Pointer grabs causing accessibility issues! Why not deprecate them?

[Tomas Carnecky]

Daniel Stone wrote:
> 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.

Instead, why don't you ask the policykit developers to add accessibility 
features to their password dialog, like a button that opens an on-screen 
keyboard?

tom