Re: Toolbar keyboard navigation

[Bill Haneman <bill haneman sun com>]

On Mon, 2003-02-24 at 19:46, Soeren Sandmann wrote:
> Bill Haneman <bill haneman sun com> writes:
> 
> > You forgot one:
> > 
> > 	  d) The toolbar itself is part of the regular TAB sequence, 
> > 	     but navigation from item-to-item within the toolbar       
> >              uses the arrow keys.
> > 
> > This is the model that Java uses, and I think it combines the advantages
> > of the other methods without cluttering the focus chain with a zillion
> > new items.
> > 
> > Note that (a) is similar in that a child (presumably the first sensitive
> > one) of the toolbar received focus when the toolbar is posted.  My
> > proposal would be that the state which results from the nth 'F10' press
> > in Soeren's prosal would be the state resulting from reaching the
> > "toolbar" item in the focus chain.
> 
> You mean: The first item of each toolbar is in the regular tab
> sequence. When that item has focus, use the arrow keys to move from
> item to item?

Yes, that's it in a nutshell.  

> That sounds like a really good idea to me. Especially because the
> implementation would be much, much simpler, require no new API and not
> require spending one of the virtual pointers of GtkWidget.
> 
> It would be possible for toolbars to remember the last item that had
> focus, so that if you give focus to a toolbar item, move a few items
> to the right and then press TAB repeatedly, you would eventually
> return to the tool item you just left (as opposed to the first item on
> that toolbar).

I am not sure that's an important enhancement - it's not obvious that
this would be the desired behavior (remembering the 'last focussed'
item).  But I will leave that one to Calum, etc. - my instinct is that
it would be as much of an aggravation to some, from an accessibility POV
as it would be an advantage to others.

I don't want to promote this toolbar keynav suggestion against Calum's
will, but if he thinks this is a reasonable model, it's my preference
and I think it would be very suitable from an accessibility POV also.

I am glad that it sounds like a cleaner thing to implement as well,
that's always a consideration.

-Bill

> 
> Søren 
-- 
Bill Haneman <bill haneman sun com>