[BRLTTY] SPEAK_NEXT_WORD and word boundaries in Debian Trixie

[Eric Scheibler]

Dave Mielke <Dave at mielke.cc> schrieb am 18.01.2026, 16:29 -0500:
> You can experiment with the new bindings if you build from the word-nav branch. I didn't want to add a new key so, instead, I moved a few bindings around.

Thank you. Built successfully. So far it works well.

Btw: The file Tools/reqpkgs.d/debian lists all packages, which are needed to compile Brltty under Debian. But at least
Debian Trixie (stable) doesn't contain the package libpcre3-dev. I removed / didn't install it and the build went
well anyway. Just so you know.

> The full word commands use 8, 9, and 0.

I think, 7, 8 and 9 would be more intuitive / better to reach. Orca does this too.

Anyway I find it more convenient to keep both part and word on the same key and add ShiftLeft instead like this:

bind \{kpSpeak}+!\{kpFive} SPEAK_CURR_PWRD
bind ShiftLeft+\{kpSpeak}+!\{kpFive} SPEAK_CURR_WORD
bind \{kpSpeak}+\{kpAlt}+!\{kpFive} SPELL_CURR_PWRD
bind ShiftLeft+\{kpSpeak}+\{kpAlt}+!\{kpFive} SPELL_CURR_WORD
bind \{kpSpeak}+!\{kpFour} SPEAK_PREV_PWRD
bind ShiftLeft+\{kpSpeak}+!\{kpFour} SPEAK_PREV_WORD
bind \{kpSpeak}+!\{kpSix} SPEAK_NEXT_PWRD
bind ShiftLeft+\{kpSpeak}+!\{kpSix} SPEAK_NEXT_WORD

But that's my personal preference of course. I also would be content to just add the four shift-bindings to my custom
keyboard-binding-file and don't use the number keys at all.

And we should keep the laptop keytable bindings "shift+arrow_left" and "shift+arrow_right" in mind - currently they
still point to the word commands.

> Let me know if this approach is okay or if changing a few bindings around was the wrong thing to do.

I will test it some more and get back to you.

Cheers
Eric