Re: [g-a-devel] Trying to understand STATE_SENSITIVE

[Willie Walker <William Walker Sun COM>]

> > I don't believe any of the users of IA2 or ATK or using STATE_SENSITIVE
> > to mean anything other than STATE_ENABLED.
> > For one, no one understands it. Second, it's not actually useful because
> > if somethings greyed out it should not react to user input. As David
> > Bolter says, the UI designer should be shot if a greyed out widget
> > reacts to user input.
> >
> > I call to deprecate both STATE_SENSITIVE and STATE_ARMED.

We use STATE_SENSITIVE in Orca.  The thing I understand is as follows,
though my understanding might be wrong because I'm not sure I've never
fully understood the relationship between ENABLED and SENSITIVE:

SENSITIVE means the thing is not grayed out.  For example, you can press
a button.  It doesn't necessarily mean the application will do anything
when you press the button, though.

ENABLED means that if the thing is SENSITIVE, manipulating it will
actually cause some sort of action in the application.  I'm not sure,
but I think it is possible to have an ENABLED component that is not
SENSITIVE.

If this is correct, then SENSITIVE is more indicative of the visual GUI
state and ENABLED merely indicates non-visual application state.  From
an AT standpoint, I think SENSITIVE is the more practical state to look
for whereas ENABLED is mostly intellectually interesting.

As such, if this were Sophie's choice, I'd choose to ditch ENABLED and
keep our dear SENSITIVE child.

Will