Default screen reader mode shortcut clashes with ChromeVox toggle

[microbit-matt-hillsdon]

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Description

A colleague asked whether it was intentional that the shortcut for screen reader mode is the same as the shortcut to turn on ChromeVox. I mentioned this in chat to @maribethb but raising as an issue here so it doesn't get lost.

I don't have a Chomebook to hand, but it seems likely this will go wrong for screen reader users.

The implementation calls preventDefault, so maybe they lose the shortcut? Or it'll turn on screen reader mode but also turn their screen reader off (assuming the common case where it was already on at this point).

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[maribethb]

Application / Platform	Shortcut (Windows / Linux)	Shortcut (macOS)	Description	Known Collisions & Conflicts
Google Docs / Sheets / Slides	Ctrl + Alt + Z	Cmd + Option + Z	Enables full Canvas screen reader support and ARIA live-region tracking.	• Firefox: Opens Web Developer Tools (Web Console).• GeForce Experience: Toggles the Nvidia in-game overlay.• macOS: Conflicts with global "Zoom" magnification or undo functions in graphics apps.
Figma / FigJam (Prototypes)	Tab (until focused) then Enter	Tab (until focused) then Enter	Activates "Adapt content for screen readers" to turn design nodes into semantic HTML.	• General Workflow: Intercepts traditional keyboard layout design commands. Requires navigating via a hidden "Skip to content" button first.
VS Code / Monaco Editor	Shift + Alt + F11 (or Ctrl + Shift + P → "Toggle Screen Reader Accessibility Mode")	Shift + Option + F11	Toggles optimization mode for screen readers (ensures UI elements like terminal output and line counts read correctly).	• OS / Hardware: Many laptops map F11 to volume/brightness controls, requiring users to hold the Fn key (Fn + Shift + Alt + F11).
Slack	Ctrl + Comma → Tab to Accessibility	Cmd + Comma → Tab to Accessibility	Opens Preferences to manage deep screen reader announcement and virtual cursor behaviors.	• No direct shortcut collision, but switching into message navigation intercepts standard browser search or text fields.
JupyterLab	Acc. Menu / Settings	Acc. Menu / Settings	Switches text area rendering from a custom canvas layout to a screen-reader-friendly text area.	• Intercepts standard notebook execution shortcuts (Shift + Enter) if focus states clash.
RStudio (IDE)	Alt + Shift + /	Ctrl + Shift + U	Toggles specialized Screen Reader Support Mode (requires an app reload to swap the UI layout).	• Web Browsers: On some web-based instances of RStudio Server, conflicts with global browser extension hotkeys or specific layout engines.
Microsoft Loop / Fluid Framework	Alt + Shift + A	Option + Shift + A	Forces real-time collaborative canvas elements to shift focus entirely to the ARIA tree.	• Outlook / Web Apps: Often conflicts with "Accept" invitation or scheduling hotkeys in enterprise mail clients.
Adobe Acrobat / Reader	Ctrl + Shift + 5	Cmd + Shift + 5	Triggers "Change Reading Options" to re-tag an untagged document for immediate screen reader optimization.	• macOS System: Cmd + Shift + 5 is the native macOS utility for screen recording and screenshots, completely blocking the app command.
accessiBe / AI Overlays (Web widget)	Alt + 1	Option + 1	Forces the webpage into an overlaid "Screen Reader Profile."	• Browser Tabs: Standard browsers use Ctrl/Cmd + 1 to swap tabs; a slight typo (Alt + 1) traps the user's cursor in the overlay menu.
memoQ (WebTrans)	Insert + Ctrl + B then type "acc"	N/A (Primarily Windows)	Activates Accessibility Mode to drop complex translation grid matrices into linear HTML segments.	• Screen Readers: Insert is the universal modifier key for JAWS and NVDA. If not passed through properly, it opens the screen reader's internal menus instead of the app command.

All of these seem terrible for one reason or another.

Option/Alt+Shift+A could work, but it won't work if the user is focused on a text input (on mac it would type Å instead) but that is probably fine, as none of the other blockly shortcuts work if you're focused on a text input anyway. It is also apparently the default shortcut to activate the browser extension "Dark Reader" which is one of the more popular dark mode extensions (the extension would eat the keypresses and not pass them to blockly), but a) system controls for that are more prevalent and less likely to be needed these days b) can students on school hardware even install extensions? and c) do people who turn on screenreader mode likely to be using a dark mode extension?

Another possibly good idea, in addition to the shortcut, is for applications to have a "Skip to main content and enable screenreader mode" option (instead of or in addition to the regular version of that)

[microbit-matt-hillsdon]

Shortcuts are hard!

The worst not-quite-conflict for Alt+Shift+A appears to be Windows input language switching for multi-ligual users which happens on Alt+Shift alone (but not if you press the A too, confirmed on Windows 11, even without an event handler).

There's also a clash with accesskey in Firefox on Windows. MakeCode doesn't use this, it's pretty ancient and use is discouraged and you'd have to have an accesskey for A in the DOM.

But this isn't bad considering there's so much to conflict with out there.

"Skip to main content and enable screenreader mode"

It's hard to have two of these and there are two audiences here, not sure I'd tab past the first in the hope of a second. FWIW it is on MakeCode's settings menu.