GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 578099
[will] Firefox Table cell navigation and compiz-fusion
Last modified: 2010-02-19 21:34:49 UTC
Documentation Section: None Correct version: Orca key binding sometimes conflict with Compiz-Fusion Other information: Orca Key bindings sometimes run foul with Compiz-Fusion keybinding like for example. Firefox Table cell navigation ( Shift+Alt+Arrow ) won't work for compiz-fusion users. The same keybinding is used for "Show All Windows (Scale)" in compiz-fusion. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-orca/+bug/341093
I'm tempted to call this NOTABUG -- or NOTGNOME. Here's why: 1. Compiz already stomps on GNOME keybindings *independent* of Orca. For instance, without Orca running but Compiz enabled, can you use Ctrl+Alt+Tab to switch amongst your panels and the desktop? I can't -- thanks to Compiz. 2. We (Orca team) have gone out of our way to not have key conflicts with the GNOME desktop and the applications which run within it, including the official window manager of the GNOME desktop, Metacity. Some things (like Compiz) are out of our control. 3. Let's say we "fix" this bug by, hypothetically, using Super/Windows + the arrow keys. Yea! The bug is "fixed". Then a new Compiz plugin comes out which happens to bind Super/Windows + the arrow keys to some task. Then what? Orca has to "fix" things again?? 4. Realizing that there is only so much we can control, and that some other application or, in this case, some other window manager might be on a distro and might stomp on Orca commands, we (Orca team) have worked quite hard to make it easy to rebind Orca commands to whatever an Orca user wants them to be. You can do this for the Firefox Table cell navigation -- and for anything else Compiz comes along and stomps on. :-) Will, what are your thoughts on this one? Finally, I see that you've added the 'documentation' keyword. The Orca documentation already includes instructions on how to rebind keystrokes to deal with this very issue. If you would like to add content to the Orca wiki on compiz-related issues, that would be great. However, Orca documentation is designed to document Orca. Therefore, I'm removing this keyword. In its place, I've put "accessibility" which is the keyword we (the Orca team) are in the habit of applying to bugs which impact users with disabilities.
Perhaps we should add a line somewhere clearly stating that Gnome shortcuts won't really work that well when you use compiz. I am so pissed off with compiz-fusion. In our computer lab I plan to remove compiz* package totally when I upgrade to Jaunty. If you see this thread, a lot of people face trouble with compiz. http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/2009-April/msg00080.html
Yep - this is a bug somewhere and it's due to the limited number of keystrokes that one can form. There's bound to be conflicts. As Joanie mentions, Orca allows you to rebind the keys, which lets you work around these conflicts when they arise. As such, the Orca team has done its due diligence and this really isn't an Orca issue. :-(
Trying to tackle all compiz keybind problems downstream in Ubuntu. Tagging this bug as NOTGNOME