Re: [gdm-list] questions about the mobility a11y in gdm 2.26 in Ubuntu

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Francesco:

> GDM 2.26 has arrived in the development version of Ubuntu 9.10 (Ubuntu
> karmic) and I have a few questions:
>
> - Currently, when I enable the onscreen keyboard, gok appears on the 
> screen. Is there any configuration file, where I can replace gok by 
> another onscreen keyboard?

Some information about configuring acessibility is here:

http://library.gnome.org/admin/gdm/2.26/configuration.html.en#accessibilityconfiguration

I believe that GDM will simply launch whatever is the "Preferred
Application" for the "gdm" user for magnifier, on-screen keyboard, or
screen reader.  So you would likely need to modify the "gdm" user's
$HOME GConf configuration to specify this.

I don't know the keys off the top of my head, but if you get this
working it would be handy if you could do a write-up of what you
changed.  Then we could add this sort of information to the docs.

> - Is the dialog, where the user can choose the accessibility tool 
> configurable? Particularly, is it for example possible to add more items 
> to it by editing a configuration file?

I don't believe this is currently available.  It would be a good
enhancement, though.

> - In the EaseOfAccess page on GNOME Live, there is also talk about dwell 
> clicking: http://live.gnome.org/GDM/EaseOfAccess. As there currently is 
> not a "Software Click" item in the a11y dialog, I wonder whether it 
> still has to be implemented?

I believe you can use mousetweaks for dwell clicking.  It would be good
to enhance GDM to make it easier for users to access this.

http://projects.gnome.org/accessibility/screencasts.html

> - In GDM 2.22, there was gdmsetup to configure GDM. Is there anything 
> similar in GDM 2.26?

No, there are some efforts currently to address this.

  http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=553250

> - I have seen that "dwellmouselistener" is called in 
> /etc/gdm/custom.conf. Does it mean that the accessibility tools can be 
> started by mouse gestures in GDM 2.26 as it was the case in GDM 2.22? If 
> so, could you please tell me in what file the gestures are defined for 
> GDM 2.26?

GDM 2.20 and earlier supported this.  The new GDM does not provide any
mechanism for users to launch AT programs except via the dialog.  It
would be good to enhance both GDM and the normal GNOME user session to
support this sort of feature.  Some people have suggested it would be
best to implement this in gnome-settings-daemon so it would work
consistently in GDM and a normal GNOME user session.

> Maybe there is already some documentation available for GDM 2.26 
> addressing the questions above.

The docs are here:

  http://library.gnome.org/admin/gdm/2.26/

Brian