Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16

["Vincent Untz" <vuntz gnome org>]

Hi,

On Wed, April 19, 2006 14:54, Willie Walker wrote:
> Hi All:
>
> I'd like to thank everyone for their responses to this proposal.  The
> discussion has been quite informative.  Now that the initial discussion
> has died down, I'd like to summarize what I think are the main points
> and then work to reach a decision.

Thanks for working on a summary. This is very useful :-)

> 1. People generally think it is the right thing to do.  The growing Orca
> user community is finding good access with Orca as it is and feel that
> Orca is the right thing to focus on.
>
> 2. The "Highlander" principle is a concern, meaning that there is
> question about whether or not both Gnopernicus and Orca can be options.
> I describe this as a "concern" because there seem to be mixed feelings
> about whether the opinions in this area should be strictly adhered to
> for this case.  I propose that both ship.  With this, users will be able
> to choose the one that works for them.  Note that the choice is often
> based upon whether the user can actually use the system or not.  This is
> much different than the choice of whether one happens to like one e-mail
> application or content viewer better than the other.

I'm not that fond about the "shipping both" solution. We'd still have to
choose a default or recommend one of the two screenreaders for most of
the cases (eg, in the doc). However I understand that Orca might be a
regression in some case, and that Gnopernicus does not match Orca in
some other cases.

Is there any way to evaluate what's missing in Orca (or in Gnopernicus)
compared to the Gnopernicus (resp. Orca)?

> 3. The current gap of the Configuration GUI is an issue.  Orca
> configuration currently is done via a command line setup script,
> although Orca has also been designed to run w/o requiring setup.  Post
> setup configuration is managed by hand editing a settings module.  We
> realize the 1990's clunkiness of this, and we definitely plan resolve
> this with a real GUI.  The main issue is getting the manpower and we
> welcome help from the community to do it in a timely manner.  I still
> need to point out the irony of requiring a screen reader to configure
> your screen reader.  ;-)  I propose that we recognize that the
> Configuration GUI is a much needed thing, but we realize that the users
> have other accessible options for configuring Orca.  As such, the lack
> of the GUI is a very small notch below show stopper status for GNOME
> 2.16, and is a must have for GNOME 2.18.

Do you have some concrete plans so people can know how much work this
would need and how they can help?

> 4. How users start Orca is a question.  The general use case for a
> screen reader is that it will automatically be started when the desktop
> starts.  The "System->Preferences->Assistive Technology Support" dialog
> is the common thing used to set this up. This dialog currently enforces
> the Highlander principle, allowing only Gnopernicus to be started.  It
> seems as though improvements to the automatic starting of applications
> for the GNOME Desktop in general, however, may provide a means to
> obsolete this dialog.  Alternatively, this dialog could be modified to
> provide the user with a choice of which screen reader to use.  I'm not
> sure what to propose here.

It definitely makes sense to let the user be able to choose another
screenreader than the one(s) we provide, so they can install another
one and easily use it.

> 5. There was some question about Orca dependencies on things that are
> not a part of the GNOME desktop (e.g., GNOME Python, PyOrbit, etc.), but
> this was deemed acceptable via general GNOME policy if I understood
> correctly.

Those dependencies are in the bindings set, so it's perfectly okay to
use them.

Thanks,

Vincent

-- 
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