Re: Keyboard use (was Re: A few questions about using Denemo on Windows)

[Richard Shann]

On Tue, 2020-08-11 at 13:04 +0200, Petr Pařízek wrote:
> Richard wrote:
> 
>  > However, you would then face the problem that to save the score or
> to
>  > print it there is no obvious text-based method.
> 
> Well, I don't have an idea how a blind user works with Linux but to
> give 
> you an example of how it's done in Windows applications, there are 
> several generally accepted conventions about moving around the menu
> bar 
> and activating an item from there (no matter if its a word processor,
> a 
> sound editor or anything else). For example, I can either press the
> Alt 
> key alone to bring up the menu bar or I can press Alt plus a letter
> to 
> pull up a particular menu. 
This is a widely used system and was operational at one time in Denemo
- I think it could be re-instated, though quite why it was discontinued
I don't recall. But as any command within a menu can have its own
keyboard shortcut it isn't needed to get access to the commands (the
desired shortcuts do need to be created, which may be difficult for the
unsighted).

> Then, I can either press the left/right 
> cursor key to move around the menus or I can press the up/down
> cursor 
> key to move around the items inside a menu. And the Enter key works 
> either for activating the focused menu or for activating the focused 
> item in the currently open menu. These are things that work not just
> for 
> the purpose of blind users but also for the purpose of fast typers
> who 
> think that clicking the mouse slows their work down. So these
> keystrokes 
> work even if no screen reader is installed on the particular
> computer. 
> If a specific program does not offer such a kind of keyboard
> navigation, 
> that's usually because the authors wish to make the controls more 
> visually appealing on the screen (than those built into the
> operating 
> system). In contrast, if it does, then I can navigate to the File
> menu 
> and choose either "Save" or "Export" or later even "Exit". And if
> I'm 
> asked something like: "Save changes?", I might use the Tab key or 
> Shift+Tab to change the focus from "Yes" to "No" or vice versa. Also,
> a 
> lot of programs offer keyboard commands like Ctrl+O for opening a
> file 
> or Ctrl+S for saving the current file

yes, that's the default in Denemo (well, Ctrl-s for save and Ctrl-S for
"Save As") but where I was thinking the problem could arise is that a
dialog then pops up to enable you to choose where to save and that is a
graphical dialog. But, from what you are saying, blind people can cope
with pop-up dialogs?


> So yes, there *are* ways a blind user can operate applications other 
> than those run from the command prompt. As I said before, it can be
> done 
> either if the basic keystrokes work the way most users expect or if
> the 
> documentation provides a detailed list of available keyboard commands
> 

The documentation doesn't, unfortunately, contain a list of the default
keyboard shortcuts, because they are available from the Shortcuts
command in the Help menu. Attached is the result of clicking on that
command on my program - the shortcuts are not the default ones, because
I have customised them for my own use of Denemo.

> (so that the user can read through them before launching the
> program).

The crucial step needed would be to design the set of shortcuts that a
particular blind user would want.  I say "particular" because music
typesetting encompasses an enormous range of possibilities - there are 
over 1,300 commands available in Denemo - only some of which are of
interest to any one particular user.

Richard

MyShortcuts.txt
Description: Text document