Re: [orca-list] Proposal: Locking key state will always be announced

[Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs igalia com>]

Hey Andy.

On Mon, 2012-01-02 at 14:09 -0500, Andy B. wrote:
> Agree except for the display screen text only. Locking keys should be 
> announced regardless. The system is modified regardless of what is on 
> screen. The only way locking keys will not be announced is when speech 
> is turned off.

Just to clarify something, the setting to speak displayed text only is
something we added for users who can see, such as magnification users
who benefit from some speech and users with learning disabilities who
can see just fine, but are unable to process printed content. Consider a
checkbox with text next to it. Orca's normal behavior is to not just
speak the text, but to also announce it's a checkbox, and to announce if
it is presently checked or unchecked, along with any time the checked
state changes. In the case of users with sufficient vision to see the
object, this is way too chatty. They can see it's a checkbox and whether
or not its checked. But seeing (or comprehending) the smallish text next
to it is really hard. For such a user, enabling the setting to only
speak displayed text would cause Orca to, well, only speak the displayed
text. <smiles>

If you consider these users in the context of the locking keys: The
locking keys have text labels, the locking keys often have associated
keyboard lights, and typing with the locking keys locked produces
results which are immediately visually noticed. It is for these reasons
that I proposed also disabling state announcement when only speak
displayed text is enabled.

And please note that I'm not trying to get you to change your mind; I
merely want to be sure you (and others) fully understood what the
setting in question does.

Take care.
--joanie