Re: drive-by request - keyboard accessibility of top-panel status icons

[William Jon McCann <william jon mccann gmail com>]

Hi,

Sorry for the super slow reply.

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 11:17 PM, Jud Craft <craftjml gmail com> wrote:
> I apologize for the audacity.
>
> It would be lovely if GNOME Shell keyboard support included being able
> to navigate the top panel's status icons entirely using the arrow
> keys.  Very similar to how OS X allows you to navigate its status icon
> bar (volume, brightness, etc) - like a series of menus.
>
> Since each status icon in GNOME is in reality a glorified menu
> launcher, such a consistent way to navigate them would add a lot of
> ease of use.
>
> Currently in GNOME 2.2x you have to use a combination of tab and arrow
> keys to move to the status icon you want, with little indication
> (aside from highlight) of which is selected pre-activation.  You must
> manually activate and navigate each menu using a combination of
> enter/space, shift+F10, and ESC to move between them.
>
> Being able to navigate them like the series of menus they try to be
> would be very handy.
>
> I am aware this has some implementation gotchas to watch out for.
> Some icons do not have a left-click menu (GNOME Do, Rhythmbox); some
> have identical left and right-click menus (display status icon).  So
> if this is impractical I understand.

Yup, this is an important goal.  I think we'd like to have everything
easily accessible from the keyboard.  Making the status indicators
behave in a sane and consistent manner is also an important goal.  I
think the majority of things that use the status area now will
probably find better homes.  There is some information in the design
doc about this.

Thanks for the input.

Jon