Re: [orca-list] Automatic focus mode switching GUI and what to do about radio buttons?

[Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs igalia com>]

Hi Paul, all.

> From your response I think you are not understanding the question or not
understanding focus mode. (Or I'm not understanding you, which is
equally possible as I could use some sleep. <smiles>) To be sure we're
on the same page:

> As with edit fields, you should have to tell Orca you want to interact
> with radio buttons if yu encounter some.  No automatic switching to
> focus mode.

Edit fields already do trigger focus mode. So do combo boxes. So do most
input fields. Currently the only widget-like things which do *not*
trigger an automatic switch to focus mode are:

* Push buttons
* Check boxes
* Radio buttons

Having said that, if you do not like automatic switching, no problem!
The switch does not have to happen. In fact, the switch does not happen
automatically unless you deliberately change something. So yes, the
behavior you describe above is indeed what happens, but not why it
happens. And the why is relevant to my question.

You see, Orca has two new settings:

1. Should caret navigation trigger focus mode? Default setting: No.
   That means even for widgets that do trigger focus mode (like
   edit fields), you will not trigger it and you will have to tell
   Orca you want to interact with it. But if you change the setting
   to Yes, if you arrow into an entry you will trigger the focus mode
   switch. That is because entries are focus-mode-triggering widgets.

2. Should structural navigation trigger focus mode? Default setting:
   No. That means if you press "e" to navigate to an entry, you will
   not trigger it and you will have to tell Orca you want to interact
   with that entry. But if you change the setting to Yes, if you press
   "e" to navigate to an entry, then you will trigger the focus mode
   switch because entries are focus-mode-triggering widgets. In
   contrast, even if you were to change the default setting so that
   structural navigation did allow for automatic focus mode switching,
   if you pressed X to move to the next checkbox, focus mode would not
   be toggled on because checkboxes are not focus-mode-triggering
   widgets. They are not focus-mode-triggering widgets because there
   is no need for them to be. The way you interact with checkboxes is
   Space. Space in focus mode is the same as space in browse mode. No
   need for focus mode.

Getting back to my original question, I'm saying: Should radio buttons
be like entries and combo boxes and pretty much all other widgety-like
objects and trigger an automatic focus mode while still respecting the
user settings about when to actually pull the trigger (so to speak)? Or
should radio buttons continue to be like push buttons and checkboxes and
never ever trigger automatic focus mode even if you have changed your
settings to enable automatic focus mode switching?

What caused me to ask this question was looking at some ARIA radio
buttons in which without Orca running (or with Orca running, but in
Focus mode), arrowing in the widget worked like I'd expect it to work
in, say, Gtk+. But with Orca running in browse mode, Orca did caret
navigation. That, combined with the fact that James Teh told me that
NVDA switches to focus mode for radio buttons, made me think that asking
you all for your opinion seemed wise.

Hope this clarifies things. Apologies for any confusion.
--joanie