Re: [orca-list] Your opinion regarding caret control in Gecko

[Geoff Shang <geoff QuiteLikely com>]

On Fri, 8 Aug 2014, Joanmarie Diggs wrote:

> 1. Are you saying: Any time a widget gets focus, Orca would
>   automatically turn all control over to Gecko? (Yes or no.)

We may need to define "gets focus".

When using NVDA, and probably JAWS as well, some controls like checkboxes 
and radio buttons can be operated without leaving Browse (NVDA) or Virtual 
PC Cursor (JAWS) mode at all.  Combo boxes (as opposed to edit combos), 
which I think are option boxes in Orca (I've not used it for some time, 
show the currently selected item and only interact if they are opened 
(either by pressing enter or something like alt-down which opens as a 
list).

In addition, edit fields which are reached by pressing e or Shift-E are 
not focused immediately.  This is to allow the user to locate a specific 
edit field by repeatedly pressing the e key.  I remember there was some 
considerable discussion along the lines of what we're having here now when 
this was implemented, but I've not seen any calls to revisit the issue.

FWIW, and it may not be related, NVDA has a C++ virtual buffer library 
which I believe is meant to be fairly portable and independent which may 
be of help.  Their initial virtual buffer implementation was in Python but 
it wasn't very efficient.

HTH,
Geoff.