Re: [orca-list] keys in conflict with XUL application keys

[Willie Walker <William Walker Sun COM>]

Hey Milan:

>     WW> I just tried Insert+Control+Space and Control+Insert+Space
>     WW> several times on my various keyboards and it worked fine for me.
>
> Ah, I've found that it works only if I press Control+Space _very
> quickly_ after pressing the Insert key.  Insert+Space works normally,
> there's no hurry to press the Space key.  Strange.  It behaves the same
> way even with autorepeat disabled on the Insert and Control keys.
>   

That's good news!  I wish there were a better way for us to handle the 
Orca modifier key.  I would love to be able to do it at the X Window 
System level than mock it the way we are doing it right now.

>     WW> As I mentioned below, the Orca user base has requested that we
>     WW> not require the user to press the Orca modifier key in
>     WW> combination with the given keys.
>
> I probably didn't express myself clearly.  I wanted to say that Orca
> could use plain alphanumeric keys, alphanumeric keys with Shift,
> anything with the Orca modifier key and additionally a limited and
> clearly defined set of other keys (such as some arrow key combinations
> etc.).  All these keys would be reserved for Orca, IMHO this should be
> enough for the purpose.  Accessible XUL applications and Firefox
> extensions would be free and safe to use any other keys from the point
> of avoiding possible conflicts with the screen reader key bindings.
>
> I think this might be a reasonable and useful approach, with minimum
> work required on all sides (i.e. mostly writing a short document
> describing the policy).
>   

Aha!  Gotcha.  This is good.  I just need to make sure you know I do 
feel conflicted, though, about Orca's need to take "ownership" of these 
keys.  From a good community member standpoint, I'd prefer we keep the 
Orca modifier in all of our key combinations.  But, from a usability 
standpoint, our users have requested simplicity and don't want the Orca 
modifier used for these things.  I'm going to generally err on the side 
of what users want.  So...just want to make sure you know I'm not trying 
to be recalcitrant here or give you a hard time.

So...do you think a simple page on the Orca WIKI would suffice?  In 
addition, we have a related bug 
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=436926 in this space.  
Depending upon the resolution of that bug, things could get more 
complicated.

Will