Re: [orca-list] Selecting web content in Visual Studio Code terminal window

[Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs igalia com>]

Hi Andy.

Could you work around it using flat review copy/append to clipboard
commands? They are unbound by default. 

I can confirm the issue, but solving it as you describe is not going to
be easy. It will require changes made in the browsers and possibly even
in ATK/AT-SPI2. Some more details:

ATK/AT-SPI2's text selection interface is (I believe) intended to allow
one to select text across multiple elements. In practice, however, that
fails. See these bugs:

* https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1544973
* https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=959838

Because of those bugs, my attempts to implement Orca-based text
selection using AT-SPI2 failed. We need the bugs above to be fixed
first or another solution (new API) created and then implemented in the
browsers. When all that happens, then I can add support in Orca to use
those fixes/new API.

That said, for typical text content, the browsers' native keyboard-
based selection support works well enough. Therefore, when you're using
Orca in browse mode and then use Shift + caret navigation commands,
Orca is not controlling the caret like it normally would. It lets the
browser's keyboard navigation do the selection and then reports what
gets selected (as told to Orca by AT-SPI2). It's not great, but at
least it tends to work around the bugs above well enough -- as long at
the browser (or in this case web app) provides text selection via
keyboard.

The VSCode's terminal does not have keyboard-based text selection. So
Orca is, as you stated, doing nothing. The web app is also doing
nothing. And when nothing is being done, there are no accessibility
events to speak.

Sorry!!
--joanie

On Tue, 2022-03-22 at 09:43 -0400, Andy Borka via orca-list wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
> Is there a workaround for the following problem? If so, how to get 
> around it? if not, can it be fixed somehow?
>
>
> Using Ubuntu 22.04, Visual Studio Code 1.66 insider's and Orca 42
> beta.
>
>
>
> I have a problem selecting content in the user interface. Do the 
> folowing for an example.
>
>
> 1. Load Visual Studio Code 1.66 insider's.
>
> 2. While in an empty environment, press Ctrl+grave (`) for a terminal
> window.
>
> 3. In the terminal prompt, type ls and press ENTER.
>
> 4. Turn on browse mode with ORCA+A.
>
> 5. Navigate to the results from the ls command.
>
> 6. Try using selection commands on the results.
>
>
> Expected results: OrcA announces and selects the requested content.
>
> Actual results: Orca does nothing and remains silent.
>
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> Orca wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca
> Orca documentation: https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
> GNOME Universal Access guide:
> https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html