https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=153806

            Bug ID: 153806
           Summary: Improve keyboard interaction for Special Characters
                    dialog
           Product: LibreOffice
           Version: 7.6.0.0 alpha0+ Master
          Hardware: All
                OS: All
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Keywords: accessibility
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: medium
         Component: UI
          Assignee: [email protected]
          Reporter: [email protected]
            Blocks: 101912

(Based on Colomban's comment/workaround while implementing a11y UI tests, s.
https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/142260/22/sw/qa/extras/accessibility/dialogs.cxx
)

Interacting with the "Special characters" dialog using the keyboard is not
particularly intuitive, which is bad for a11y.

# Example 1 (from Colomban's UI test, s. link above):

1) start Writer, open dialog using "Insert" -> "Special characters" menu item
2) type "copyright" in the search box
3) press the Tab key a few times until the entry for the copyright symbol is
highlighted

Result:
* The UI elements update to show that this item has been selected (e.g. the
character is shown on the right hand side, and it says "COPYRIGHT SIGN" below
that).
* However, the "Insert" button is still inactive, i.e. it's not possible to
press "Tab" more often to get to that button and insert the character.

What works however is (note the extra step 4, that's rather unexpected and
which I saw only when looking into the current implementation):

1) start Writer, open dialog using "Insert" -> "Special characters" menu item
2) type "copyright" in the search box
3) press the Tab key a few times until the entry for the copyright symbol is
highlighted
4) press the space key to activate the "Insert" button
5) press Tab key more times to select the "Insert" button
6) press Enter key to insert the character and close the dialog

# Example 2:

* It's possible to insert a character from the table of characters without
closing the dialog by double-clicking on the character using the mouse (or
right-clicking, then selecting "Insert into document" in the context menu)
* However, there seems to be no way to do so using the keyboard instead.

# Example 3:

Contrary to the characters in the "table", the characters in the "Recent
Characters" and "Favorite Characters" section *can* be inserted using the
keyboard:

1) press Tab key until the desired character is focused
2) press either space or Enter key

This is IMHO inconsistent.

# Expected behavior:

The behavior should be more consistent and the dialog easily usable using the
keyboard.

Suggestion:

* for example 1: enable the "Insert" key right when a character in the table is
selected using the Tab key
* insert currently focused character from the table when pressing the space or
Enter key, just as is the case for "Recent characters"/"Favorite characters" as
well


Version: 7.6.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 6d404f9ccad3ac6a7ffb83876ae7a656bc2d4547
CPU threads: 12; OS: Linux 6.1; UI render: default; VCL: kf5 (cairo+xcb)
Locale: en-GB (en_GB.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

Version: 7.6.0.0.alpha0+ (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 6d404f9ccad3ac6a7ffb83876ae7a656bc2d4547
CPU threads: 12; OS: Linux 6.1; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3
Locale: en-GB (en_GB.UTF-8); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded


Referenced Bugs:

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=101912
[Bug 101912] [META] Accessibility (a11y) bugs and enhancements
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