It is an interesting idea but we already tried to accomodate that by ensuring that the panel is selected when it opens. So, after hitting p you just tab four times and you are read to press enter to select the first translation:
This is the native way that browsers accommodate mouseless navigation, so I’m inclined to keep things simple and just make sure that people can use the tab as nature intended.
What do you think?
For me as a (moderately good) touch typer, I find the tab key easier to use than numbers.
Nice, I didn’t think of trying that. I know about Tab and use it all the time, but I didn’t think that the panel would be selected, as you pointed out. I agree that it is more than adequate. Maybe something could be included in the proposed keyboard shortcuts list to let the naive user know about this function; all of the little useful tricks like this could be included there.
About Mac, there is an interesting side-effect: hitting esc works as expected to close e.g. the search overlay, but in addition it will exit full-screen mode, leaving the browser’s window floating on the desktop. This can represent an inconvenience for some users, since full-screen apps is one of the distinctive Mac workflows (not sure how commonly used).
This becomes less practical when some search results are visible and taking up most space. The clickable area outside the overlay is quite slim, i.e. this black border:
Mm, good question. In the particular case of the search functionality I would say no, on the basis that I’d expect most keys to just output something inside the search field. For example, some UI might use Q to close things (as in “Quit”) but here I expect Q to just type “q”. Among the non-letter keys, I can’t think of one that I would instinctively reach for in this case.
