Re: [gdm-list] onboard and mousetweaks for gdm and gnome



Hello Brian,


I am glad to hear that there are more options for users with a11y
needs.  I'd be happy to accept patches that would allow GDM to be
configured to startup these new applications via the gesture listener
mechanisms.


Much will probably depend on whether they will be part of the GNOME Desktop or not:

1. If they are going to be part of GNOME, I think that GDM only needs to provide a userfriendly way to start them

2. If they are not going to be part of the GNOME Desktop, I think that it would be odd to have some accessibility feature during the GDM session, but not during the subsequent GNOME session. I am saying this because I am assuming the following: the normal use of GDM is in conjunction with the GNOME Desktop (even if it also works with other Desktop environments). If this correct?


To 1: For this, I would say that bug 443873 and bug 463713 should be considered.

To 2: Otherwise, it would probably make sense to automatically activate in the GNOME session, the a11y features that the user activated during the GDM session (I think that there is already a bug filed for this, but I cannot find it anymore).



If you also are interested in enhancing GDM to launch AT programs
in more novel ways (e.g. by directly integrating them into GDM), then
we should discuss.

Yes, I am still interested in something similar to bug 463713. But I think that I will first try to enhance the dwellmouselistener.c code to add the killing of the app started by a pointer gesture (as we discussed few weeks ago). Is there any documentation about the dwellmouselistener.c code beside the few comments within the code itself?

If you want to discuss about any other enhancements, please feel free to do so.


Since GDM is currently being rewritten, it might make sense to hold
off on more tightly integrating with GDM until its more clear how to
do this in the new GDM rewrite, though.

Is there any place where I can learn more about what is being done?


Cheers

Francesco






I would like to inform you about the existence of 2 applications that I would like to be considered as candidates for integration to the GNOME platform; and this especially for the second because it offers fonctionalities still missing in GNOME. The first is the onscreen keyboard called onboard (previously called sok) and the second is a pointer enhancement utility called mousetweaks.

Both are able to run during a gdmlogin session and during a normal GNOME session (at least on my Ubuntu 7.10 installation).


Please, have a look at the first picture of the following website to see onboard and mousetweaks work under gdmlogin:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/doc/OnboardAndDwellAtGDM?action=show

Of course, in the GNOME session, onboard and mousetweaks are both in resizable windows.



1. OnBoard

Onboard is already part of Ubuntu since Ubuntu 7.04. It is written in python and can be used by people in need of an onscreen keyboard, but without the need of all the accessibility features provided by gok.

Here are its main features:
- works with zero configuration
- comprehensive language support
- macros, phrases or sentences assigned to a key
- keyboard layouts that are easy to create and modify
- keys can perform an action such as switching mouse buttons
- Re-sizable so that you can make best use of your screen

You can read more about it here:
http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cej105/onboard/

The specification used during development is here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Projects/onBoard

It is hosted on launchpad:
https://launchpad.net/onboard

As it is also possible to start onboard during a gdmlogin session, it can be especially interesting to tabletpc users.



2. MouseTweaks

Mousetweaks is an utility to add new fonctionalities to the pointer. It provides:

- An optional capture area on the panel: if the pointer moves into that area, it gets trapped and the user has to enter a determined key combination to release the pointer.

- The "delay click": it is an additional way to open the contextual menu, namely by keeping the left mousebutton pressed without moving the pointer for a determined time.

- The "dwell click": it is a way to perform a single click, double click, drag click and right click automatically without having to click with a hardware button. It is in fact a click performed by software at the location of the pointer, when the pointer remains motionless for a determined time. It is considered an accessibility feature and as far as I know, GNOME does not currently provide any way to do a dwell click. (It is this fonctionality that you can see on the picture of the site indicated by the first link of this email.)


Mousetweaks implementation was started as a GSoC 07 project for Ubuntu by Gerd Kohlberger:
http://gerdk.blogspot.com/

Its source code will soon be hosted on launchpad.net.

Here is the page with the original specification:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Specs/MouseTweaks

(I would like to point out that the gesture fonctionality indicated in the specification is not part of mousetweaks anymore. It has been moved into a separate application called chickenscratch and that is already hosted on launchpad: https://launchpad.net/cs But that is another topic.)


Many thanks in advance for any comment and suggestion.

Have a nice day.

Francesco Fumanti
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