Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16

[Willie Walker <William Walker Sun COM>]

Hi All:

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

No problem!  My hope here is that we can reach a good practical
conclusion.

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

The two main gaps between Orca and Gnopernicus are magnification and the
Configuration GUI.

Magnification:  there is skeletal support in Orca to support
magnification and to follow the mouse and the object with focus.  We
realize there is much more to magnification than this, however, and we
are working with a community member to flesh out the support.  This is
something I'm quite sure that will be completed in the GNOME 2.16
timeframe.

Configuration GUI:  Rich Burridge from the Orca team has created a
prototype proof-of-concept Configuration GUI.  With a little more work
(definitely doable in the GNOME 2.16 timeframe), it is looking as though
it will be useful, and is something that can be extended over time.  In
addition, I think we can make some minor tweaks to the Orca architecture
to allow the Configuration GUI to be pluggable.  This, for example,
might allow different Configuration GUI's to be created that might suit
a different disability better.  But, the Highlander Principle will apply
to the Configuration GUI for now.  :-)

Note that other members of the community (e.g., Ubuntu) are hearing the
need the Configuration GUI and have some interesting ideas.  So...I'm
confident that something will come together for GNOME 2.16.

Finally, we've a number of very positive comments regarding Orca in
terms of the quality of the information it gives you.  I'm 

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

I suggest we keep it simple for GNOME 2.16: let people choose the main
features they want (speech, braille, magnification) and the general
parameters for each (default voice, speaking rate, verbosity, zoom
level, key/word echo, etc.).  This simple GUI will cover the main things
people want to configure and is not a huge time sink to write.
Furthermore, the more ambitious users with a desire to highly customize
Orca will still be able to hand edit their customizations.

The next go around can start adding more specialized features, such as
custom key bindings and specialized voices (e.g., upper case, hyperlink,
etc.).

> > 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.

This sounds like a general accessibility question for the desktop.
Would you be looking to the Orca team to provide patches to the
Assistive Technology Preferences dialog?

Thanks!

Will

PS - How does the overall new module acceptance process work?  I realize
we're in one phase (proposal/discussion), but who makes the final
decision?