Keyboard hijacked in the ActiveX + Preview + Office + Web plugin

I noticed this because I'm used to closing the external viewer with the Escape key: this does not work when viewing HTML files. In fact nothing works: alt+F does not open the File menu, despite the underlined F, and it even bips at me. I wanted to test another key, so I tried ctrl+N (View > Menu Bar) and... it opens the document in Internet Explorer! Clearly the keyboard is hijacked by IE.

I tried .rtf to test another source, and there, the keyboard works as expected (except Page Up/Down) as long as you do not click inside. If you do, then Page Up/Down work, but the rest does not.

Any way to fix this?

That’s by design. We have no way to know which keys those viewers want for themselves, and indeed something like a web browser needs every key on the keyboard for some websites.

Could you make it an option to override some designated keys?
In my case I would just want Escape to always close the viewer.

I think it would break too many things. A lot of those viewers use Esc.

Why not use the preview pane instead of the standalone viewer, if you just want a quick glance at a document?

That's because the external viewer window is larger, and also because it stays there until I close it, not following the selection in the lister. And I can open more than one, and see them side by side, for instance.

That's why I was proposing an option: by default all keys would be passed to the underlying app, except the ones designated by the user. That would be feasible, right?

Feasible, but also quite a lot of work compared to the benefit.

If more people request it then it could happen.