A globally available virtual buffer? (was, Re: selecting text in a gnome terminal)

["Al Puzzuoli" <alpuzz gmail com>]

Hi all,

It would actually be extremely cool to have this functionality available 
from anywhere on the desktop.  I know that at least one Windows screen 
reader offers the ability to "virtualize" any window.  The contents of that 
window can then be browsed, selected or copied  using standard document 
navigation commands.  I can't even count the number of instances in which 
that functionality has saved my life!  It comes in very handy in situations 
where a complicated error dialog is  displayed, or other relevant 
information is shown that is not otherwise selectable from within a given 
application.
So what do you guys think,  would something like this be feasible enough to 
consider ading it as an RFE?

--Al

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Haneman" <Bill Haneman Sun COM>
To: <Kwatson smed yi org>
Cc: <gnome-accessibility-list gnome org>
Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 10:52 AM
Subject: Re: selecting text in a gnome terminal


> See bug http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=78291
>
> The short answer is "it isn't possible", mostly because no one can agree
> on what the keyboard navigation sequence should be.  Pretty much any key
> sequence will clash with some terminal-based application.
>
> However, AtkText's selection API does work with vte and gnome-terminal.
> So a simple at-spi client which hooks into this, or even an orca script,
> should not be difficult to write.  The script would install some global
> key listeners (again, care would be required to avoid clashing with
> other uses for the same key sequences) which would turn on selection.
>
> If anyone wants to write a patch for vte which implements Calum's
> suggestion for using F7 to toggle caret mode on and off in vte, and
> which uses "shift-arrow" semantics for selecting text in caret mode, it
> would be worth trying to get it approved by the vte maintainers.  I
> think that's about the best suggested approach we have at this time.
>
> regards
>
> Bill
>
> Keith Watson wrote:
>
> > I would also dearly love to know how to do this. I need it bad.
> >
> > Keith
> > On
> > 05:06
> > PM, Kenny Hitt wrote:
> >
> >
> > > Hi.  Would someone please point me to info on selecting text for cut and
> > > paste in the gnome terminal app?
> > > I've read the gnome accessibility docs and didn't find anything about
> > > it.
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance.
> > >          Kenny
> > >
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> > > gnome-accessibility-list gnome org
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>
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