GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 582307
Text selection announcement via Where Am I behaves oddly
Last modified: 2009-11-09 21:35:15 UTC
Dear Developers! In Orca mailing list, Balaram wroted following letter: "Hi all, Is there any keystroke in Orca to speak the selected text? If there is no such keystroke, can some of the experts do something in this regard?" My openion this is a nice and need feature. For example, Orca+Shift+down arrow is good keybinding this function if not difficult doing. Thougs? Attila
If text is selected in the current object and you do a "Where Am I", I believe the selected text is spoken. Does this provide the behavior you are requesting?
Oh, I learn a new advantage with where am I command, this function is beautifuly. :-):-) I think this method is enough, but found a big problem: When I select two lines, this method works good, for example: I select following two line with Gedit: Attila, Monicca. When I press where am I keystroke, Orca says following text: "Edit box Attila Monicca selected." But if I selecting more with two lines or select entire document, Orca says only the last selected line. If not a big work, please change the selected text spokening message with following schema: Coming back with prewious example, the ideal spoken message was following: "The selected text is: Apple Monicca" I dont known, need following feature request comment with another user wroted with Orca mailing list (I think Daniel RC), quoted with he's message: "I have a doubt. It is only for text or for any element of the interface? Comercial tools like zoomtext has a tool for said whatever you click on the interface, is very useful when you need to learn a new application and when you surf the web you can explore the web selecting regions (areas) of text. I am sure that it is a good tool when you combine magnification and voice support. Daniel RC" I don't understand what he want and what would he like. I hope help with you and thanks your comment. Attila
I forgot write following information with prewious comment: I look the where am I problem with Orca 2.26.1 and Orca 2.27.2 pre releases, the simtoms is same with both two versions. :-(:-( Attila
> But if I selecting more with two lines or select entire document, Orca says > only the last selected line. This works for me. Please attach the exact document you were working with -- there might be something in the text that is causing the failure you are describing. > If not a big work, please change the selected text spokening message with > following schema: > Coming back with prewious example, the ideal spoken message was following: > "The selected text is: > Apple > Monicca" The current model was chosen by our UI designer and I'm reluctant to change it unless there is significant user demand for this. IMO, the current model might be better because you get the important information first (i.e., the text). > I dont known, need following feature request comment with another user wroted > with Orca mailing list (I think Daniel RC), quoted with he's message: > "I have a doubt. It is only for text or for any element of the interface? > Comercial tools like zoomtext has a tool for said whatever you click on the > interface, > is very useful when you need to learn a new application and when you surf the > web you can explore the web selecting regions (areas) of text. Orca has a "Speak object under mouse" feature that will speak the object that's under the mouse. It does so when you move the mouse. This feature can be enabled/disabled via the preferences GUI, and there's also an unbound ""Toggle mouse review mode" key binding for it. This feature, however, is different from speaking text that has been selected. If improvements or enhancements are desired to it, you should open a separate bug.
Created attachment 134700 [details] This is a test document. This is a test document. If I do select entire document with Ctrl+Shift+end key, the where am I works fine. If I select entire document with Ctrl+a key combination, only the first line was spokening, I don't known why. I agree your prewious comment. I quoted Daniel Rc letter because I don't known need this information with this feature. If the mouse key function known the function he want, I am very happy because I impossible test this because I not see the display. If need, I do a debug output with Ctrl+a situation.
In quickly debugging this, I'm running into some complex logic and behavior for how Orca determines what to speak for selected text. It seems to depend upon the position of the caret relative to the selection and whether or not a selection begins on a line boundary. This needs further investigation.
What your openion? Possible fix this bug with Orca 2.26.3 and Orca trunk release, or only Orca 2.28 release?
(In reply to comment #7) > What your openion? Possible fix this bug with Orca 2.26.3 and Orca trunk > release, or only Orca 2.28 release? As with all bugs, I will evaluate the impact on the code and the impact on the user. For 2.26, we shoot for things within the release guidelines (no new strings, no API changes, no GUI changes, etc.) and for things that are considered to have high positive user impact and low risk of introducing new bugs. As I evaluate the fix for this and other bugs, I will use this criteria to determine if I feel it is safe to push it into a 2.26 maintenance release or if it should be done solely for the new development cycle. When this decision has been made, you will see a comment on this bug.
Here's the deal -- the where am I in a text area is supposed to behave as so: 1) If there's no selection in the text, just speak the current line. 2) If there is selection anywhere in the text, a basic where am I will only speak the text selected on the current line. A detailed where am I will speak all the selected text The basic where am I implementation has a flaw, however, in that doesn't do proper boundary checking and will accidentally include text selected prior to the current line under some conditions. So, what Attila was experiencing as desired behavior was the bug, and what Attila was experiencing as the bug was the intended implementation of the basic where am I. I propose we fix the basic where am I to behave as Attila expected and just do away with the detailed where am I. That is, we make the existing detailed where am I become the basic where am I. One reason is that the basic where am I as spec'd out now can lead to some confusion and it took me a while to understand why after I had fixed the basic where am I in my local workspace. Here's an example: 1) Start with your caret at the beginning of a line 2) Press Shift+Down The line is selected and the caret is now invisibly at the beginning of the next line, which is unselected. So, doing a basic where am I as spec'd would speak nothing because the object itself has text, but no text is selected on the current line. Do similar things with Home followed by Shift+Control+End and then Home followed by Ctrl+a. It's not intuitive where the caret ends up. Mike, what are your thoughts?
I'm in favor of Wil's proposed change as it sounds like the current singlepress of the WhereAmI will fail quite often.
Created attachment 135263 [details] [review] Patch to eliminate the "selection on current line" functionality (In reply to comment #10) > I'm in favor of Wil's proposed change as it sounds like the current singlepress > of the WhereAmI will fail quite often. Thanks Mike! This patch makes the Where Am I functionality for text speak all the selected text if the object has selected text. Attila - please give this a test. If it's what you're looking for and it works well, we can work to get it into gnome-2-26.
I looked the test patch with Gedit, all selection methods works fine. But I found following problems with Openoffice.org 3.0 when I try test the patch: 1. I writing five line with oowriter application. When I select lines with Shift+Down arrow key, where am I says the first unselected row, for example: The text contains for example following five lines: Will Mike Attila Monicca Mathew Will and Mike selected with Shift+Down key combination, where am I says Attila text. Anybodi confirm this problem? I looked now Orca 2.27.2 Pre version and I hope this is my system problem. 2. When I press Ctrl+a key with oowriter application, Orca says following text (I now translating english): "Selected. Selected. Selected. Selected. Selected." I think this is not the patch problem, if you confirm this problem, I open a new bugreport. If need, I looking the test patch with Thunderbird 3.0 in Tuesday morning. Attila
(In reply to comment #12) > 1. I writing five line with oowriter application. When I select lines with > Shift+Down arrow key, where am I says the first unselected row, for example: > The text contains for example following five lines: > Will > Mike > Attila > Monicca > Mathew > > Will and Mike selected with Shift+Down key combination, where am I says Attila > text. > Anybodi confirm this problem? I looked now Orca 2.27.2 Pre version and I hope > this is my system problem. I can confirm this sometimes and not other times - it *seems* to strangely being related to me tabbing away and back to the OOo window. Sometimes, the behavior Orca is providing is that the caret is now on the Attila line, so Orca is telling you the line of text that you are on. Other times, Orca tells you what you just selected. This will need more digging into. However, I think we're getting off the topic of this bug, which is about text selection announcement via the Where Am I command. I've just retitled it to be more clear about the problem. Attila, please do the following: 1) Test the given patch for text selection announcement via the "Where Am I" command. 2) Open a separate bug for the announcement of text selection in OOo as you select paragraphs. > 2. When I press Ctrl+a key with oowriter application, Orca says following text > (I now translating english): > "Selected. Selected. Selected. Selected. Selected." > I think this is not the patch problem, if you confirm this problem, I open a > new bugreport. I think this a regression caused by the fix for bug #387556. :-( I've reopened that bug.
Yesterday I using enter key with separate the short lines in Openoffice.org writer. When I try selecting the separated lines with Shift+Down key combination and try ask the selected text with where am I command, present the problem my system. Interesting, only the Shift+Down key selection works incorrect, another methods works fine when try ask the selected text with where am I command (Shift+End, Shift+Right arrow etc). If I right understand you, I open another bugreport with describing this problem. So, the paragraph selection was broken only the Openoffice.org 3.0? Tomorrow i try this test with longer text (not separated lines with paragraph marker. Not Ctrl+Shift+Down key combination selects paragraphs? Will, have another information or tests you needed?
Created attachment 135353 [details] [review] Updated patch to handle case where there's no selection on the current line This is an update of the previous patch to handle a case where there is a selection somewhere, but not on the current line. The typical use case for this is when the user selects text by pressing Shift+Down and the caret ends up at the beginning of a line. An example is Ctrl+Home followed by a number of Shift+Down operations. When this happens in something like OpenOffice, the caret can end up at the beginning of a paragraph -- that paragraph won't have any text selected in it, but the prior paragraphs can be selected. We need to detect this, which is what this patch does.
Attila - please give this test a try and let me know if it fixes the "Where Am I" woes you've been finding for us. Thanks!
I looked the last patch, Shift+Down and where am I works well with Openoffice.org Writer. If not need another fix or test steps, possible commit the patch and set pending status before this bug was fixed? Another question, I not want open new bugreport before I not sure this is a bug or not: When I press Ctrl+Shift+down key combination, paragraphs selected correctly and where am I says correct the selected text. One little problem: Orca says the following message: "Line selected down from cursor" This message is right this situation? Shift+Ctrl+Down key combination not paragraph selection command? If yes, I suggest following message: "Paragraph selected from cursor" Attila
(In reply to comment #17) > This message is right this situation? Shift+Ctrl+Down key combination not > paragraph selection command? > If yes, I suggest following message: > "Paragraph selected from cursor" Yep - sounds like a bug. :-( Please open a separate bug report. Thanks!
Thank you Will, I doing with the requested bugreport with development version. Attila
The patch for this bug has been checked in to master as part of the Where Am I refactor for the speech generator. The other bug Attila mentioned has been opened as bug #585049.