procedure rant is
begin
I'm trying to set up an old machine with linux for a friend of mine. She's got MS, so this should be a test of KDE's accessibility features, right? Turns out you don't need any disability to get frustrated over KDE's accessibility features.
First thing is that their mice don't work. At least one of them just plain doesn't work (we've tried it on another machine), and the other doesn't work either, although we can't figure out why for that one. Now, with no mice, here's what should happen: The system should notice that there is no mouse connected to the system, either by usb-magic, or just by noticing that the pointer has stood still in the center of the screen for 5 minutes. When it notices this, it should pop up a window, asking if you are having trouble with your mouse, and offer to turn on MOUSE KEYS. It should link to a description of mouse keys, where you can change the settings to suit your tastes. Settings for accelleration and repeat and double-clicking and so on should be set to SENSIBLE DEFAULTS.
Here is what actually happens: The system appears not to notice that there isn't a mouse connected to the system. So you have to use keyboard shortcuts to get into the KDE control center. I know how, but the people I'm installing for most certainly do not. In the KDE control center, you can activate mouse keys. Not under accessibility, which would be reasonable, but under mouse. (Well, they could have chosen even worse, I suppose). There is a checkbox, "use numeric keypad as mouse", but there is no way of redefining mouse keys, and what's worse, they are not explained! How do I click? How do I drag? (holding two keys simultaneously does not work) How do I left click? Middle button, anyone? Five is some sort of click. So is +, but it doesn't seem to operate consistently. Like, sometimes none of them appears to be simple single-click - this is probably because I have activated drag somehow. Now, I look at KDE help to try to make sense out of this. I can't find a word of explanation. I've seen much useless docs on windows, but KDE docs are just monumentally stupid. They seem to follow the convention that you have to give a short description of what every menu entry and button does, and because the help templates tell them to do that, that's all they do! The better docs perhaps cover one or two of the most glaringly obvious use cases, but you can't count on it.
Nowhere in the KDE docs is this "use numeric keypad as mouse" mode documented! I though that perhaps the docs in question just weren't installed on this system, but after googling, and looking at the pages of KDE's accessibility project, I have to quote the princess bride: "I don't think they exist".
I still haven't worked them out. I get by mostly with those keyboard shortcuts my friends don't know (tab/enter navigation, alt-tab etc.) KDE accessibility guys: text to speech, auto-clicking and all that other fancy stuff does not impress me. If you can't even help an experienced user who has suffered a common mouse malfunction, how do you expect to help computer illiterates who may even have a physical disability?!
end Rant;
Posted by vintermann at October 15, 2005 05:39 PM