Re: [g-a-devel]KeyNav in Menu Bar Applet (Bug # 74888)

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

Hema Seetharamaiah wrote:

> Calum, could you also please tell us what you would expect for Menu Bar
> Applet?

My initial thoughts on this are that I think each menu in the menu bar
applet should appear as much like a separate panel object as possible to
the user.  So the user would:

- Press [Shift+]Tab to move focus onto first/last menu title in the
applet from an adjacent object on the panel.

- Use left/right arrow keys to move focus between the menu titles in the
applet. Focus probably shouldn't wrap around, but stop at the first/last
menu with a beep-- any thoughts on that Marc?

- Press Space/Enter to pop up a menu when its title has focus, as with
any other menu in GNOME.

- Use arrow keys/Space/Enter to select/activate menu items, as with any
other menu in GNOME.

- Use Esc to pop down a menu without selecting any items, and give focus
back to the menu title, as with any other menu in GNOME.

The only thing I'm not sure about is whether Tab/Shift+Tab should also
move focus between the menu titles once the applet has focus.  Special
cases would then be that when focus was on the last menu in the applet,
pressing Tab would then move focus out of the menu applet and onto the
next object on the panel.  And when focus was on the first menu in the
applet, pressing Shift+Tab would move focus out of the menu applet and
onto the previous object on the panel.

The alternative would be that [Shift+]Tab would just move the focus out
of the menu applet and onto the previous/next panel object at all times,
regardless of which menu title had focus at the time.  This would be
more consistent with other applets' behaviour, but since each menu in
the menu applet *looks* like a separate panel object, I think it would
confuse people that they couldn't just tab through them all.  So I think
the first behaviour might be better.  Anybody else got a view on this?

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems