Re: A cross-platform status icon api

[Matthias Clasen <mclasen redhat com>]

On Tue, 2005-08-30 at 00:09 +0100, Bill Haneman wrote:
> Hi:
> 
> Nice feature; I can see a lot of accessibility questions related to it 
> though. 
> 
> 1) First, yes, allowing stock icons may be the best way to make these 
> theme-compatible, which of course is vital.
> 2) Notifications are probably critical to accessibility;
> 3) If they react to the mouse, they need to react to the keyboard as 
> well (feature-equivalently).
> 4) The timout may be an issue; certainly it needs to be configurable.
> 5) There is an implied focus problem; does the bubble steal focus when 
> it demands attention?  Almost certainly it shouldn't, but otherwise how 
> does the screenreader or magnifier user notice it?  We may need some 
> kind of API for this - but the WM hints for urgency and attention don't 
> seem to fit this case.

The bubble certainly should not steal focus. One of the basic premises
of notifications is that something should not be a notification unless
it can safely be ignored.

Regarding the keynav, would it work to put notifications in the 
"focus-me-harder" Ctrl-Alt-Tab chain, which already has panels and
other skip-alt-tab windows ?

Matthias