[orca-list] Orca Key behavior/customization (was Re: More accessibility for orca issue)

[Willie Walker <William Walker Sun COM>]

Hi Jonathan:

This is a nice discussion and thanks for bringing it up!  I'm curious 
about the user interface we'd present for the various features.  How do 
these sound?

1) Bypass function: press a special key combination once and Orca 
ignores all key combinations except one, which is the one to turn 
bypass off.  For example, Orca+Delete could be used to toggle the 
on/off of the bypass feature.

2) Sticky key for Orca key: Perhaps treat the Orca key always as a 
specialized sticky key -- press it 2X in a row with no other keys and 
the Orca modifier is locked.  Press it again and it becomes unlocked.

3) Modification of the Orca key: this one might be tough (but not 
impossible) to accomplish if we wanted to allow the user to press *any* 
key on the keyboard to define the Orca key.  But, we could potentially 
limit the choices and present the user with a combobox.

Thoughts?

Will

On May 25, 2008, at 2:29 PM, Jonathan Chacón wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I´m working with Orca´s functionality in relation to the keyboard and
> comparing them with other screen readers, like Jaws. I notice that it 
> is
> necessary to establish more functions, so that users of special 
> devices,
> such as PDAs with Linux, UMPCs or laptops with limited keyboards, can 
> adapt
> and configure their device according to Orca´s needs and 
> specifications.
>
>
>
> 1. “Bypass” function.
>
> Many applications define their keyboard shortcuts trying not to 
> overlap with
> the keyboard shortcuts of Gnome. This may cause a coincidence between 
> some
> shorcuts of any application with those of Orca. This function would
> facilitate the use of keyboard shortcuts of any application without 
> having
> to modify Orca´s configuration. It is already implemented in Jaws ( 
> insert +
> 3 ).
>
> 2. Sticky key for Orca key.
>
> Some one-handed users or those with a 60 keys keyboard, or less, where 
> a
> single key performs several functions ( control key, tab key and 
> insert key
> in the same position ), cannot perform keys combination as Orca 
> requires.
> One solution would be to implement “insert mode” ( implemented by Jaws 
> ),
> which would facilitate the management of the state of the Orca key as 
> if it
> were a flag, allowing us to realice key combinations with no need of
> pressing Orca´s key.
>
> 3. Modification of Orca´s key.
>
> I know this can be changed in “Orca customization”, but not all users 
> know
> about this. Any user should be capable of modifying Orca´s key from the
> configuration dialogue of Orca. Nowadays, Orca uses a Read-Only Text 
> Box to
> show Orca´s key. This could be the appropriate control to be able to 
> modify
> Orca´s key without having to modify the orca customization.
>
>
> I guess that including all these changes may be hard and complex, but 
> all
> this benefits users with different kinds of disabilities, also users 
> who
> want to buy new mobile devices with Linux ( such as mobile phones, 
> UMPCs,
> PDAs, etc. ) and it´s a good way to increase compatibility between 
> users and
> devices.
>
> Please tell me your opinion about this.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jonathan Chacón.
>
>
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