Hello,
I would like to inform you about the existence of 2 applications
that I would like to be considered as candidates for integration to
the GNOME platform; and this especially for the second because it
offers fonctionalities still missing in GNOME. The first is the
onscreen keyboard called onboard (previously called sok) and the
second is a pointer enhancement utility called mousetweaks.
Both are able to run during a gdmlogin session and during a normal
GNOME session (at least on my Ubuntu 7.10 installation).
Please, have a look at the first picture of the following website
to see onboard and mousetweaks work under gdmlogin:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/doc/OnboardAndDwellAtGDM?action=show
Of course, in the GNOME session, onboard and mousetweaks are both
in resizable windows.
1. OnBoard
Onboard is already part of Ubuntu since Ubuntu 7.04. It is written
in python and can be used by people in need of an onscreen
keyboard, but without the need of all the accessibility features
provided by gok.
Here are its main features:
- works with zero configuration
- comprehensive language support
- macros, phrases or sentences assigned to a key
- keyboard layouts that are easy to create and modify
- keys can perform an action such as switching mouse buttons
- Re-sizable so that you can make best use of your screen
You can read more about it here:
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cej105/onboard/
The specification used during development is here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Projects/onBoard
It is hosted on launchpad:
https://launchpad.net/onboard
As it is also possible to start onboard during a gdmlogin session,
it can be especially interesting to tabletpc users.
2. MouseTweaks
Mousetweaks is an utility to add new fonctionalities to the
pointer. It provides:
- An optional capture area on the panel: if the pointer moves into
that area, it gets trapped and the user has to enter a determined
key combination to release the pointer.
- The "delay click": it is an additional way to open the contextual
menu, namely by keeping the left mousebutton pressed without moving
the pointer for a determined time.
- The "dwell click": it is a way to perform a single click, double
click, drag click and right click automatically without having to
click with a hardware button. It is in fact a click performed by
software at the location of the pointer, when the pointer remains
motionless for a determined time. It is considered an accessibility
feature and as far as I know, GNOME does not currently provide any
way to do a dwell click. (It is this fonctionality that you can see
on the picture of the site indicated by the first link of this
email.)
Mousetweaks implementation was started as a GSoC 07 project for
Ubuntu by Gerd Kohlberger:
http://gerdk.blogspot.com/
Its source code will soon be hosted on launchpad.net.
Here is the page with the original specification:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Specs/MouseTweaks
(I would like to point out that the gesture fonctionality indicated
in the specification is not part of mousetweaks anymore. It has
been moved into a separate application called chickenscratch and
that is already hosted on launchpad: https://launchpad.net/cs But
that is another topic.)
Many thanks in advance for any comment and suggestion.
Have a nice day.
Francesco Fumanti
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