[pmwiki-users] Customizable Access-Keys

[Joachim Durchholz]

Nils Knappmeier wrote:
> 1) Store all the information in one (or multiple) cookie(s) that is 
> readable by every server on the internet.
> 2) Use the cookie to store the URL of a website, that contains the 
> information.
 >
> With "information" I mean,
> 1) The access key
> 2) a String like "pagename?action=..." is used to create the URL of the 
> link that should be associated with the access key
>    pagename should be something like MyGroup.MyPage, but also possible 
> {$Group}.MyPage or {$Group}.{$Page}
> If the current page is Main.HomePage on pmwiki.org, something like 
> ":4:{$Group}.SideBar?action=edit" would translate into a link
> <a href="http://www.pmwiki.org?n=Main.SideBar?action=edit" 
> accesskey="4"></a>, to allow editing the SideBar by pressing "Alt+4"

No accesskeys in the URLs.

Ideologically, a Uniform Resource Locator should reflect the resource it 
refers to, not user preferences.

Pragmatically, it makes life more difficult for rewrite engines, has a 
(small) potential for confusing search engines, and a large one for 
producing too-wide URLs that can't be pasted into an email message.

Aesthetically, they just look ugly. (That's important: people 
instinctively equate ugliness with nonprofessionalism.)

> What I haven't found in the PmWiki Documentation, is where I'd have to 
> put the links so they appear in the site, no matter what skin is active.

Not an issue because URLs aren't the right place to transmit this data 
anyway :-)

> I don't want to ask the question of how likely it would be for this to 
> go into the standard distribution, until I have something ready...
> 
> About privacy... maybe the user should be able to decide, whether the 
> cookie should be set "world-readable" or just "readable by the current 
> site"

It should be just readable by the originating site, period. Typical 
users won't be able to make an informed decision, so such a question 
will do them no good except for making them unsure. (BTW I don't know of 
any website that sets a globally-readable cookie. I can't even imagine a 
legitimate reason to send such a cookie.)