It happened to me more than once that a topic was posted even though I haven’t finished writing it, since some key combination (I don’t know which one, it always happened by accident) created the topic and/or sent a message. This is truly annoying, especially since no follow up email is sent, when editing this unfinished post. This means that someone who mainly reads their messages by mail, will only get part of a message. Is there any way to turn off keyboard shortcuts while creating a message/topic? (On a per user basis - maybe a checkbox in Preferences -> Interface.)

But if the message is really sent, there is no undo. And Discourse has some similar delays built in. This notion of undo is much better than an ‘are you sure’ because you just automatize the extra (annoying) prompt.

Isn’t that just the edit window?

[image] Stephen: It’s going to be much easier for you to adjust to web conventions than for the internet at large to make allowances for you. Great, please tell me, how am I supposed to do that? Didn’t I mention that hitting tab and then space happens by accident? [image] Stephen: Sending a blank email is a legitimate thing too Yes, it is, but not if it happens by accident.

You’re arguing against conventions used across the internet. I’m not really sure what you think that might achieve, Google isn’t going to stop sending blank emails any more than Discourse can guess when you’re done with a post and really intended to submit it. Asking every accessibility user to tab past additional elements just because you occasionally post prematurely isn’t a solution. You’re going to find that submit buttons follow form elements across the internet. The standard of tab and space to navigate and select is defined by the W3C WAI ARIA, not us.

Specific accidental keypress accessibility issues might be better attacked at the OS level, for example: Turn on slow keys

Thanks for the info. I will check if something similar is available for macOS, in which case I could just activate it when typing in discourse. As I said, I never had this issue anywhere else, so Discourse is the only UI that allows me to post prematurely. No issue in Thunderbird, Mediawiki editor, github UI, gitlab UI, vi, mutt, … Or I just stick with writing the text in a text editor first.

Hmm, in this case it’s probably just coincidence that all the UIs I work with (except discourse) don’t focus submit at the first tab. Anyway, I guess we can close this topic. Although, maybe @Stephen can test why the focus box isn’t shown in Firefox the way @awesomerobot described above.

Another alternative is to just use the composer in full-screen mode while writing your posts. Then the post/ reply button is removed, and you can’t hit it with an accidental tab+space.

For example I just tested this on Reddit. After typing anything the comment button is enabled, pressing tab you are taken to the comment box. space then submits. [image]

How to turn off tab + space submitting a reply?

Product Support

codinghorror (Jeff Atwood) February 28, 2019, 5:58am 26

I use tab then space all the time to submit in various online forms, it is expected that tab beyond the end of the form (our editor is one “field”) will take focus to the submit button.

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How to turn off tab + space submitting a reply?

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