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Re: [orca-list] Blockquotes?

If the purpose is to skip over large collections of links, then one presumably wouldn't want to skip over individual links dotted around inside ordinary text content as part of the flow of the text. So it might be better to check for links clumped together, e.g. 3 or more links with only punctuation such as pipes or nothing at all between them, that are not inside a paragraph with other text around them. These could be flagged by the user interface as navigation groups. Where the markup allows it, such navigation groups could even be given titles. (The Firefox Accessibility Extension does this with correctly marked up navigation lists.)
In other words, the best way to solve the problem might be to identify navigation groups than just run to the next bit of non-link text. 

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

Rich Caloggero wrote:

Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote:

If the use-case for this feature is basically to skip long
navigation lists, we might (I suppose) be able to devise more
efficient algorithms for doing so and create a "Skip navigation"
command. Just a thought.


This is in reference to the Jaws "n" and shift+n navigation keys. As
a  Jaws user, I'd say that the primary reason for these commands is

> definately to enable one to skip over large colections of nav links.


Its kind of problemmatic though, because while you can certainly skip
a series of links, how do you know when to stop? Jaws stops when it sees
non-anchor text of a certain minimum length. What other algorithms might

> there be for doing this? You'll still have to end up guessing, unless
> structural roles are used such as is being proposed by the WAI-ARIA. See

the following:

Look at the following page, especially the section on structural
roles: http://www.w3.org/TR/aria-role/
See the following for a good description of Live Regions: http://juicystudio.com/article/wai-aria-live-regions.php ----- Original Message ----- From: "Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis" <bhawkeslewis googlemail com> 
To: "Hermann" <steppenwolf2 onlinehome de>
Cc: <orca-list gnome org>
Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2007 11:28 AM
Subject: Re: [orca-list] Blockquotes?



Re: blockquote navigation
<blockquote> is not a styling, although it is sometimes misused for styling. Table and heading elements are often similarly misused and authors frequently fail to use <p> for paragraphs, but I assume you're not opposed to navigation by table, heading, and paragraph elements.
It's one thing to say another feature should have been implemented first, and another thing to call for the removal of a feature. Taking features out also requires development time.
I suspect the team's priorities are partly determined by ease of implementation, partly by personal interests, and partly by what feature requests have been made on the bug tracker. Quite possibly I missed something, but I can't find a request to read the titles of frames there, for example, even though it's a good feature idea. It's probably more efficient to request urgent features explicitly than complain about the addition of different features after the event. 

Re: Text blocks
The Window-Eyes manual mentions "Next text" (X) and "Previous text" (Shift + X): 

http://www.gwmicro.com/Window-Eyes/Manual/HTML/index.html?19_15morenavigationoptions.htm
When I tried it out, it ignored the size of text segments entirely, happily reading out even tiny snippets of text. Oddly, although it skipped links per se, it also read out title attributes from <abbr> elements inside links. Presumably that's a bug not a feature.
But JAWS has a similar feature that seems closer to your "large text blocks". According to the manual: 


Next Non Link Text use N. Moves the focus to the next block of
non-link text that is larger than 25 characters.

Prior Non Link Text use SHIFT+N. Moves the focus to the previous
block  of non-link text that is larger than 25 characters.

Note: This value can be adjusted in the default.jcf or browseui.jcf
(Internet Explorer 5 and 6) JAWS configuration files under Set
Options\HTML.
Dolphin's HAL manual says you can jump to the next text, skipping links, with Left Control + Left Shift + Cursor Right. It's not clear from the manual whether the text has to be a certain length. 

Which of these models is better?
Some users at least seem to use the N key purely to skip groups of links. e.g. a request was made to implement this feature in NVDA phrased in the following terms:
Also, in Internet Explorer, can you please add a quick key to jump to next non-link text like in JAWS with the N key, so I can step over a large groups of links without repeatedly tapping down arrow again and again? It just makes me tired! 
http://www.freelists.org/archives/nvda/04-2007/msg00343.html
If the use-case for this feature is basically to skip long navigation lists, we might (I suppose) be able to devise more efficient algorithms for doing so and create a "Skip navigation" command. Just a thought. 

Re: background information

The Window-Eyes manual specifies precisely what properties are read out:


* Description â i.e. Link, Picture, Edit Box, etc
* Font â i.e. Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, etc.
* Font Size â i.e. 10pt, 12px, larger, etc.
* Font Style â i.e. Normal, Bold, Underline, etc.
* Foreground â Color, either named (i.e. Purple) or in RGB (i.e. 255, 255, 0)
* Background â Color, either named (i.e. Purple) or in RGB (i.e. 255, 255, 0)
* ALT text if available
* TITLE text if available
* Filename if the element is an image

http://www.gwmicro.com/Window-Eyes/Manual/HTML/19_15morenavigationoptions.htm

Judging from:

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Accessibility/ATSPI_Support

It should be possible to extract most of this information from AT-SPI.
Would we want to add anything to this list (for example axis, scope, and headers attributes for table cells, or language information)? Do we want heuristics to try to put approximate names to colour values specified in hexadecimal? How about special treatment for microformats using the title attribute, e.g. to store an ISO date? Would we want key bindings for particular properties or groups of properties, or just one key binding for all of them? What order should they come in? 

Re: large objects
I guess what these mysterious "large objects" are is something that should be explained in the Orca manual. Without knowing what it is supposed to be, it's hard to assess the feature. "Large" doesn't seem to be the right word for what it's doing, which based on a bit of experiment seems to mainly involve skipping over lists. 

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis

Hermann wrote:

Hello Benjamin,
to make a long story short: I think you've confirmed my point of view that the blockquotes feature is not really necessary, since this styling of webpages is often missused. Asking for different features, I referred to developping capacities; I dodn't want to stress the fatct, whether they are comparable or not. Or, to put it in a simple image: The team sometimes tends to serve the pie before they have served the beef; I prefere the other way. When I talk about textblocks, I suggest you download and install any Windows screen-reader and check out how Jaws, Window-Eyes or the Webformator handle this feature. It is simple a navigation helper. Large Objects: It's not the point whether I can reproduce the navigation, I simply don't know what those "objects" are. It seems to me they can be anything, which means, in the end, they mean nothing. A link is a link is a link, and a heading is a heading is a heading. But I've absolutely no idea about the systematics of that odd "objects"; that's why I call the "large object" navigation stochastical. Background information: Download and install the mentioned screen-readers/web-tools. Place the cursor on, let's say a link, Press insert+shift+f1 in Jaws, insert+e in Window-Eyes or f11 in Webformator. Then you know what I mean. And BTW: In Firevox the keystroke is control+shift+q; press it several times and you know what I'm talking about. I'm an everyday scren-reader user and a common web user and my point of view is the user's perspective, that's the whole story. 
Hermann


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