FYI - The Yggdrasil Screen Reader Project

[Linux for blind general discussion]

And there's my point. I did read documentation, but I shouldn't have to 
take a class or get a degree to figure out how part of my screen reader 
is supposed to work. I shouldn't come out of reading documentation to 
try to figure out part of my screen reader only to be left more confused 
than when I started either. I turned on Orca and figured it out right 
away, whereas when I needed to try to get nvda working just to partition 
a disk for someone I was working with at the time, it failed miserably, 
and getting a degree in screen reader design and development just to 
figure out what an object was or how to navigate it simply would not do.


And I do believe you were made aware of why there is a difference 
between navigation key toggling and focus mode. OK yes, I rather dislike 
focus mode in general, since I can remember when Orca's browser 
navigation just worked, and I could navigate to a text box and just 
start typing something and it would just work, and I could simply tab 
off the textbox to interact with the next control. Sadly those days are 
gone, although there is a setting that gives me back much of this 
functionality. I do still have to turn off structural navigation in some 
cases where I don't want focus mode, but this is due to the website I'm 
using. Focus mode on the nearest text field on textnow.com for example 
puts me in a field where I would be sending a text message, which is not 
what I want to do when I'm calling a system that needs me to dial 
numbers. And entering into focus mode on an odd part of the page locks 
me into that section, so I am unable to read up or down if needed. 
Fortunately in this case, all I have to do is to turn off structural 
navigation anywhere on the page and just dial the numbers I need. The 
same is true of Google Voice, which I use extensively for my job that 
requires that I enter an agent number and a one-time password to be 
connected. I have found it much easier to just type in my codes with 
structural navigation turned off than to have to go and open the dial 
pad, then find the open text box, which puts me into focus mode and then 
dial my codes. Again, is it perfect? No, not by any stretch, but it's 
also not unusable or even painful. Toggling structural navigation allows 
you to use your navigation keys to do other things in places where you 
don't want focus mode, and I for one don't want to see this 
functionality taken away because you or someone else thinks it's 
unnecessary. It is certainly a necessary part of my workflow, as 
demonstrated above.