Re: Orca notification area and orca

[Cody Hurst <churst31 verizon net>]

Hi Will, Joanie, and everyone,

  An idea which to consider is creating a script that will allow Orca to
produce a dialogue box, as with JAWS, but I do not like using this
example, but this dialogue box would list all icons in the notification
area. This would probably be easier instead of fussing with accessing it
raw from the task bar.

  Joanie, I don't know if this is an issue on my side, but when I have 2
task bars and the desktop, when I alt control tab, all I cycle through
is the bottom bar and the desktop, and focus never lands on the top bar
anyways. This is one reason I put all useful utilities down in the
bottom task bar and trahed the top one.

Thanks,
Cody
On Fri, 2006-07-14 at 21:12 -0400, Joanmarie Diggs wrote:
> Hey Will.  
>
> > default script will probably not announce it until you move to it.  I
> > think the app showing it is "update-notifier", though, so one could
> > potentially write a script to tell it to shout when it's doing something
> > even if it doesn't have focus.  
>
> In the $0.02 department, I think it would be worth doing and including
> as an Orca feature.  Perhaps I shouldn't say that without being in a
> position to volunteer to do the work -- and I'm not yet in such a
> position. :( Learning Orca scripting is on my to-do list, so put me down
> for something later. :)
>
> > Now, the question becomes: even if we get it to shout, what can the user
> > do?  We've at least let them know something is there, but it's dang
> > frustrating if you can't use it.  :-(
>
> Indeed.  BUT, I'd argue that you CAN use it -- or, rather, use the
> information displayed in the notification bubble were it to shout:
>
> 1.  Sometimes as a user you don't need to do anything -- at least in
> terms of the software, like with the battery/power notification on a
> laptop.  You get notifications when you disconnect the power supply
> (which you might do inadvertently while moving the computer), when your
> battery is fully charged, and -- I suspect -- when it's getting
> dangerously low.  Receiving these notifications is valuable and doesn't
> require that the user access the notification area.
>
> 2.  Sometimes as a user, it would be cool to access the notification
> area -- like when when the update notification bubble has appeared.  But
> even if you can't (100% reliably) do that yet, having Orca
> announce/display what needs doing means that you can react appropriately
> -- like by running apt-get to install the updates.
>
> 3.  Once the panel issues are resolved, then you'll have yet another
> option in response to the bubble. :)
>
> > Be wary of gnome-panel as well.  There are cases were you can give it
> > keyboard focus and never be able to leave it without having to use the
> > mouse, regardless if Orca is running or not.  We need to dig into this a
> > little more and file a bug against whomever it is that owns it. 
>
> I have experienced that -- or something similar/related -- on occasion:
> I was in theory moving to the top panel with Control Alt Tab, but all
> the tabbing and arrowing from that point on did nothing.  I haven't
> figured out why that happens yet and will pay better attention to see if
> I can reliably reproduce it -- unless you already know the cases, but
> not who owns it.
>
> As for everything else in your detailed response, I *really* appreciate
> your taking the time to provide those explanations.  I am, of course,
> reading the docs and trying things out, but I'm finding this list to be
> a great source of information while getting up to speed.
>
> Thanks and take care.
> Joanie
>
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