Re: Toolbar key navigation

[Bill Haneman <Bill Haneman sun com>]

Looks like the message below missed the mailbox slightly...


>I don't have a good sense that we know how this should work from
>the user's perspective.
>
>Open questions include:
>
> - How do you get to the toolbar. (It seems like F10 and <tab> 
>   to switch between menu bar and toolbars probably is a good
>   option here.)
> - What is the behavior for "normal widgets" in toolbars, such as
>   Nautilus's URL entry? This should, I think be in the normal
>   tab order, not something that you should access with F10, <tab>.
> - What is the behavior for tearoff toolbars?
>
>I'm wondering if then we should just say from an accessibility point
>of view:
>
> "All actions accessible through the toolbar should be also available
>  through the menus, unless the widgets are in the normal focus chain."
>
>I believe other operating systems do this, so we won't be behind
>in this area. The lack of existing practice worries me a bit if
>we try to come up with something at this point.
>
>This item can be revisted for GTK+-2.2, especially since the menu and
>toolbar APIs are scheduled for some rework in 2.2.
>
>Is this acceptable?
>                                        Owen

In context the suggestion is rational enough.  It's not obvious to me 
how much UI rejigging from the user perspective we are willing to 
tolerate in the 2.0->2.X transitions though.

I would still really be disappointed not to have this in 2.0, but I 
guess having it in 2.2 would be progress.  I am not comfortable dropping 
it yet...

My thought is that using the arrow keys to traverse the toolbar, keeping 
the TAB/Shift-TAB for normal focus chain, would be a good solution, and 
in line with user expectations for other things that can potentially be 
focussed but are not part of the 'primary' focus chain.

Note that Java does allow toolbar traversal, and since the first 
toolkits bridged with gnome-accessibility will be GTK+2 and Java, it 
would be nice to be consistent here.  I do think that disabled users 
find it annoying to stare at/navigate around useless toolbars.  In the 
longer-term having duplicated functions in the menubar (though good for 
usability generally) is not the same as being able to access the 
toolbars themselves, particularly when interoperating mouse-using 
colleagues.

-Bill

------
Bill Haneman x19279
Gnome Accessibility / Batik SVG Toolkit
Sun Microsystems Ireland