[Kde-accessibility] Help for people with sight problems

[Bill Haneman]

Anders Bruun Olsen wrote:

>On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 06:34:26PM +0000, Bill Haneman wrote:
>  
>
>>>Does KDE have a similar feature to help spot where the pointer is on the
>>>screen?
>>>If not, is such a feature then planned and can anything be done to get
>>>this feature here and now?
>>>      
>>>
>>This feature is available in GNOME - but it conflicts with assistive 
>>    
>>
>
>Hmm.. but I like KDE, not Gnome, and I'm the one that's suppose to
>administrate and support it, so that's no good :)
>
>  
>
>>technologies because it issues a passive grab on the control key.  The 
>>conflict is less than it was originally because the grab parameters were 
>>made more general - but such a feature must be implemented with caution. 
>>    
>>
>
>It wouldn't neccesarily have to be the control key, neither would it
>have to be holding a key for more than a few seconds. 
>
The GNOME one doesn't have any timer aspect, it's activated by a 
press/release of the control key without pressing another key.  My point 
is, cool feature, go for it (in KDE), but be careful about the 
implementation because keygrabs on modifier keys (in particular) can 
easily conflict with other accessibility features.  I think the GNOME 
implementation loses some of its usefulness for this reason.

You can infer that a modifier key was chosen because a press-release of 
a modifier, by itself, normally doesn't result in key-input to apps.  
But if StickyKeys is on, this doesn't work right, and as I said it can 
block other keyboard interception.  Possibly CapsLock press/release 
would be better, since it would result in no input, but wouldn't count 
as a modifier key.

- Bill

>At least for the
>purpose we are looking to use it for, an ordinary shortcut combo
>(ie. alt-control-m) could do the trick. It's the functionality we are
>hoping to find, the implementation is less important.
>
>But from your reply I am guessing that this is not a feature to expect
>in a KDE release soon?
>
>  
>