Re: [orca-list] Firefox 3.0 Questions

[Joanmarie Diggs <joanmarie diggs gmail com>]

Hi Steve.

> My question is, I some times will hear entire words or strings of text
> spoken when arrowing over the line a letter at a time; that is,
> pressing lest or right arrow with no modifiers.  I usually will hear
> single characters spoken but some of these times, I hear an entire
> link spoken as a single unit.  What causes this? 

Without looking at a specific case, here's my guess:  the act of
arrowing into a link has caused an event which has caused us to grab
focus on it.  If we grab focus on a link, the link claims focus, and
when that happens, odds are that we're going to speak it. <smile>  I'll
take a closer look at that sort of thing tomorrow.  But hypothetically,
let's pretend that I'm correct in my guess.  Question back at you:  What
should we be saying?  If you right arrow and have crossed into a link,
should you be told that it's a link?  Should you be told the full text
of that link or just the character you moved to?

> The other question and possibly easier to ask, how can one quickly get
> past a bunch of navigation links if there's no heading elements on the
> page? 

We don't currently have a "jump past all the links" (or similarly
formatting text) command.  We're still waiting on having text attributes
exposed to us by FF -- something I'm told should be starting before too
long.  Jumping past links wouldn't require that, though.  If you and the
rest of the users think we should implement such a feature, let us know.
Even better, file an RFE in bugzilla. <smile> 

That said, we do have a command to jump to the next/previous "large
object."  One of its purposes is to address the very issue you mention.
Try O/Shift+O and see if that gets the job done.

> Final question, Is there any way for Orca to notify the user when
> he/she enters a table? 

Not at the moment.  But that sounds like another excellent candidate for
an RFE to enter into Bugzilla. <smile>

> I have found tables on a page rather by
> accident where with I can then use the two dimensional navigation.

If you know you're looking for a table, you could give T/Shift+T a try.
But if you're merely exploring with the arrows, that admittedly doesn't
do you much good.

> I think that's enough questions for now.:) I've been to several sites today
> and access has been wonderful!

Thanks Steve!!  We're not quite "there" yet, but we're definitely on the
way I think.

Hope the above info helps.  Take care.
--Joanie