Re: [orca-list] F123.org-sponsored work and Request for input: Braille scrolling and when to route the caret

[Thomas Ward <thomasward1978 gmail com>]

Hi Joanie,


On 8/6/12, Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs igalia com> wrote:

> 1. Scrolling in braille seems to me to be an awful lot like scrolling
>    visually. In other words, if I am reading a document, I can leave the
>    caret where it is and move the document's scrollbar to look visually
>    before and after my current location and read the surrounding text.
>    If I then want to move the caret to a new location, all I have to do
>    is click with the mouse. But if I just wanted to look around and I do
>    not click, the caret remains where it was. Shouldn't Orca work this
>    way too, especially given the next item.

Yes, I do think Orca should allow someone to look around without
actually moving the caret. This would IMO give a braille user more of
a visual representation of the page without changing the focus of the
caret's actual position.

> 2. Three words: Cursor routing keys. As I am scrolling around via my
>    braille display, all I have to do to reposition the caret is press
>    the key associated with the cell of interest. This is actually easier
>    than clicking with the mouse. Given that one can explicitly and
>    easily update the caret position, wouldn't it make more sense to only
>    move the caret when the user has indicated the caret should be moved?

Yes, agreed. It would be simple enough to do so I don't believe it
would be a serious problem for most braille users.

> 3. Focus side effects: In the case of Web content, if we move the caret
>    to a focusable object, there is an excellent chance we will also
>    change the focused item. Changing focus without the user explicitly
>    indicating focus should be changed strikes me as a bad idea.

Once again I am in full agreement with you on this. Changing the focus
without the user specifically requesting that the focus should be
changed just seems like an all around bad idea to me too.

Cheers!