[Note that this option does not apply to the status bar.]
keyguard.scad uses the height of the message and command bars of your AAC app to determine how much of the screen space is left over for the grid of buttons. You can expose or hide these bars as part of your keyguard design. If you expose a bar, the edges of the cut-out in the keyguard normally have a slope of 90 degrees. For narrow bars this can make physically accessing that region of the screen a bit difficult. For thicker keyguards, the tall, severe slope can make it difficult to see what’s going on in the bar – especially a problem for message bars. The Bar Info section of options includes a special option that lets you change the slope of certain sides of the opening (i.e., edges of the bars) to a less severe slope – thereby giving you better manual and visual access to the bar:
There are limitations to which edge of a bar you can affect so that the borders of the keyguard and the rails of the grid don’t become compromised. The image below shows, in red, the edges of the bars that can be modified:
The bottom edge of the upper and lower message bars, as well as the top edge of the upper and lower command bars, can be modified. All other edges (i.e., sides of the cutout) stay at 90 degrees to preserve the integrity of the keyguard.
The following image shows a cross-section of a standard keyguard layout with the upper message bar exposed and with the slope of its lower side set at 90 degrees:
Here’s the same message bar in cross-section but with the bottom side angled at 45 degrees:
Here’s a rendering of the full keyguard with a 90 degree slope on all sides of the upper message bar as it might be viewed by the user of the keyguard:
Now here’s the keyguard with a 45 degree slope on the bottom edge of the message bar:
The message bar is 50% more visible. Note that this didn’t require setting the value of the height of the upper message bar to a value larger than its actual size.
This video compares actual examples of keyguards with and without modifying the standard bar slope:
Note that altering the slope of a bar is only useful if the adjacent bar is hidden and if it is high enough. The smaller you set the slope, the greater the height of the adjacent bar must be or the wall of the exposed bar will begin to eat into the border of the keyguard or top (or bottom) rail of the grid. This phenomenon is best illustrated in a video:
Note that the “bar edge slope” option is now found in found in the Bar Info section