Re: [orca-list] some oddities in gnome's core application menus

[Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs igalia com>]

Hi Kendell.

On 04/19/2015 03:08 AM, kendell clark wrote:

> Example. Set focus to the desktop and press
> f10. A menu will show up,

Actually a container that looks rather menu like but apparently isn't a
menu shows up. Things that tell me it's not an actual menu include:

1. In menus, arrowing causes the selected item to become highlighted
with a different color. In the container which appears when you press
F10, this does not happen; instead, a focus rectangle gets drawn, just
like happens when you use Tab or the arrows in dialog boxes.

2. In menus, at least Gtk+ menus, pressing Tab doesn't move you to the
next item. In the container which appears when you press F10, pressing
Tab does move you to the next item, just like happens when you use Tab
in dialog boxes.

3. In menus, if the "f" is underlined, you can activate that menu item
by pressing F; In the container which appears when you press F10, this
doesn't work. Instead, in order to activate the item with the "f"
underlined, you must press Alt+F, just like you must do when you are in
a dialog box.

All of the above are true even without Orca running. And all of the
above explain what you describe here:

> and orca will announce,  "new folder push
> button." If I use the where am I keyboard shortcut orca announces, new
> folder push button. Alt+f.

Orca is accurately describing where you are and what the keyboard
shortcuts are.

> My questions are, is it possible to have
> orca announce these menus as menus? 

Should Orca pretend they are menus and menu items when they are not? And
even if Orca did so, that wouldn't change the navigation or interaction
(e.g. F doesn't work; Alt+F does).

And if your answer is still "yes", Orca should pretend they are menus,
and everyone else agrees, then I need to figure out exactly where these
things are getting created and what could be added to them (i.e. in the
application or Gtk+) so that Orca could reliably identify them and
distinguish them from other containers with buttons. Right now, these
things look like generic containers with buttons.

> I know I'm entering a menu,

> From the above, I hope you now know that you are not entering a menu.
You are entering a container with buttons.

> but new users might not.

And telling them they are in a menu might only serve to confuse them
further, because the shortcuts and navigation are different between
menus and the container that pops up when you press F10 in the
circumstances you describe.

> Sometimes, pressing f10 moves you not to a menu,
> but a toolbar, such as in gnome boxes,  but orca doesn't announce
> this.

When I press F10 in boxes, focus moves to the New button, which Orca
announces for me. But that button is not in a toolbar. It's in the
header bar, which seems to not have an accessible role other than panel.
I'll look into this more later -- my guess is the change will need to be
made in Gtk+, but I don't yet know that. Regardless, Orca is not moving
to a toolbar (at least in what I tried). So I don't think Orca should
announce that you are moving into a toolbar. If you have a different
example in which Orca is moving into a toolbar, I'll take a look.

> Second, this may not be an orca issue, but is it possible to
> restore the announcement of keyboard shortcuts, if the option is
> enabled in orca's preferences? 

Could you please give me specific steps to reproduce the problem?

--joanie