Re: GNOME Accessibility Guide - open change review

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On 18 Jun 2008, at 21:16, Vincent Alexander wrote:

> <gnome-access-guide.html>

I've had a quick glance through the bits that deal with keyboard  
navigation and themes, as I used to lose a lot of sleep over those  
things :)

General:  I can't help feeling there are probably some new widgets/ 
conventions in common use now that weren't around when the guide was  
first written, whose keyboard navigations need documenting here.   
(Admittedly none spring immediately to mind, but it would be good to  
do some due diligence to make sure.)

§ 2.1 Essential Keyboard Commands

You mention that Ctrl-Esc is used on Solaris instead of Alt-F1; if  
you're doing that, should also mention that Meta-R is used instead of  
Alt-F2, again for consistency with MS Windows. (Although, in fact,  
it's really a Solaris bug that Alt-F1 and Alt-F2 don't work in  
addition to those two shortcuts... hopefully we'll fix that one of  
these days.)

Tab and Shift-Tab: might also want to mention that Ctrl-Tab and Shift- 
Ctrl-Tab are used instead where Tab and Shift-Tab are reserved for use  
by the focused control.  (Although you do mention this in §3.2.1.1.)

Alt-Tab and Shift-Alt-Tab: might also want to mention that Alt-Esc and  
Shift-Alt-Esc cycle between applications without the little popup  
window.  (Although you do mention this in §3.2.5.1.)

§ 3.2.1.2 Global Keyboard Shortcuts

You describe Alt-F1 and Alt-F2 again here, but this time you don't  
mention that it's different on Solaris.

You describe Shift-F10 as the shortcut for an object's popup menu.   
Might also want to mention that Ctrl-F10 is sometimes used to open the  
parent object's popup menu.  For example, on the desktop, Shift-F10  
opens the focused icon's popup menu, and Ctrl-F10 opens the desktop's  
popup menu.  Similar usage on the panel.  (On the other hand, as this  
usage is relatively infrequent, maybe it's best left to the  
application-specific sections.)

§ 3.2.2 Navigating the Desktop Background

Solaris also has a different shortcut for Ctrl-Alt-D: it uses Meta-D  
instead (for consistency with MS Windows).

§ 3.2.3 Navigating Panels

Worth mentioning in the descriptions of Tab and Ctrl-Alt-Tab that  
Shift will reverse the direction?  (Although it does take some  
dexterity to use Shift-Ctrl-Alt-Tab!)

"F10: Open the Applications menu when the Menu Panel has focus.  
Continue to press F10 to switch focus between the Applications menu  
and the window list."  Couple of notes on this:

* F10 only works for the Applications menu that's on the menu bar  
applet, not the Applications submenu that's part of the main menu  
applet.  This is because F10 is really cycling focus between menu  
bars, and the main menu applet isn't implemented as a menu bar, but as  
a button... not the sort of detail that it's nice to expose users to :/

So, what's currently written is correct (modulo my next comment) in  
the context of the out-of-the-box, unmodified-from-community top panel  
(aka the Menu Panel), but just be aware that it doesn't describe the  
general behaviour of F10 on panels, which is what a reader might  
expect here.

*  It's not actually the "window list" applet that will receive focus  
if you press F10 again, but the "window selector" applet (the one that  
shows all your open windows in a dropdown menu).

* Needless to say, F10 will only cycle between the menu bar applet and  
the window selector applet if they're both on the same panel-- again,  
this is true of the default GNOME setup, but not necessarily the  
general case.

§ 3.2.5.1 Giving Focus to Windows

In addition to Alt-Tab and Alt-Esc, we now have [Shift]-Alt-F6, which  
cycles focus between windows of the same application.

§ 3.2.6.1 Essential Keyboard Shortcuts for NavigatingApplications (sic)

The list of "useful shortcuts" (Ctrl-O,S,L) seems fairly abitrary,  
there are probably some more common and useful ones you could list  
here.  (E.g. Ctrl-C/V/X, Ctrl-P?)

§ 3.2.6.2  Essential Keyboard Shortcuts for Navigating Dialogs

<rant> "Esc: close and/or cancel the dialog" nicely encapsulates my  
dislike for the ant-HIG practice of using Esc to mean Cancel *or*  
Close.  How does the user know which of those two directly-opposed  
actions is going to happen? </rant>

"Perform the default action for the dialog".  Might be worth  
describing/showing how the default button is indicated in a dialog.

§ 3.2.7 Navigating the File Manager

For consistency with the desktop navigation section, probably ought to  
mention somewhere that Shift-F10 opens a file/folder's popup menu, and  
Ctrl-F10 opens the enclosing folder's popup menu (same as right- 
clicking on the view pane background).

§ 3.2.8 Navigating Help Content in Caret Navigation Mode

I'd guess this section applies not just to Help Content, but also to  
caret mode in Evolution and Epiphany?  If so, suggest rewriting to  
cover Caret Mode generally.  (There may be slight differences between  
those three applications, in which case the differences should  
obviously be highlighted here, and/or bugs filed for any needless  
inconsistencies.)

§ 3.2.9.8  Navigating Drop-Down Combination Boxes

Is Ctrl-Down still really a Solaris-only shortcut? If so, suggests  
there's probably a bug with a languishing patch somewhere-- would be  
good to find it and follow up.

§ 3.2.9.10. Navigating Tabbed Sections

The descriptions of Ctrl-PgUp/PgDn are slightly incorrect since the  
alternatives (Ctrl-Alt-PgUp/Dn) were added.  Either:

* they should specifically say to use Ctrl-Alt-PgUp/Dn if the focused  
control uses Ctrl-PgUp/Dn for another purpose, or

* we shouldn't mention Ctrl-PgUp/Dn at all any more, and only document  
Ctrl-Alt-PgUp/Dn since they always work.

§ 3.2.10  Customizing Your Keyboard Shortcuts

Again, it's silly that this process is different on Solaris, and I  
have no idea why it would be other than that we pushed a patch  
upstream that was rejected or is languishing somewhere.  This ought to  
be resolved.

§ 4.2.1 Customization Options

Table 4-1 is a little out of date.  It needs to be updated to refer to  
the appropriate tabs of the 'Appearance preference tool'.

Perhaps adjusting the size of the mouse pointer should now also be  
listed in this table and covered in this chapter, now that the  
settings have moved to Themes tab> Customize dialog?  (This is  
currently covered in §5.2.1.1.3.)

§ 4.2.2.1  Introduction to Themes

Perhaps worth mentioning that a theme can also include a suggested  
font (particularly as this is referred to in Table 4-2), and that some  
themes' colours can be customised.

§ 4.2.2.2  Choosing themes

I note there's no mention of the LowContrast and LowContrastLargePrint  
themes here.  While they're not built by default, some distros do ship  
them.

The text under table 4-2 is out of date.  One now selects a theme on  
the Theme tab of the Appearance preference tool, and clicks the  
Customize button.

§ 4.2.2.3 Modifying the Controls Setting for a Theme

Again, needs to be updated to refer to the Appearance preference  
tool.  (BTW, I notice some inconsistency in this document about how  
preferences dialogs are referred to-- in some places it's the "Blah  
Preferences dialog", in others its the "Blah preference tool".  Check  
the documentation style guide for correct usage.)

Table 4-3: mentions the LowContrastLargePrint gtk theme, but is  
missing the LowContrast one.

§ 4.2.2.4, 4.2.2.5  Modifying the Window Border/Icon setting for a theme

Again, needs to be updated to refer to the Appearance preference tool.

Table 4-4: Starting from GNOME 2.22, there is no longer a LowContrast  
icon theme, only HighContrast and HighContrastInverse.  (There is also  
an experimental HighContrast-SVG theme, not sure if we should mention  
this yet though.)

§ 4.2.4.1  Achieving a High or Low Contrast Desktop

Again, needs to be updated to refer to the Appearance preference  
tool.   Step 1 may need to make it clear that selecting the "No  
Wallpaper" option now means selecting the first thumbnail in the list,  
because this isn't at all obvious (it's always catching me out!)

§ 4.2.4.2  Achieving a Large Print desktop

Again, needs to be updated to refer to the Appearance preference tool.

§ 5.2.1.1.3  Changing the Mouse Pointer Size

As noted earlier, this should now perhaps be covered in Section 4, as  
the settings now appear in the Theme Customization dialog.  But I can  
see how it would still fit here, too.

§ 5.2.2  Configuring the Keyboard

Possibly saving the worst news till last: This whole section needs  
revising I'm afraid; the Keyboard Accessibility preferences have  
changed completely.  (They're now in the Accessibility tab of the  
Keyboard Preferences).

HTH,
Calum.

--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            GNOME Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems