271420 - rename caret browsing pref from "Allow text to be selected with the keyboard" to something clearer

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Steffen Wilberg]

I found out today that Options->Advanced->Accessibility->"Move system caret with
focus/selection changes" is in fact the caret browsing mode, toggled by F7, and
setting the pref accessibility.browsewithcaret.

I'm not sure why we need UI for that pref at all. But if we need it, we need to
improve the string. The current one doesn't tell me anything. I just fixed the
Help doc on that (bug 271348 ).

I'd suggest "Use caret browsing", since that's the common term for that, and
also the title of the warning dialog that pops up when you press F7.

Comment 1

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Afaik that's the IE wording, so accessibility users can find it.

Comment 2

[Steffen Wilberg]

It looks like the IE wording, telling from a German Windows system. It's in
Options->Advanced->Accessibility as well.

But I have no idea what it does in IE. The Windows screen magnifier
("Bildschirmlupe" in German) always responds to focus changes, whether this
setting is checked or not.

IE doesn't have a caret browsing mode (movable cursor).

Comment 3

[Jesse Ruderman]

I didn't know that Options->Advanced->Accessibility->"Move system caret with
focus/selection changes" was caret browsing mode either.

What does IE's "Move system caret with focus/selection changes" pref do?  Why
does Firefox use a pref with the same name for its Caret Browsing feature?

Comment 4

[Aaron Leventhal]

Mozilla doesn't even use a system caret. We draw our own.

Comment 5

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

From IE's Help: 

Move system caret with focus/selection changes 
If you use a screen reader, you might want to select this check box. Some screen
readers or screen magnifiers use the system caret to determine which area of the
screen to read or magnify. 

So unless caret browsing also moves whatever "the system caret" is, we're not
just confusing, we're lying to people using screen readers.

Comment 6

[Aaron Leventhal]

We move a "visible caret" that we draw. We also move the MSAA caret if they are
using a screen reader. The combination of these two is just as good as using a
system caret, as far as a screen reader is concerned. So, this inaccuracy in the
wording wouldn't negatively affect screen reader users, but it is still not
accurrate.

Comment 7

[Jeff Walden [:Waldo]]

The new options window calls it, "Allow text to be selected with the keyboard".
 I think this is much better as a UI string, and barring responses otherwise I'm
marking this bug FIXED.  Reopen if you disagree...

Comment 8

[Jesse Ruderman]

I don't like the new text.  Users are going to check it, thinking "of course I
want to be able to select text with the keyboard", and then wonder why they they
get a blinking caret outside of web pages and why arrow keys no longer scroll.

The text should be something like "Show caret in web pages text and use arrow
keys to move caret instead of scrolling."

Comment 9

[Stefan Breunig]

This setting is confusing. When I tried the latest build today and digged
through the options I wondered where they had moved caret browsing. First I
thought it had been removed. When I first saw this option I wondered why they'd
disable keyboard selection by default.
I exited the dialog clicking somehwere in the page. Pressing SHIFT+Arrow. Still
works.
Only after I saw the blinking caret I knew what was meant. 

It does even lie to normal users since the selection is not affected anytime. In
fact, I don't even know which new way for selecting using the keyboard is added
using this function.

OK, made now clear why I'm for renaming, now in a search of a good description. 
I'd like to pick up Jesse's idea but shorten it: Use arrow keys to move caret

I think this quite expresses what is done by this setting - Jesse's propose is
somehow tautologous. When the keys are used to move the caret, they can't be
used to scroll. I think this is the most obvious.
"Show caret in web pages text" - well. I admit that my suggestion only implies
that there's a caret displayed. One could say "Use arrow keys to move caret in
web pages text" but that still'd only imply that there'll only be a caret blinking.

My other propose is "Display caret and use arrow keys to move it". This
formulation somehow implies that the caret is only moveable using the arrows.

Not really statisfied yet - however, this should be renamed before 1.5 since
it's a complete new dialog and again changing the name for the same option one
version later doesn't look too good.

Comment 10

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

sorry for bugspam, long-overdue mass reassign of ancient QA contact bugs,
filter on "beltznerLovesGoats" to get rid of this mass change

Comment 11

[Phil Ringnalda (:philor)]

(In reply to comment #9)
> again changing the name for the same option one
> version later doesn't look too good.

Yeah, well, we seem to change the entire prefs dialog completely, every single version. In this case, we've changed it to very nearly Jesse's text from comment 8.

Comment 12

[Jesse Ruderman]

It's currently "Always use the cursor keys to navigate within pages".  I don't know whether users are still getting confused and checking the box when they don't actually want caret mode.  I think my text in comment 8 is a lot clearer, but it's longer.