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Hi,
Attila's posting on shortcuts reminded me of what I
consider to be a bug in the Orca Preferences window under the Speech tab. I
don't know if this is a problem in other languages, but in English there are two
shortcuts using the letter `a' (Punctuation set to all and the Apply
button), two shortcuts using the letter `o' (punctuation set to some and
the OK button), and two shortcuts using `c' (table row speech to current cell
and the Cancel button). The reason I believe this to be a bug is that the
shortcuts do not activate the relevant controls--focus is simply moved to these
controls. In the case of the button controls, the normal behavior is to activate
the button. For instance, the standard shortcut behavior is used for the Help
button (Alt-h activates the help button). For the remaining buttons, focus is
merely moved to the Apply, Cancel and OK buttons without activating them. Thus,
the shortcuts are not even standardized in their behavior within this one
page.
Similarly, there is also inconsistent behavior for
radio buttons as a result of these dual shortcuts. If Alt-a is pressed, focus is
moved to the Punctuation: all radio button, but it is not activated.
However, if you press Alt-f, focus is moved to the Verbosity: brief radio button
and it is activated.
These implementation decisions appear to lead to
two speech feedback problems, as well. Assume a state where Punctuation:some is
selected. Pressing Alt-a moves focus to Punctuation:all and speech
feedback reports "Punctuation level panel all not selected radio
button", and the radio button is not activated. However, pressing
spacebar to activate the control does not provide feedback indicating that the
state of the control has been changed to selected. The user either has to
press the "where am I" key or tab away and back to determine that the state
has been changed.
Alternatively, the initial state has
Verbosity:verbose selected. Pressing Alt-f provides the feedback "Verbosity
panel brief not selected radio button". However, pressing Alt-f activated
the control, and the control is now selected, even though the speech feedback
didn't indicate this. Again, the only ways to determine the changes are to use
"where am I" or tab away and back.
I was just playing with these controls and
determined that the functionality of the shortcuts are not even consistent
within a single group of radio buttons. Alt-a does not activate
punctuation:all, but Alt-m does activate Punctuation:some.
I recognize that these decisions result from having
too many controls wanting to use the same letters for shortcuts. However, I
believe that having inconsistent behavior for controls within any dialog box is
a poor interface decision which will only lead to confusion. Additionally,
I believe that to stray from the standard shortcut behavior for controls is also
a poor decision, again leading to confusion.
My suggestion would be to create an additional page
in the Orca Preferences dialog box and move many of the controls in the speech
page to this new page, hopefully making letter redundancy no longer a
problem. Perhaps title the new page "Reading" or something similar.
How does everyone else feel about
this?
dave
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