GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 363831
Provide an option to reverse the whereAmI information
Last modified: 2006-10-31 19:57:31 UTC
(This is something that occurred to me as a result of the Boston users group discussion.) Currently, whereAmI provides information in a top-down fashion (i.e. from frame down to current control). If you have *no* idea where you are, this makes perfect sense. However, if you already know where you are and are simply looking for more information regarding your current control/object (e.g. How many items are in this menu/table? What is default button in this dialog?), you have to listen to extraneous information in order to find out what you want. Therefore, I'm wondering if it would be possible to *optionally* reverse the order of the information provided by whereAmI (e.g. tell me how many items are in the list first, then tell me the name of the window/dialog that contains this list). If so, the user could quickly obtain the desired information and then interrupt speech. Thanks!!
This is another one, that's trivial to do. whereAmI is Numpad-Enter. What we could do is allow a modifier (say Alt-Numpad-Enter or Control-Numpad-Enter). If that key sequence was pressed, then we simply would reverse the list of utterances in the whereAmI() method in default.py (just about line 1199) before sending then to the speech synthesizer.
Mike is our UI guy, but I'd suggest Shift+KP_Enter. The reason is that Shift is used to 'reverse' things like Tab traversal and window traversal in Metacity.
Yup, Shift-Numpad-Enter works for me too. Mike, shall I go ahead and implement this?
I'd actually like to avoid key combinations which require two hands if at all possible. How about double press KPEnter for the bottom up description and move "speak statusbar" to insert+KPEnter. I've updated the Orca design docs to reflect this.
Created attachment 75339 [details] [review] Patch to implement the feature.
Patch checked into CVS HEAD. Implemented as a "double click" on Numpad-Enter. Could you give it a try please? I know we are still discussing exactly what the "where am I" functionality is going to be, so there will be further tweaks in this area. This just addresses this one request.
Hi Rich. Thanks so much for doing this!! Overall it's cool -- and it means you can get to the stuff you care about (like the item with focus) quicker. However, some things are getting reversed where perhaps they shouldn't. In my mind, what is needed is not a reversal of the information itself, but rather of the order in which the objects are presented. Thus, if top-down tells you about: Object 1. The application with focus Object 2. The frame with focus Object 3. The item with focus Bottom-up should tell you about: Object 1. The item with focus Object 2. The frame with focus Object 3. The application with focus I personally don't think that the order of the information that pertains to a given object should be reversed. For example, if it's "soffice.bin application" going top-down, it should be "soffice.bin application" when going from bottom up; not "application soffice.bin." Specific example from debug.out: ---Forward--- SPEECH OUTPUT: 'gedit application Open Files… dialog Files table' SPEECH OUTPUT: 'Item 2 of 12' SPEECH OUTPUT: 'Examples' ---Current Reversal--- SPEECH OUTPUT: 'Examples' SPEECH OUTPUT: 'Item 2 of 12' SPEECH OUTPUT: 'table Files dialog Open Files… application gedit' ---Proposed Reversal--- SPEECH OUTPUT: 'Item 2 of 12' SPEECH OUTPUT: 'Examples' SPEECH OUTPUT: 'Files table Open Files… dialog gedit application' * Note: Personally, I'd prefer "Examples" followed by "Item 2 of 12" -- but, again, only if that change were applied to both directions. Hope this makes some sense! Thanks again very much!!
Understood. I suggest that we pause before we make any more changes in this area. I suggest that with all your recent work on coming up with what "where am I" should do, that you and Mike work out a spec. of what you'd like done here and then, when everybody is in agreement, that we can adjust it accordingly. I suggest the spec. should take into consideration all the recent "where am I" type enhancements that you've opened. Does that seem reasonable? Thanks.
This does now reverse the where am I information but please see the updated spec in the orca documentation for the intended behavior of this feature. thanks
Understood. No doubt there will be a spanking new bug for the "where am I" rewrite. Closing this one as FIXED.