Re: 2.4 New Accessibility Features

[Glynn Foster <glynn foster sun com>]

Hey,

> * gnome-themes: new gtk-engine for HC themes.  Working, 
> 	better than the default engine for visibility, possibly
> 	a few minor bugs/regressions which are fixable pre-2.4.
> 	Already in CVS.

Slightly off topic here - what is the suituation with gnome-themes and
gtk-engines? Currently we seem to have -

	gtk-engines
		- metal
		- pixbuf
		- raleigh
	gnome-themes
		- crux

While I'm certainly not disagreeing to the include of a new gtk-engine
to help the accessibility, I'm rather confused over the location
problem.

> * gnome-control-center: Two new capplets for the 'accessibility' menu
> 	o Assistive Technology Support (aka gnome-at-properties);
> 		provides UI for toggling the 'accessibility' gconf key.
> 		also provides shortcut UI for adding ATs to the user's 	session,
> which is otherwise difficult or impossible from the 
> 		session menus.
> 	o GNOME System Bell Properties (aka gnome-bell-properties)
> 		provides UI for toggling audio bell
> 			(important for AccessX users who need key feedback since the audio
> feedback can 
> 			drive neighbors nuts otherwise)	
> `		provides UI for configuring "visual bell" feature.
> 
> 	This code is in a bugzilla patch for bug #113307.
>         http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=113307
> 	The icons are purely placeholders at this time, Calum
> 	is building better ones for these capplets.

I've put up screenshots - don't mind about the icons [1], I just used
those to get it working -

	http://www.gnome.org/~gman/Screenshot-Gnome-at-properties.png 
	http://www.gnome.org/~gman/Screenshot-Gnome-bell-properties.png 

My only concern is the possible confusion of the UI keyboard preference
dialog with the 'keyboard' bell, although Bill mentioned that this is
something entirely different.

> * gnome-applets:
> 
> 	o Applet to show accessx status (sticky keys status, etc.)
> 
> 	Calum discussed the UI at length on d-d-l, the icons are not yet
> 	final.  We went with an applet rather than a notification
> 	doohickey since the notification icons at the moment need to 
> 	be square-ish, etc. and for other technical reasons.
> 	I have written a version of the applet *without the icons*, 
> 	which just displays stuff in a GtkLabel, into 
> 	which we'll put the icons in the next few days - so this is
> 	far from vaporware, but you'd do better to look at Calum's 
> 	notes to see how the final applet will look.  The
> 	notification/listener and update code (i.e. most of the  
>         internals) are written.  The relevant bug is 98488
> 	which is against control-center, but possibly this code should
> 	go into gnome-applets instead.  At the moment it's a separate
> 	module on my machine, I attached a standalone gzipped
> 	tarball to the bugzilla bug, rather than a patch:
> 	http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=98488

Okay, with a bit of hacking [since the tarball in the bug report isn't a
proper dist tarball], I got it working -

	http://www.gnome.org/~gman/Screenshot-Lt-panel-test-applets-1.png
	http://www.gnome.org/~gman/Screenshot-Lt-panel-test-applets.png

Obviously I'm not terribly excited by the results. I'm not sure what
else is to say :/

> It might also be worth looking at Calum's accessibility bug list 
> http://www.gnome.org/~calum/access-bugs.html
> to see if any of the "Urgent" bugs require feature-ish fixes, so we can
> try to expedite them before feature freeze.  We don't want to get caught
> post-freeze with good accessibility patches that we can't apply.

I think features are probably okay - introducing new standalone dialogs
into the Desktop Preferences menu, new gtk-engines, new applets do count
as new 'modules', although I'll admit, it's rather confusing
terminology.

Would definitely be good to get some discussion going on these changes.

			Glynn ;)

[1] Hack on panel - let Mark feel the love! <subliminal/>