Keyboard quagmire

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

There are a number of bugs floating around[1] that require an intimate
knowledge of GNOME's keyboard navigation intricacies to make an informed
decision about.  I managed to hold that information in my head for a few
years, but now I'm just getting old, so I need some help.

The original GNOME 2.0 keyboard proposal [2] is hopelessly out of date.
The a11y guide has a great (but probably somewhat outdated) chapter on
keynav for users [3], but it's not in such a handy format for developers
and usability folks to check consistency between controls, identify
unused shortcuts etc.  There's also a list of sorts in the HIG [4], but
I'm not sure that's really helping anyone.

So, particularly if you're responsible for maintaining a widget or an
application, I'd appreciate it if you read through the parts of the a11y
guide [3] that apply, and let me know if there are any keynav features
that aren't listed there-- e.g. gnome-terminal's Alt+number shortcuts
for switching between tabs, or the shortcuts for entering unicode
characters in text fields.  (Actually, it would probably be most helpful
to do that by filing a bug against the a11y guide, and cc'ing me.)

I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to re-assemble all this information
yet (suggestions welcome), I just feel the need to try and update and
centralise our collective knowledge, so we can continue to make rational
keynav decisions and maintain GNOME's position as the most
keyboard-friendly dekstop around.

Cheeri,
Calum.

[1] For example:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=350342
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=101659

[2] http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/keyboardnav.html

[3] http://www.gnome.org/learn/access-guide/latest/keynav-0.html

[4]
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/input-keyboard.html#standard-shortcuts

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            Java Desktop System Group
http://ie.sun.com                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems