[BRLTTY] key problems on Alva Satellite 544 with brltty 3.7.2

[Lee Maschmeyer]

Hi Dave,

As a person who has used autorepeat panning for 15+ years I am very 
comfortable with it. I find it far less unpredictable than the skipping of n 
blank windows (0<n<infinity for an unpredictable n).

Literature is written in paragraphs so there are not large amounts of blank 
areas there. Web pages are written with text and pictures and perhaps other 
design factors taken into account and that is where you get large amounts of 
blank space. I've used skipping of blank windows on occasion, but so seldom 
I don't remember the keys and have to use the preference menu. When I have 
not use the PM display for awhile I have to relearn the keys to skip between 
attributes in the Mutt spell checker.

Observe: In brltty there are keys to skip blank windows, skip between 
attributes, skip for different content, skip to previous prompt. That's 7 
keys (2 in each direction except for prompts) that differ from display to 
display. That's a lot of chicken tracks; they're logical once you learn them 
but you have to learn them and use them enough to remember them. Contrast 
that with 2 keys, forward and back, that you hold down until you feel like 
releasing them. That's predictable and it doesn't impact the others in the 
least.

Scott seems to have an entirely different problem. There is no auto panning 
on the PM except rolling the wheels which will do it. I don't remember how I 
managed to get autorepeat panning for the PM one time, but I found it a 
disadvantage because it interfered with some of the multi-key commands 
(don't remember any details). It sounds to me like Scott has a hardware 
problem. My buttons are completely reliable except those that are physically 
defective. That's a different subject and I wish we were close enough 
together to have a face-to-face.

-- 
Lee Maschmeyer
<lee_maschmeyer at wayne.edu>

"Be kind to your fur-bearing friends,
For a skunk may be somebody's brother."
     --Fred Allen