Switching between text widgets via F6/shift F6

["Nolan Darilek" <nolan thewordnerd info>]

Hi all. Not sure whether this is the correct list for these questions, 
but since it's full of accessibility developers, I figure someone here 
likely has the answer.

I've been filing accessibility tickets against Gajim, a GTK-based XMPP 
client. It is already highly accessible, especially after the Orca 
script I've written (which I really need to get into shape for 
contribution.) There's one major issue that has both the developer and I 
stumped, though, and I just don't know what to tell him.

I like how F6/shift F6 in Pidgin toggles between the output and input 
areas. When in the output area, I can move around and manipulate the 
text as if it were a read-only document. This to me is huge for 
accessibility, but Gajim doesn't do it, instead requiring that I use 
Orca's flat review, which has some issues.

The strange thing is that this doesn't seem like a hugely complicated 
issue. I'm working on an app of my own, and I've got it such that I get 
this exact behavior out of the box with a few lines of manually-created 
widgets. Gajim uses glade, though, which doesn't seem terribly 
accessible in some spots, and looking at the XML is no help.

So, what combination of circumstances is needed for F6/shift F6 to 
change focus between text widgets in an application? The developer seems 
keen on implementing this, but I just don't know what to tell him to change.

Thanks a bunch.