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Re: [orca-list] GNOME Shell Dialogs

Hello, Alex.
I am very glad that my description was helpful to you. to be honest I was afraid to go into as much detail because I did not want to offend anyone. I say this in the sense that here where I am living in California, I have met other blind individuals (who have no vision), and when I have tried to describe things to them based on what little vision I have, they have gotten upset with me, and even angry at times. And I mean it sincerely that I do not want to upset or offend anyone. I just felt like maybe contrasting the differences between Unity and GNOME Shell might be insightful to others here on the list.
One of the things which disheartens me sometimes is when I get a new piece of technology and open the manual to find it is many pictures and few words. One good example is a Christmas present which my oldest son received a year ago. I was so excited because I wanted to assemble it for him, but when I looked at the manual it was nothing but pictorial instructions. If the assembling procedure was described in words I know I could have done it, but even with magnification pictures are still mainly a blur to me. Unfortunately, it is usually assumed that someone who is blind is not going to put together a little play car for a child or a crib for a baby. I wish that I had some skills in the carpentry department so that I could do these things, but that is another story for another mailing list (if one exists).
So, in summary, I just felt like maybe a written description would help to shed light on things for others as well as it has for myself. 

I am very glad to see that it has been helpful!

Take care.

On 05/31/2012 06:28 PM, Alex Midence wrote:

Robert,
That was excellent. Way better than my explanation. You were able to flesh it out and enrich it with your visual descriptions. A bunch of stuff just made a lot more sense for me on how it operated. 

Learned something new, thank you.

Alex M
On 5/31/2012 5:31 PM, Robert Cole wrote:
Yes. GNOME Shell has a different array of keyboard shortcuts as compared to Unity, but it, in version 3.4, has become MUCH more accessible as compared to version 3.2 (which was decently accessible as well). Here [1] is a GNOME Shell Cheat Sheet which I found that has a pretty good explanation of the keyboard shortcuts for GNOME Shell.
Just a quick note. Unity consists of a panel on the top (the main panel with applets such as networking, volume, etc) and the launcher panel on the left-hand side of the screen (positioned vertically) on which exist launchers for various favorite applications.
In contrast, the GNOME Shell desktop consists of a top panel alone. There also exists an area at the bottom of the screen which displays notifications for various events (e.g. Removable Media, Update Notifications, etc), but I do not know if this is accessible with Orca yet or not, as I have not tried it personally.
When on the desktop, you can (as Alex pointed out) press CTRL+ALT+Tab to jump between the desktop and the top panel. When in the top panel, you can press the left and right arrow keys to navigate through its different elements.
When you press the Super (Windows) key -OR- ALT+F1, the Activities Overview opens and overshadows the desktop. By default, the Activities Overview opens with the Search field having focus by default. You can start typing in the name of an application to search for a program which you want to use. The Activities Overview consists of a few different areas which I will briefly describe below. You can use the CTRL+ALT+Tab keyboard combination to navigate between these different areas.
On the far left exists a vertical column of icons which are launchers for your favorite applications (I believe this area is called the "Dash"). The next area, in the middle of the Activities Overview, contains two tabs, one labelled "Windows" and the other labelled "Applications". The Windows tab displays previews of all currently opened windows. As to whether or not the contents of the Windows tab is accessible I do not know as I have not really used it personally; I will have to test it out later today. The Applications tab displays a tiled line-up of all installed applications on the system; I can say that this tab is accessible. On the far right of the Activities Overview is where the Search area exists. All of these areas can be navigated to by using CTRL+ALT+Tab.
I hope that my explanations of the GNOME Shell desktop are helpful. I am just explaining what I am able to see by using magnification in the hopes that it will be of some help to you in your experience with the desktop environment.
I hope that you will find this information helpful, and I apologize for the lengthy e-mail. 

Take care, Krishnakant, and kind regards.

[1] https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/CheatSheet

On 05/31/2012 02:55 PM, Alex Midence wrote:

No, the keys are totally different for shell.  The areas sound and
function similarly to Unity 2d (or, the other way around since unity
is based on shell, I think), but getting to them uses different
keystrokes.  Briefly:

alt f1 shell search:  Type the name of the app you want and it will
find it for you and give you choices of matches.  Use this as a
starting point to navigate the shell.  Use the control alt tab keys to
cycle through the panels such as dash, applicaitons, Windows ETC.
alt f2:  Run command dialog.  Use same as gnome 2.

 From anywhere within gnome3:  Control alt tab takes you to top
activity area.  Hitting left and right arrow here lets you navigate
the top menu bar.

This should get you started.  From here, just explore the areas the
way you would explore gnome 2 pannels.

Have fun,
Alex M

On 5/31/12, Krishnakant Mane<krmane gmail com>  wrote:

So what should I do to get the accessible shell?
Can I access the menus like that in Unity 2D?
Is the top panel also accessible with Orca?
I press alt +f1 to get the launcher menu in Unity and alt + f10 for the 
top panel.
Are the keyboard shortcuts similar in gnome shell?
happy hacking.
Krishnakant.

On 05/31/2012 11:10 PM, Joanmarie Diggs wrote:

On 05/31/2012 01:21 PM, Krishnakant Mane wrote:


Last time I tryed gnome shell, Orca did not read those menus.
I had to type in the - pain the name of the application which I wish to 
open.
Although typing first few letters of the app would give it to me,

That sounds like the old gnome run dialog; not the gnome-shell run
dialog.
would still be better if we had an accessible launcher menu like that in 
Unity 2d.
As far as I am aware, the equivalent of the Unity launcher is the GNOME 
Shell Dash. And the GNOME Shell Dash is now accessible.

Take care.
--joanie
_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp

_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp


_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html 
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp


_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html 
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp
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