Orca does not present items in left panel correctly because those items lack accessible names
Steps to reproduce:
- Launch Rhythmbox
- Use the Accerciser accessibility inspector to examine the left panel items
Expected results: All of the immediate table-cell children would have accessible names ("Music", "Podcasts", "Last.fm", etc.)
Actual results: As shown in the screenshot below, none of the immediate table-cell children have accessible names. If you expand any of those immediate children (as done for the screenshot), you'll see a number of cells, two of which (the second and second-to-last) have names (e.g. "Playlists" and "Music").
Impact: Orca only says "Playlists" for each of those items; not "Music" or "Podcasts" or "Last.fm".
Explanation: User-focusable/selectable items need to have accessible names. When they don't, Orca tries to heuristically find something to say. The current heuristic for table cells with child table cells is to present the first child table cell with a name (which happens to be "Playlists"). While I (Orca maintainer) can modify the heuristic to string together all the cells with names, that can be problematic:
- Orca will keep repeating "Playlists" before the real item which should be presented (e.g. "Music"). That means it takes longer for the user to find the current item. And assuming the last cell with a name is the right one seems just as potentially-wrong as assuming the first cell with a name is the right one.
- I don't know if there will be any issues for languages that are not English. Joining strings together without any clue what they might mean might result in incorrect presentation.