Re: Suggestions for developers of Thunderbird and other Mozilla apps

good stuff.
followups set to mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird

On 1/6/2010 12:09 PM, Marco Zehe wrote:
> Hi Jamal,
>
> thank you for your feedback! It is very valuable to receive feedback
> like this, which helps us improve our support for screen reader vendors
> (and scripters).
>
> Let me address a few issues you raise below.
>
> Am 04.01.2010 17:58, schrieb Jamal Mazrui:
>> * Include all relevant controls in the navigation sequence of dialogs.
>> In particular, make the Add button focusable in the subdialog of Account
>> Settings after one chooses the Actions button.
>
> This is a menu button which drops down a list of available actions when
> pressed. You can imagine this to be a combobox which drops down after
> the buttons is pressed. Unfortunately, JAWS does not announce that this
> is a button menu. Other screen readers such as NVDA, do announce this fact.
>
>> * Include a keyboard way of changing the sequence of columns in the
>> message list. Currently, this can only be done with mouse drag-and-drop
>> operations.
>
> Yes, this is on our list of requests for this widget type.
>
>> * Include hotkeys to go directly to common folders, including Inbox,
>> Sent, Trash, and Junk. My scripts try to implement Control+Shift+Letter
>> combinations for this, e.g., Control+Shift+I for Inbox. The scripts use
>> the JAWS off screen model (OSM) to find the folder name, route the mouse
>> pointer to it, and then click. This works sometimes but is not reliable
>> because the folder name is not always visible, or the word appears in
>> another context than being the clickable folder name.
>
> This is a suggestion that should be posted to the
> mozilla.apps.thunderbird newsgroup. This is interesting for a wider
> variety of users than just those in need of accessibility. I do,
> however, see a problem with the fact that Thunderbird can include
> multiple Inbox, Sent etc., folders depending on how many IMAP etc.
> accounts are set up. But I'm sure there are great minds at work at both
> ends who could work out a great solution!
>
>> * Use a delimiter character other than a space to seperate columnar data
>> in the MSAA AccName property of a message list item. It is difficult to
>> reliably parse out, say, the subject from the sender from the recipient
>> of a message when only spaces seperate each data item. I suggest a Tab
>> character as a delimiter (\t).
>>
>>
>>
>> * Ensure that all relevant message status information is available in
>> MSAA properties. For example, attachment data is not currently
>> available via MSAA.
>
> These two will be addressed in a different way once Thunderbird switches
> to the Gecko 1.9.2 (or newer) version of the platform. The version
> Thunderbird 3.0 uses does not include richer features for evaluating
> columnar data. In Gecko 1.9.2 and above, this message list will no
> longer be a ListView, but a table that can be queried for each column.
> That table will then also include only one piece of information, and it
> will include all relevant status flags for a message.
>
> I also noted this as a known limitation in the current Thunderbird 3.0
> version in my blog post.

Thunderbird 3.1 will ship with Gecko 1.9.2


>> * In message composition mode, use seperate edit controls for the To,
>> CC, and BCC fields. Currently, one control is used with a preceding
>> ComboBox to select whether To, CC, or BCC, is applicable. This
>> arrangement is quite inefficient from a keyboard standpoint. Much
>> better would be seperate controls with initial letter hotkeys, e.g.,
>> Alt+T for the To field, Alt+C for the CC field, and Alt+B for the BCC
>> field. Alt+S does currently work for focusing on the Subject field. My
>> scripts also try to implement Alt+M for the message body.
>
> Again, this is a suggestion for the Thunderbird team since it involves
> the UI, not accessibility specifically. From an accessibility
> standpoint, each address has its own edit control (MSAA-wise). The
> widget is basically a table which gets rows added the moment you add a
> new e-mail address by pressing ENTER on the last one.
>
> Personally, I think of this particular layout as a feature rather than a
> bug, since it gives me much more flexibility than trying to navigate a
> long, comma-delimited list in a multiline edit field like in Outlook or
> Outlook Express. I found that particular one very inefficient for me.
> With the layout in Thunderbird, I can quickly arrow up and down and skim
> the addresses I have entered, and can, on the fly, change the type of
> addressing (to: cc: etc), without having to copy and paste the address
> from one field to another.
>
>> * Avoid using the same hotke for completely different tasks. For
>> example, F7 is currently used for caret-browsing mode when reading a
>> message, and for the spell checker when writing a message.
>
> Yes, this is a good point. Caret Browsing is inherited from the Gecko
> platform (it is also available in Firefox), whereas the spell checker is
> a feature of Thunderbird (well at least the full-blown dialog is).
>
>> * Prevent Control+W from exiting the application. Currently, one can
>> inadvertently exit Thunderbird by pressing Control+W to close a message
>> when only one tab is open.
>
> I ran into that trap myself. This is again something specifically for
> the Thunderbird team. For a web browser, closing the last window or tab
> with Ctrl+W might be desirable, for an e-mail application, it is most
> likely not.
>
>> * Include quality documentation with Thunderbird, e.g., available from
>> the Help menu and with the F1 key. The lack of TB documentation is a
>> usability barrier generally, and an accessibility barrier to people with
>> disabilities. A visually obvious behavior of the application may be
>> completely unknown to us without documentation that describes how the
>> program responds in a given context to input events or setting changes.
>> Also include a Help button in the Account Settings and Options dialogs
>> (like Firefox has).
>
> Again something for the Thunderbird team, and I know the documentation
> part has been raised by others not in the accessibility field. However,
> as with Firefox, I believe Thunderbird will be switching to a wiki-style
> help system where users can add or edit content as well, and this may or
> may not yet be fully implemented, I'm not sure.
>
>> I hope these suggestions are helpful in a team effort to make
>> Thunderbird and other Mozilla applications more productive to users with
>> disabilities.
>
> Again, thank you for raising these issues and bringing them to our
> attention!
>
> I hope my feedback will help keep the discussion going, and don't be shy
> to bring up the suggestions I pointed out above in the
> mozilla.apps.thunderbird newsgroup and spike some discussion there as well!
>
> Marco


-- 
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing
http://www.spreadthunderbird.com/aff/165/