Re: [orca-list] Your thoughts on item position and count in menus?

[Geoff Shang <geoff QuiteLikely com>]

Hi,

I've flipped through this thread with interest.

I know many of us would like to see it stay the same as it is now.  Before 
saying what I think, I'd like to examine the issue with hopefully some 
objectivity.

I am a firm believer that one shouldn't decide to change something for the 
sake of changing it, and shouldn't leave something the way it is just 
because it's always been that way.  It's always better to mean to do 
something, and in this case, it's better to either change it or leave it 
because it's the better way for it to be.

In looking at which is better in this instance, we should consider the 
question of why we have an item count at all, and whether this reason is 
at all relevant when considering the change.

To my mind, the reason why we are interested in item counts in menus is, 
quite obviously, primarily so that we know how many items are in the menu. 
Changing this would seem to undermine this point.

I would also propose another reason why we want item counts in menus.

When we navigate a menu in most GUIs, (presumably this is relevant in 
Gnome also but I've admittedly not used it much), when you reach the 
bottom of amenu, the menu wraps around to the top.  An application that 
has large menus can be confusing because you may be halfway through the 
menu for the second time before you realise you've heard this before.  An 
item count will alert you to the fact that you have gone back to the top 
by resetting the item count.  Changing the way this counting works would 
undermine this also.

I would also advance the theory that menu groupings are really only meant 
to be a visual aid to help people find the item they are interested in. 
As we have to navigate menus item by item, separators don't really help us 
much at all.  Arrow navigation presents menus as one big list of options, 
and that's how we need to consider them when we decide how to speak them.

So I think we should leave it as it is, because to change it would merely 
serve to confuse and to undermine why we count items at all.

Cheers,
Geoff.