[orca-list] FF Frustrations [Was: Firefox 3 find and alt tags]

[Janina Sajka <janina rednote net>]

I've changed the subject, because I don't think it's fair to hijack the
thread for what is really a separate issue, worthy though the other
issue may be.

Gaijin writes:
>       Personally, I'd rather have the ability to turn off the annoying
> "backspace to previous web page" and "folder tabs" features.  I'm
> constantly getting lost and ending up killing the program and starting
> over to find a requested page again. 

I can tell you that I struggled with similar issues for some time before
becoming reasonably comfortable with how Firefox does things. Please
don't give up. Remember that the browser itself is still in beta. Also,
Orca's support is still in active development.

On the other hand lynx hasn't been developed in years. The amazing thing
about lynx is that it continues to do as well as it does so many years
after active development on it ceased. Of course someone could pick it
up, but I don't see that happening. As was also suggested, you might try
elinks, also called links (with an i), but you'll have to work at it to
get it going, too.

My experience with Firefox is indeed getting more comfortable. Until
about a month ago there was some kind of bug in it that did not preserve
the integrity of a page boundary. I could, and often did, tab or arrow
from one page to another. Just as you've complained, that made it hard
to know were I was. But, that bug seems now fixed, so if this is
happening to you, you might try a newer build of FF3.

Another very helpful thing is that help in FF3 seems to work very well
now. So, if you haven't pressed F1 with a newer build of FF3, please try
it. It should prove enlightening.

I won't claim to be an expert on using FF3 with Orca. I'm far from it. I
still don't even understand the difference between "New Window" and "New
Panel," or why I might prefer one over the other.

But, I can give you a personal example of how comfortable I'm becoming
in FF3. I have several times, in the past week or so, absentmindedly
tried to use Ctrl-U to clear a text field rather than the Backspace key.
In my experience such mistakes occur only after I've become comfortable.

Do I still use lynx? Absolutely. But I am increasingly just as happy
with FF.

hth

Janina