Re: Toolbar key navigation

[Peter Korn <korn sun com>]

Greetings,

> >Open questions include:
> >
> > - How do you get to the toolbar. (It seems like F10 and <tab>
> >   to switch between menu bar and toolbars probably is a good
> >   option here.)
> > - What is the behavior for "normal widgets" in toolbars, such as
> >   Nautilus's URL entry? This should, I think be in the normal
> >   tab order, not something that you should access with F10, <tab>.
> > - What is the behavior for tearoff toolbars?

Ctrl-ESC pops up the Start menu in Windows, no matter what application is
topmost (F10 would be a conflict with the front-most application window and
movement to it's menu bar).  How about this to get to the Gnome/Foot menu,
with <tab> to switch between it and the toolbar?

For tearoff toolbars, why not use whatever means to switch between top-level
windows, then arrow keys within the toolbar itself?

> >I'm wondering if then we should just say from an accessibility point
> >of view:
> >
> > "All actions accessible through the toolbar should be also available
> >  through the menus, unless the widgets are in the normal focus chain."
> >
> >I believe other operating systems do this, so we won't be behind
> >in this area. The lack of existing practice worries me a bit if
> >we try to come up with something at this point.
> >
> >This item can be revisted for GTK+-2.2, especially since the menu and
> >toolbar APIs are scheduled for some rework in 2.2.
> >
> >Is this acceptable?

I would really like us to try hard to solve this for 2.0.  GNOME
Accessibility isn't simply about reaching 508-level parity with Windows
users.  It's about users with disabilities being first-class citizens with
respect to the GNOME platform - invited guests at the party rather than
afterthoughts and grudgingly welcome gate crashers.  Every place we fall
short of making fully accessible is another place where these users will feel
(and effectively be) less welcome than everyone else.

The realities of software development are that you can't get every feature
you want, and every bug fix, into any given release.  We may decide that on
this feature we'll have to punt 'till 2.2.  But let's try a little harder
before we make that decision.


Peter Korn
Sun Accessibility team