Accessibility – don't lose (or reduce) this when implementing Apple-like alternatives to established user interfaces

[grahamperrin]

Description

It seems that the location interface, for which there's a widely-known shortcut, has been replaced (at least, in FeatherPad.app) by a Mac OS X-like Look in: user interface with no shortcut.

It's not solely the loss of a shortcut. The replacement interface feels very regressive. Without the single-stroke shortcut – and corresponding location interface – it's much more cumbersome to use the keyboard to reach a location.

Screen recording

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/192271/112951264-11a02680-9133-11eb-8c41-04d34651ee21.mp4

Versions

The absence of the location field from FeatherPad.app was first noticed by me this morning with helloSystem 0.5.0 (0E43). I imagine that some other helloSystem .app applications are similarly bugged.

Looking back (to before I knew of helloSystem): the bug is also in 0.1.0 https://github.com/helloSystem/ISO/releases/tag/r0.1.0, which was released more than four months ago. I see two prior pre-release sets of assets, but I don't know whether they're useful for the purpose of comparison.

I could have quickly realised the bug in December 2020, however (as explained below) I had no interest in FeatherPad.

Additional context

Accessibility as an afterthought is a technical debt that can easily become unmanageable.

My first run of FeatherPad, months ago, was enough to put me off completely because the keyboard shortcut that's expected to close a tab is not effective: https://github.com/helloSystem/ISO/issues/192

In lieu of FeatherPad, I routinely used helloSystem QTerminal.app because it was readily available in the dock. Whilst it's no longer docked by default, QTerminal.app remains my most frequently used application with helloSystem.

To debug an Internet connectivity issue https://github.com/helloSystem/ISO/issues/188 I:

1. keyed Escape to avoid mute
2. unset boot_mute
3. made some other settings
4. boot -v
5. dismissed the welcome routine
6. opened Preferences in Filer
7. opened Keyboard.app
8. un-swapped the keyboard
9. corrected the keyboard layout
10. quit the app
11. opened Screen Settings.app
12. set a screen resolution
13. quit the app
14. quit the Filer window
15. opened Utilities in Filer
16. aimed to view /var/log/messages
17. opened Logs.app
18. couldn't easily see /var/log/messages
19. quit the app
20. opened QTerminal.app
21. since QTerminal.app is broken https://github.com/helloSystem/ISO/issues/190 I reluctantly reached (to the dock) for what might have been a handy alternative – FeatherPad
22. Control-O worked
23. Control-L did not work
24. and so on …

Please, don't let accessibility be an afterthought. If you must remove things that are easily accessible and keyboard-friendly, to make way for copies of Apple interfaces:

• make the helloSystem replacement accessible – in a consistent way – from the outset.

Thank you.

[probonopd]

The absence of the location field

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is a "location field"?

[grahamperrin]

The location field becomes visible at 0:05 on the timeline.

At 0:06 the location is selected in response to Control-L.

[probonopd]

Are you sure that we ever had that functionality? Or are you comparing the KDE File Open dialog with the helloSystem one, which is the plain Qt one? I didn't remove anything related to this knowingly.

[grahamperrin]

Without going back before 0.1.0, I can't tell.

[probonopd]

We're keeping it for reference: https://github.com/helloSystem/ISO/releases/tag/r0.1.0 But I don't think we (=Qt standard File Open dialogs) ever had that functionailty. Hence closing. Please comment below if you see a Qt standard File Open/Save dialog with "Location" functionality anywhere.