Re: keyboard/focus annoyance after sorting in list view

[Holger Berndt <berndth gmx de>]

On Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:14:35 +0100 Alexander Larsson wrote:

> I don't have anything per-se against
> changing details of gtk+ behaviour that will affect all apps.
> 
> > The way it's implemented makes it difficult for people who *don't*
> > want to use the keyboard to navigate everything. Why is it that
> > it's all or nothing? Even Apple provides a switch for this
> > (basically, on/off - with "off" allowing only certain elements to
> > be focused by keyboard).
> 
> Really? Is this a global switch? How is it decided which elements are
> allowed to be focused?

I don't know how Apple does it -- but to me, that is an excellent idea!
Though I don't think this can be automated in a meaningful way, as
general rules by widget type are not really useful.

Still, gtk+ could have a global bool switch to build up the focus chain
of all focusable widgets or just the ones that the developer considers
"important" for keyboard navigation. Each widget would have a property
"important_for_keyboard_navigation" that application developers can
set.

Closing the loop to the other thread, Ctrl-Tab would then be an alias
to Tab if the global switch is set to true.

Alternatively, the global switch could be left out completely, and
Ctrl-Tab be made an iterator that only considers these "important"
widgets.

> > But maybe that's the GTK stack. There's also the application level. 
> > Forgive my ignorance if this already exists, but I think that at
> > the very least Nautilus could give a keyboard shortcut that gives
> > focus to the file list frame, no matter where the focus is
> > elsewhere in the window. The way things are, it requires juggling
> > the mouse and the keyboard (or counting keystrokes/monitoring the
> > screen closely when using keyboard only).
> 
> This isn't a bad idea. Does any other app have this, and if so what
> shortcut are they using?
> 
> It sort of goes with the split view too, where that key could be used
> to switch between views.

That would indeed be a sensible choice.

Holger