The Wolfe Pack

I really want to like Linux, but there's one bug that's absolutely killing it for me and making me want to switch back to Windows. If I'm typing in VS Code and an autocomplete pops up, Orca is yanked out of focus mode even if I have it set to sticky. So let's say I'm quickly typing .clone() in some Rust code. I type ., this pops up the autocomplete, I get c in before the mode switches...then it switches. So Orca then tries to go to the next (l)ist, next large (o)bject, n gets passed through to the document because there's no structural nav command...by the time I realize we're well and thoroughly off to clusterfuck city, my document contains .cn and focus is gods know where. This can happen multiple times per line if I'm unlucky. It happens less now that I've disabled Copilot for unrelated reasons, but I'm having to be much more intentional about typing code very quickly to minimize this happening.

Is there a workaround for this? If Windows didn't feel like an absolute hostile landscape of "we're going to treat this computer and the data on it like it isn't yours whether you like it or not," I'd still be there.

Tell me not to use VS Code and I'll block you. Sorry, absolutely not in the mood. Also don't want to disable autocomplete.

@nolan Well, compared to the elusive "audio doesn't work on Linux", this one sounds quite tractable. I don't know the solution though.

@matt Yeah, that's part of why I'm sticking with it in spite of how infuriating it is. Also possible it's fixed in GNOME 48/newer Orca but NixOS stable is still on 47 and I'm holding off on updating until it's at least beta. That and capslock state are my biggest papercuts and I'm looking forward to the latter going away soon too.

@storm Not yet, still kind of in frantic moving mode right now and tossing it out on Masto was a lower-effort way of seeing if anyone else hit this and had a fix. Will probably do that in a few weeks when dust settles a bit more.

@nolan This isn't really what you asked so you have every right to tell me to fuck off, but the way I prefer to rock Windows these days is with Windows IoT LTSC builds. You get no store, no copilot, no bloat. My good friend Brandon Tyson has also put together a blog post outlining how to make Windows run smoothly after a fresh install, or just in general. This includes disabling telemetry. https://btprojects.samtupy.com/blog/post1.htm if you want to learn more about Windows IoT LTSC, look here: https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links

@TheQuinbox That's actually fine--I'd really rather not go back unless I have to, but if I'm forced to because of access issues then I'm butchering it to keep out Copilot and whatever else they might shove down our throats in the future. Thanks for this, bookmarked.

@TheQuinbox @Tamasg @nolan Actually I think that might not necessarily be an Orca issue, but rather a bug recently introduced in VSCode. I'm having a very similar bug on macOS while typing, where the editor loses focus as soon as auto complete pops up. In VO the workaround is to disable cursor tracking, not sure if Orca might offer something similar.

@robin_kipp @TheQuinbox @Tamasg @nolan It'd help if ARIA autocompletes weren't a complete nightmare. I keep meaning to write a blog post about this and never getting around to it. I even came up with (what I think is) a cool title:
Woe-ARIA: Focus defeated when autocompleted
I have ideas for solutions, but the problem is that it's a really hard problem to fix without breaking backwards compatibility.

@jcsteh @robin_kipp @TheQuinbox @Tamasg @nolan If you switch to the insider version, it’s fixed there. Apparently they changed the role for the auto complete results which worked fine on windows but caused issues on Mac. Might fix Linux as well, but I don’t know for sure.

@pitermach @jcsteh @robin_kipp @TheQuinbox @Tamasg @nolan to fix the orca bug originally mentioned, use orca plus f12, to switch carrot control from screen reader to application. then press orca and z to turn navigation keys off.

@fireborn @pitermach @jcsteh @robin_kipp @TheQuinbox @Tamasg Oh thanks, that's amazing and what I was hoping to get from posting this. I'll probably join the Orca lists and such and be more active soon, I'm just neck-deep in moving and other life logistics now and don't have the time.

So if I'm reading this thread correctly, the issue isn't in Orca but is instead in VS Code, and is now fixed in Insiders, at least on macOS? Asking because if it is Orca but just hasn't been filed yet, I'll put doing so on my todo list when my life isn't an absolute pile next month.