Re: panel prelight on focus

[Chris Chabot <chabotc reviewboard com>]

Mark McLoughlin wrote

> Okay, we (Padraig, Calum and myself) have just had a quick
> chat ... [..]
> 	* So now a user will have no way of knowing when the panel has
> 	focus - that doesn't seem to be a huge problem for most users,
> 	but is certainly a problem for some users, and we'll have to
> 	fix it - the problem is how? We've racked our brains about
> 	this for quite a while and we keep coming up stumped ..
I think the MS way to 'solve' the problem was by working around it. 
While trying to reproduce this kind of navigation on XP i noticed a few 
things:

1) All panel 'applets' are not keyboard enabled, if you want to change 
sound mixer, time, etc via keyboard, you have to use the application or 
control center to do so.

2) The only 'applet' that can get keyboard focus and navigation is the 
'Start Menu'. However the start menu is drawn with a window like layout, 
and it is very obvious to a user that this 'window' now has focus (the 
prev active window un-highlights, and the menu is drawn in 'highlighted' 
colors.

3) The only 'other' required functionality of their pannel is switching 
between windows, which can be done thru ALT+TAB, so it also does not 
require panel keyboard navigation.

3) it is not posible to add multiple instances of an applet to a panel 
(there's only one clock, icon dock, etc)

(ofcource many 3rd party windows applications break the above statements)


So their thinking seems to be:

1) the start menu is not a application menu, but a application on its 
self (though drawn differently, it has a application feel and behaviour)

2) Anything you can do thru the panel, you can thru the apropiate 
application, which in turn are accesable.


(I gues it would be posible to make 'global applet configurators' 
accesable thru the control center?)

I think this is one of those situations where our trying to do 
everything, and better then everyone else (and everything customizable) 
is making more problems then it is solving when it comes to usability 
and accesability?


   -- Chris