Re: [gdm-list] idea about a11y for the new GDM (was onboard and mousetweaks...)

[Francesco Fumanti <francesco fumanti gmx net>]

Hello Brian,


First of all, thanks for your reply.


At 9:57 AM -0500 9/27/07, Brian Cameron wrote:
> > Instead of making GDM launch a specific program, it could indicate 
> > what Assistive Technology to launch.
> > GDM would for example only tell to start the onscreen keyboard, 
> > leaving it to a sort of "Preferred Application"-Setting to decide 
> > whether to start gok, onboard, xvkb,...
>
> One complication about this approach is that the GDM user does not have
> currently use GConf where I think these settings are currently set.  I
> suppose we could make GDM depend on GConf to get these settings, but
> is it worth adding a new dependency for this?  The new D-Bus version
> of GDM does use GConf, so perhaps this is a moot question.  :)  But
> it probably makes sense to do this work in the D-Bus branch rather
> than bothering to add GConf as a dependency in the current stable
> version.

Sorry if I did not say it explicitely in my previous email: my idea, 
if sensible, was aimed for the new D-Bus branch. I agree with you 
that it does not make sense to introduce completely new features to 
the current stable branch as it is going to be phased out in a not to 
distant future.



> Well, GDM would need to have a program that talks to GConf to figure
> out what the preferred applications are.  The GDM GUI programs could
> either do this directly, or there could be a helper program that the
> GUI programs talk to in order to launch such programs.

I think that these GUI programms wwwwshould not only be able read the 
preferred applications setting, it should also be able to change the 
settings.



> > > 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.
> >
> > I looked for any standards on the Internet about how the different 
> > Assistive Technologies should be started, but I was not able to 
> > find something really useful yet. Now I wonder if any standards 
> > exists, and if they do exist, whether they are Desktop or even OS 
> > independent.
>
> I think historically, only gnopernicus, dasher, orca and GOK have
> existed.  I believe orca has pretty much replaced gnopernicus.  So
> there hasn't been much overlap until now that we have onscreen.

In other words, if there is not much to choose from, a preferred 
applications setting will not make much sense...

Anyway, as you said, first the effort should go into enabling 
Assistive Technology in the new branch.


Have a nice day.

Francesco