on application focus navigation (was: On ctrl-tab)

[Jud Craft <craftjml gmail com>]

On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 6:57 PM, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> They have all been CLOSED WONTFIX consistently.  The
> reason for not doing that by default is that currently ctrl+tab is used to
> change focus when tab itself is consumed by a widget (text area, etc.  vte
> currently doesn't do that, but that's a separate bug.  Bug #602665).

(mini-rant that I am completely unjustified in making.)

I can't believe that the focus shortcut policy holds a relatively
simple and sensible change.  GNOME's focus switching is so
inconsistent it boggles my mind.

I'd much rather them fix focus switching to use Tab *exclusively*, and
make more sense.  You can tab into a ListView, but not shift-tab (only
into the headers), and not being able to tab through toolbar buttons
(but you can ctrl-tab -- until you hit a non-button widget!  or
whatever.  it's extremely difficult to keep track) is a nightmare.

Panel keyboard navigation (trying to work through the launchers, task
buttons, and menus) is another thing entirely, but a little better.

Actually navigating the focus around a semi-complex GNOME application
(Banshee, Rhythmbox, MonoDevelop, F-Spot, Evolution) involves me
trying many different ways to get through the stupid text-boxes and
drop-downs, each of which have inconsistent and *completely different*
ways to move focus from them.

Never mind that sometimes, just pressing an arrow key makes my focus
jump from a toolbar to the document!

I'd much rather GNOME fix the focus-navigation shortcuts to be less
insane, and then add a liberated Ctrl-Tab as a blessed tab-document
switcher.

(/mini-rant)

PS.  I have no idea how to file bugs against the interface guidelines
themselves -- or even if anyone agrees with me.  Are people really
happy with GNOME keyboard focus navigation?