Re: [orca-list] Vim, is it usable for us?

[Rastislav Kish <rastislav kish gmail com>]

Hello,

ah, that's interesting. Thanks much for the explanation, I didn't know 
it was possible to switch interfaces like this.


I have successfully installed and launched fenrir. The only problems 
are, that if I run it as:

sudo fenrir

I don't see output of terminal after launching it, for example when I type:

pwd

I can see the command with Fenrir's review mode, but not the actual output.


If I launch it like:

fenrir -e

here the console works, but not review browsing nor reading lines in 
Vim, and as a bonus, Vim switches to a very interesting form, where the 
insert mode seems to be the defaultone, and by pressing ctrl+O I can 
execute a command but I'm immediately returned to the insert mode again.


however, it doesn't matter much now, as I've managed to get Vim working 
with orca. Disabling the ruler did the trick, seems I was entering the 
command incorrectly before. I've added the setting to my .vimrc along 
with other useful keyboard mappings like remapping up and down arrow 
keys to + and - and allowing left and right arrows to jump to next line 
after hitting the border of previousone.

It works like a charm now!


The only pitty are the h, j, k and l keys, from what I've read, Vim is 
designed to not having to use arrow keys at all, so this could be a 
potential slow-down.


I'm currently trying to find a workaround. I already have a quite handy 
library to work with speech-dispatcher, so the most easy way seems to be 
simply adding a macro on them which will read necessary informations 
after the keys are pressed.


I've also got some ideas to at least partially resolve the textual 
avareness issues we have to face, so I will probably test them at the 
same time.


As for why Vim in a graphical environment, I personally take this as a 
kind of... challenge. It's being said, that once one truly masters Vim, 
that person will consider any graphical editor very slow. That's of 
course for sighted people, I don't know, whether that's also true for 
blind folks.

Gonna check it out. :P


Best regards


Rastislav


Dňa 31. 8. 2020 o 23:20 Mewtamer napísal(a):
> Okay, most linux systems have a number of consoles, usually named tty1-tty12.
>
> The GUI usually runs on tty1 and switching to tty2, tty3, etc. will
> usually give you a text-based login prompt followed by the Linux
> console.
>
> On most GUIs, ctrl+alt+a function key will switch to the tty whose
> number corresponds to the function key used(e.g. ctrl+alt+f2 will
> switch you to tty2) and when in a console not running a GUI, alt+a
> function key will do the same.
>
> Some systems will have higher ttys(e.g. tty13-tty24), but I'm not sure
> how these are accessed when present.
>
> The general idea for using both graphical and text screen readers in
> combination is that You'd have the GUI running in tty1 and would use
> Orca with GUI applications in tty1. Meanwhile, the text screen reader
> would be running on tty2-tty12 and you would switch to those consoles
> for using command line and other text-mode applications with the text
> screen reader.
>
> If sound is properly configured, than you should be able to seemlessly
> switch back and forth between graphical and text modes by switching
> between ttys with the appropriate screen reader reading what you need
> it to read on the active tty. And even without the switching between
> graphical nd text modes, switching ttys is a powerful tool for
> multi-tasking at the command line.
>
> For example, if I'm writing something, I might have Firefox and Orca
> running on tty1 incase I need to look something up online, my work
> document open in an editor in tty2, tty3 in the same working directory
> as tty2 to use wc to keep track of word count on my work document
> without having to close or suspend the editor, I might use tty4 to
> pull up local files from elsewhere on my machine, and I might have
> some time consuming, automated process running in the background on
> tty5.
>
> Orca can work with terminal emulators, but I generally find switching
> to a tty that isn't running a GUI and using a text screen reader is
> often more straight forward for most text-only applications.