Re: gucharmap

[Bill Haneman <Bill Haneman Sun COM>]

>
>Hello,
>
>On Mon, Jan 13, 2003 at 10:29:04 +0000, Glynn Foster wrote:
>> 
>> I think the first thing that you should try to do is to try and get it
>> included into the 5th toe release, which is expected sometime after we
>> release 2.2. 
>
>Ok. What does this mean, and how do I do it? :)
>
>> 
>> I'm not entirely convinced that the UI is right for the average user
>> right now - it may be worth mailing usability gnome org for ideas of how
>> to clean it up. It would be good to take a complete set of screenshots
>> for them to look at [including menu entries, dialogs, etc..]. Obviously
>> I'm basing these comments off 0.1 - I see 0.2 is much improved ;)
>
>On irc about a month ago, Seth "peed" (his word) on 0.1, and
>suggested a bunch of stuff. 0.2 basically incorporates his
>suggestions.
>
>I'll put some screenshots together and send a link to the
>usability list anyway.
>
>> 
>> We also need to think about any accessibility requirements - the use of
>> a GtkDrawingArea might present some problems to overcome.
>
>Definitely, but I don't know what should be done with this.
>Suggestions on how to proceed?

Glynn is right, using GtkDrawingArea has a disadvantage as far as accessibility 
goes.

Unfortunately, complex drawing-area-type widgets with lots of individual 
"children" inside tend to require more work than other custom widgets in order 
to make them accessible.

If you use a GtkWidget per character cell in the charmap, you get accessibility 
more-or-less "for free".  Otherwise, you have to provide complete keyboard 
navigation that is compatible with tree-and-table-like widgets, and you must 
export an AtkObject hierarchy for the "charcells" in the map.  Probably you 
need to implement AtkTable on the character-table widget, and you need to 
implement AtkText on the character cells as well.  You also need to make sure 
that a themed visible focus indication is drawn onscreen when the utility is 
focussed, and when individual character cells are focussed.  Perhaps using the 
SELECTED state would be a reasonable alternative to a 'focus rectangle'.  

gucharmap should also observe the current theme colors and font size and style.

I would urge you to start by reading the following two documents:

"GNOME Accessibility for Developers":
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/guide/gad/index.html

"Making GNOME Applications Accessible":
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/presentations/GUAD3C/making-apps-access
ible/start.html

I hope these are a helpful start; feel free to ping me on #gnome or #sun IRC 
also (billh).

Basically anything the utility does with normal menus, buttons, etc. should be 
accessible without further effort, so probably the character display area is 
the only part that will require extra coding.

-Bill



------
Bill Haneman x19279
Gnome Accessibility 
Sun Microsystems Ireland