Re: [orca-list] Blockquotes?

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis <bhawkeslewis googlemail com>]

In HTML the <blockquote> element should be used to markup a long 
quotation from an external source.  The name comes from a typographic 
convention where longer quotations are set in a new, indented text block 
rather than inlined with the main text. For documentation, see:

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/text.html#h-9.2.2

You can look up other HTML elements from the index at:

http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/index/elements.html

Like all HTML elements, <blockquote> is subject to a certain degree of 
misuse, classically to produce indented text in visual browsers even 
when not quoting an external source. My impression is that the rise of 
cascading stylesheets to add presentational hints has made that misuse 
much less common. Conversely, (again like all HTML elements) 
<blockquote> is frequently subject to people's failure to use it when 
they should.

Properly used <blockquote> elements are rare on the commercial and 
technical web, but common in the sort of material where you would expect 
to find quotations, e.g. blogs, forums, academic documents, HTML email. 
Some examples in the wild:

http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/11/rupturerapture/

http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/forgood/featured-charities/joinup.html

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/EH/EH42/Swan42.html

Now it may be that your bookmarks happen not to contain any <blockquote> 
elements or it may that Firefox and Orca are malfunctioning somehow. The 
only way to be sure is to inspect the DOM to see if any <blockquote> 
elements are present.

The same q and shift + q key bindings are used by JAWS and Window-Eyes 
to jump between <blockquote> instances:

http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/Surfs_Up/Quick_Keys.htm

http://www.gwmicro.com/Window-Eyes/Manual/HTML/19_13quotesblockquotes.htm

I would have thought the same key combination could be apply to jumping 
between instances of the <q> element sometimes used for short 
quotations. But without knowing more about how this navigational aid is 
currently used in practice, it's hard to be sure.

A <blockquote> element may contain multiple text blocks or paragraphs, 
and widget navigation (frames, buttons, fields) is another matter 
entirely. It doesn't make sense to speak of replacing one feature with 
other rather different features, unless they happen to be competing for 
binding to the same key combinations. That's not replacement of 
features, but removal of features.

There are already standard Firefox key bindings for moving between 
frames (F6 and Shift + F6):

http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/keyboard

If there is no further frame, pressing F6 moves you on to the address 
bar. So there is no need for Orca to duplicate this feature.

With regard to your other feature suggestions, what defines a 
"textblock" and what is "background information"?

I'm not sure what "large objects" we're talking about are though. When 
you say you cannot predict where you land, do you mean that if you move 
to the next large object, then another large object, then press the 
command to go back an large object, you do not arrive at the first large 
object? Or do you just mean that you don't know where the next large 
object will be? That seems to be an inherent aspect of cycling between 
instances of any webpage component, unless you know the webpage in 
question very well.

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

Krister Ekstrom wrote:
> Hi there,
> For once, and hopefully not the only time i'm agreeing with you. A
> question though, what on earth is "background information"? Is it font,
> style, color etc? Isn't there a key implemented for this already?
> Jumping between frames is surely more important than blockquotes i
> think. Perhaps, but maybe that's what you suggested, a feature to jump
> to first non-linked text, would be great for skipping large segments
> with menu links etc. I think that's what the chunks feature was meant to
> do, and i have had no trouble with it, but that's me.
> /Krister
>
> Hermann wrote:
> > Hi,
> > a new feature was added to FF - "q" and Shift+q move between blockquotes. 
> > Fine, but - what for heaven sake are those "blockquotes"?
> > Yesterday evening I was strolling through my bookmarks, and I couldn't find 
> > a single page containing blockquotes. So my Question: What are blockquotes 
> > and what is this feature for?
> > A similar thing are those famous "large objects". Till today i wasn't able 
> > to figure out what it is all about. Moving between that objects seems to 
> > result in stochastical behavior of Orca, e.g. you land anywhere, and you 
> > cannot predict where.
> > So what about replacing those two feature by some more common thins like 
> > moving between frames, textblocks >=x, buttons, edit fields and - not so 
> > important - paragraphs.
> > There should also be a feature implemented that speaks/brailles background 
> > information of an object; such a feature is imlemented in Firevox.
> > Hermann
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca
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