Pointer grabs causing accessibility issues! Why not deprecate them?

[Daniel Stone]

On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 06:22:58PM +0200, Francesco Fumanti wrote:
> For a user, that can only rely on the pointer to do his input, pointer 
> grabs seem to be at the root of different problems. Examples of such 
> users are tabletpc users and disabled users; I will call them 
> pointer-only users in the rest of the email.
> 
> These pointer-only users usually rely on an onscreen keyboard to do 
> their typing. But if another application grabs the pointer, they will 
> not be able to enter anything with the onscreen keyboard until that 
> application releases the pointer grab. A concrete example without 
> workaround is currently the policykit password dialog.
> 
> Instead of asking the different application programmers to provide a way 
> to give pointer-only users full access, I wondered whether it would not 
> be better to tackle the problem at the source by not giving them any 
> pointer grabbing functionality!?
> 
> In fact, the purpose of this email is to make the xorg developer aware 
> of the issue and ask them to consider whether deprecating the pointer 
> grabbing functionality from the X server would make any sense and be 
> feasible?

It would not be at all feasible.

Cheers,
Daniel
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