Proposal: homogenize gnome-shell navigation with respect to GNOME platform

[Piñeiro <apinheiro igalia com>]

Hi everybody, I would like to resume a discussion we had some time ago
(more than one year ago) with respect to keyboard navigation.

Background: At GUADEC 2012 I briefly talked with Allan Day about the
keyboard navigation at the Overview. He mentioned that using the
Ctrl+Alt+Tab switcher was somewhat obscure, and probably it would be
better to move between regions using TAB. I agreed, but mentioned that
it would be good to not remove the switcher. This was included on the
KeyboardShortcut whiteboard [1] and there is a bug tracking it [2].
Some  time after that Matthias Clasen came to the same conclusion [3].

Since then, not a lot happened, probably because we are talking about
improving something that is already working.

Why I want to resume the discussion: since then, we have noticed more
and more keynav inconsistencies between gnome-shell and the rest of the
platform. In general the problem is that the keynav model in gnome-shell
is not  the same as gtk, and in fact, is more limited. The main example
is that TAB is used in gtk to move between containers, but in
gnome-shell this only happens if you are at the end of the list. This
limits some of  the interaction. One example is the calendar popdown
[4], but I  think that it is better explained with the dialog to select
a wireless network. Just after 3.10 it was noticed that it was not
possible to activate  a network in the list [5],  and at the same time,
in order to navigate to the Accept button you  needed to go to the end
of the available wifis and then press TAB. And  obviously, that only
works if you want to select the last network. This was  solved: The user
can now select the wifi by activating the row, or canceling by pressing
ESC. But if that dialog adds a new button, lets say "Wifi Settings" to
configure selected wifi, that button would be inaccessible.

I think it would be good to extend the already existing bugs, in order
to homogenize the keyboard navigation of the platform. Right now that
would mean making gnome-shell keynav navigation more similar to gtk, the
first step being something like "Use TAB to move between containers".
But probably there are other cases to solve.

Thoughts?

Best regards,

[1] https://wiki.gnome.org/GnomeOS/Design/Whiteboards/KeyboardShortcuts
[2] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=681527
[3] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=692598
[4] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=706903
[5] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=710144

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Alejandro Piñeiro