Description Carolyn MacLeod 2011-05-19 13:57:19 EDT

Eclipse does not use the shortcut Ctrl+Tab to change tab pages. It uses an alternate documented shortcut Ctrl+PgDn. It also uses the Microsoft standard UI navigation for accessing tabs in a tab control. Arrow navigates the tabs (active UI elements) when they have focus. Microsoft tab control navigation is documented here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms971323.aspx#atg_keyboardshortcuts_accessing_tab_controls 

Response from a JAWS developer:
We were concerned about announcing ctrl+pgdn and ctrl+PGUP on tab controls that did not support this key combination.
As a way to handle this, I added code to JAWS that looked at the tab control containing the individual tabs for a shortcut key.
For example, the individual tab may have a shortcut of alt+g and the control that contains that tab has ctrl+pgdn as a shortcut, JAWS will announce the alt+g, the ctrl+tab, and the ctrl+pgdn when the user navigates to the tab.
This is a bit verbose, but it avoids the problem of JAWS announcing a keystroke that might not be supported.
Carolyn sent me this java snippet which I used to test the fix and this fix should now be part of the released JAWS version:

import org.eclipse.swt.*; 
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.*; 
import org.eclipse.swt.layout.*; 
import org.eclipse.swt.accessibility.*; 

public class TabFolderTest { 

public static void main(String[] args) { 
Display display = new Display(); 
Shell shell = new Shell(display); 
shell.setLayout(new FillLayout()); 
shell.setText("TabFolder"); 

TabFolder tabFolder = new TabFolder(shell, SWT.NONE); 
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) { 
TabItem tab = new TabItem(tabFolder, SWT.NONE); 
tab.setText("Tab &" + i); 
Canvas tabContent = new Canvas(tabFolder, SWT.NONE); 
tab.setControl(tabContent); 
} 

tabFolder.getAccessible().addAccessibleListener(new AccessibleAdapter() { 
public void getKeyboardShortcut(AccessibleEvent e) { 
if (e.childID == ACC.CHILDID_SELF){ 
e.result = "Ctrl+PageDown"; 
} 
} 
}); 

shell.pack(); 
shell.open(); 
while (!shell.isDisposed()) { 
if (!display.readAndDispatch()) display.sleep(); 
} 
} 
} 


So now we need to add the appropriate keyboardShortcut string to TabFolder and CTabFolder.