yet.
The tabindex attribute has proved more successful. This is used to define the attribute??™s
value as anything from 0 (which excludes the element from the tabbing order, which can
be useful) to 32767, thereby setting its place in the tab order, although if you have 32,767
tabbable elements on your web page, you really do need to go back and reread the earlier
advice on information architecture (see Chapter 1). Note that tab orders needn??™t be consecutive,
so it??™s wise to use tabindex in steps of ten, so you can later insert extra ones
without renumbering everything.
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