Re: Auto-completion popup?

[Kristian Rietveld <kris gtk org>]

On Mon, 2003-05-19 at 18:54, Bill Haneman wrote:
> Hi:
> 
> I see that it was suggested that autocompletion use a popup window to
> display its results, rather than rely on keystrokes to supply direct
> completion into the entry field.

Correct. Basically because I got told that the popup-method is better
usability-wise compared to the select-ahead-method. And such a keystroke
would probably be tab, which the a11y people don't like because it would
break keynav.

> 
> I have some accessibility concerns about this; in fact this could be
> pretty awkward for screenreaders since they generally treat new popup
> windows like dialogs (if they notice them at all).  Is the current plan
> for the popup to be realized in response to a user keystroke?  If so,

It would only popup after the user typed some characters, informing the
user whether there are matching items (and if so, which) or not. After
that, it would pop down if the entry loses focus, or if the user selects
an item from the popup.

> perhaps this would be more predictable behavior from the end-user's
> point of view.  Any sort of automagic popup windows can be very annoying
> to sighted users and create very confusing noise for blind users; I'd
> prefer to see autocompletion on-demand only.

An on-demand popup would require the use of Tab (which you don't like),
or a totally awkward keybinding (which nobody is going to like). Also, a
popup is bad usability wise, as pointed out above (I should figure out
and write down the argumentation on this).

So, my conclusion is that the popup-method is the best way to go. And if
that introduces problems with a11y, I can provide an option (probably a
theme-setting) to turn it off. This way you would be able to turn
completion off for the a11y users, which shouldn't introduce problems,
completion is a convenience, not a necessity.



	-Kris

> 
> regards,
> 
> Bill
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gtk-devel-list mailing list
> gtk-devel-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gtk-devel-list