Re: WebKit and GNOME

[Victor Tsaran <vtsaran gmail com>]

+1 for Will's comments.
First, Webkit needs strong accessibility foundation before moving onto 
advanced features like ARIA. While ARIA spec has reached its maturity, 
the user interaction model did not, and, I am afraid, we would not have 
answers for certain user interaction questions if asked right now.
Regards,
Vic

Willie Walker wrote:
> Hi All:
>
> Just my 2 cents here:
>
> I would definitely object to WebKit being the de facto rendering engine 
> if it did not support accessibility.  In addition, as WebKit 
> accessibility work is done, I recommend looking at the existing AT-SPI 
> implementation done in Gecko as a potential model for how the document 
> model can be represented via AT-SPI -- it was developed with real world 
> experience.  Furthermore, I would also recommend collaborating with 
> assistive technologies along the way, making sure design decisions are 
> actually workable solutions.  Finally, if it has not already been done, 
> I would suggest that the keyboard navigation model be nailed down -- 
> mouseless users need to be able to fully navigate web pages, cut/paste 
> content, etc.
>
> For ARIA, I agree that basic accessibility integration for web content 
> is a higher priority.  This does not mean, however, that ARIA support 
> should not be included in the plans.  My hope is that Maciej really 
> meant "we will look at basic accessibility integration first and ARIA 
> next" instead of "ARIA is an interesting toy and we won't support it."  ;-)
>
> For yelp, I'm comforted that the team is targeting an accessible 
> solution for GNOME 2.24: 
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=499744.  This will help give 
> our users much needed access to help and not require them to wait for 
> WebKit a11y to emerge.
>
> Will
>
> On Apr 1, 2008, at 6:32 PM, Eitan Isaacson wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 2008-04-01 at 16:37 -0400, David Bolter wrote:
> > > Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> > > > 4) Accessibility. This is only implemented in the Mac port currently.
> > > > We are moving the core accessibility code to be cross-platform, which
> > > > should make it fairly straightforward to hook it up to ATK or other
> > > > accessibility APIs. Sometimes ARIA is mentioned in the context of
> > > > accessibility - this is an interesting technology for future web apps,
> > > > but I believe basic accessibility integration for web content is a
> > > > higher priority.
> > >
> > > This wording "Sometimes ARIA is mentioned in the context of
> > > accessibility - this is an interesting technology for future web apps"
> > > doesn't seem quite right to me. ARIA enabled browsers such as Firefox
> > > provide access to ARIA enabled DHTML applications today. Opera and IE8
> > > are adding support today. Google is putting ARIA into its web 
> > > applications.
> >
> > I agree with David. ARIA is becoming a major component in any accessible
> > web application. It's not something in the distant future. It would be
> > premature to crown webkit as the GNOME engine for all purposes until
> > this is properly addressed. Nonetheless, for basic document viewing,
> > like Yelp, Webkit could be a good solution, providing it has accessible
> > structured document support.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > desktop-devel-list mailing list
> > desktop-devel-list gnome org
> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list