Pointer grabs causing accessibility issues! Why not deprecate them?

[Daniel Stone]

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 12:07:19PM -0700, Carl Worth wrote:
> As for application development, many of these are implicit, in that
> the toolkit does them on behalf of the application, (which merely asks
> for a menu or whatever, and doesn't often explicitly say "please grab
> the pointer").

... unless it's a security-sensitive app like PolicyKit, which
explicitly says 'please do not let anyone else get any kind of access to
input, because I'm a special case application'.  Hence not letting
anyone else get any kind of access to input is kind of a feature, in
terms of actually being protocol-compliant, and respecting the
application's wishes.

If we need a protocol for ordered-priority grabs, then yes, let's get
that sorted (it's on my ever-expanding Xi 2 list: replace grabs with a
priority at event selection, and max priority = grab, whereas the rest
is descending).  At this point, you can get the security boffins
together, and they can bang heads and agree on a happy protocol for
ensuring the integrity of this, such as having whatever Eamon's
extension is called this week verify that anything grabbing at such
a high level _is_ actually an input method.

At that point, we've made the correct fix to X that does not
special-case (except by convention by its users) and is
futureproof; saved from such travesties as grabs wrapping
grabs, which does not scale beyond n = 1.  And the security
boffins are happy.

Eamon gets a nice fat bonus from the NSA; his success allows him to
continue developing, such that Alan can continue making jokes about his
extension names; the complex input method people are happy; the simple
input people are happy and no longer have to block their ears and
pretend the complex part of the world don't exist; the dolphins are
free; a pure implementation of communism spontaneously bursts forth.

If reading this mail does not convince you that this is the innovation
of our times, you lack perspective.

Cheers,
Daniel
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