Re: [gdm-list] GDM 2.28 a11y issues

[Willie Walker <William Walker Sun COM>]

Thanks Brian and Mattias:

> > - A metacity error dialog appears when I log in.  The dialog contains 
> > a table.  The title of the table is 'These windows do no support "save 
> > current setup" and will have to be restarted manually next time you 
> > log in.'   The table consists of two columns. The first column is 
> > 'Class' and the second column is 'Window'.  The sole entry in the 
> > table is 'Login Window'/'Gdm-simple-greeter'.
>
> This is related to bugzilla bugs #587732 and #598235.  On Solaris, I
> backed out the fix for bug #587732 on Solaris since losing focus in
> the login GUI is a serious problem.
>
> If you rebuild SUNWgnome-wm.spec on Solaris, then the problem should go
> away.  It has been modified to remove the dialog until a better fix for
> the above problems is found.

The rebuild/install of SUNWgnome-wm.spec fixed the problem.  Thanks!

> > - The a11y icon should be in a corner of the screen to allow for more 
> > easy mouse access.  Right now, it's tucked somewhere in the middle of 
> > the panel.
>
> This sounds like something that we should file a bug about.
>
> > - The a11y icon should allow a 'hover' operation similar to the icon 
> > used to enable MouseTweaks in the MouseTweaks applet.  When the icon 
> > is activated via a hover operation, MouseTweaks should be enabled in 
> > 'hover mode' and the a11y dialog should open.
>
> We should have better hover support.  Is the right fix to make GDM just
> work this way and respond to hover directly, or would it make more sense
> to just integrate MouseTweaks so that it always runs with GDM?

Integrating MouseTweaks in the panel is a great idea, and I think that 
would be a sufficient solution.  In addition, the MouseTweaks 'hover' 
area is probably the thing that we'd want to put in the lower left 
instead of the a11y icon.

I can open an RFE for this if this seems reasonable to everyone.

> > - There are no keyboard shortcuts or mouse gestures to launch the a11y 
> > dialog.  Instead, need to Ctrl+Alt+Tab to panel and navigate to the 
> > icon and activate it.
>
> That does seem awkward.  There should be a nicer way to launch the
> dialog via a keyboard shortcut, I think.  This sounds like something
> that we should file a bug about.

Thanks!  https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=599093

> > - There are no shortcuts to launch any assistive technology.  We 
> > probably need a community discussion about these if the same gestures 
> > are to be available at the login screen and the user session.
>
> I think these issues would really best be fixed by addressing the
> problems in gnome-control-center and gnome-settings-daemon so that
> these sorts of features work in the user session as well as the GDM
> login session.  See here:
>
>   https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=531595
>   https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=531596

Mattias also wrote "We do have the framework in place for these now. If 
you open the keybinding capplet, there is a section for 'Accessibility' 
shortcuts, with 'Toggle magnifier', 'Toggle screen reader' and 'Toggle 
on-screen keyboard'.  We just need to set suitable values for these and 
enable them in the gdm session."

Would these be for the gdm session only, or would they have to apply to 
the gdm session and user session?  The reason I ask is that the 
requirements and behavior of the assistive technology can be different 
between the login screen and the user session.  For example, GOK has a 
"login" mode, and we also will launch Orca a bit differently so it won't 
interfere with the login screen (i.e., we want to launch Orca without a 
main window on the login screen).

> > - The magnifier launches the 'magnifier' application instead of Orca 
> > (Orca's magnification is preferred because it follows keyboard focus). 
> > The magnifier also comes up in split screen mode instead of full 
> > screen mode.
>
> This should just involve modifying the file
> /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/gnome-mag.desktop to call the
> appropriate program instead of calling "magnifier -v -m".  If you
> want to propose a patch, I would think this would get accepted upstream
> without much issue.

I'll take a look.  Modifying this to launch Orca with "--enable 
magnifier" should be pretty simple to do.

> > - The gdm screen is launched without accessibility enabled.  As a 
> > result, GTK+ does not appear to load the a11y modules and the 
> > at-spi-registryd is not launched.  This yields the login screen 
> > inaccessible.  a11y probably should be enabled by default for the gdm 
> > screen, and this would hopefully fix the issues.
>
> If you want to enable a11y in GDM by default, you just need to set the
> GConf key to turn it on for the "gdm" user.  The same key that gets
> set when you run Preferences->Assistive Technologies and click the
> checkbox next to "Enable assistive technologies".

Does this mean the gdm user now has a specific gconf area for itself? 
If so, where is the suggested place to set the default values for gdm 
(vs. the normal user session)?

> > - SlowKeys and BounceKeys features don't seem to work, but StickyKeys 
> > does.
>
> Do they not work at all, or they just do not work via the a11y menu?
> Don't these features support Xserver hotkeys to launch them?  Do the
> hotkeys work?  Do they work once the user session starts?  In other
> words, are they only broken at the GDM login screen?

They work once the user session starts, but not at the GDM login screen. 
 I'm not sure, but I wonder if those dialogs that warn you about a 
feature being turned on or off have a side effect?  These dialogs appear 
on the user session, but not the gdm login screen.

> > - When any of the AccessX keys are enabled, the "Keyboard 
> > Accessibility Status" applet should appear in the panel (it currently 
> > does not).  This applet provides the user with AccessX feedback, such 
> > as which modifiers are latched/locked.
>
> That seems a reasonable enhancement request, and something that would be
> good to file a bug about.

What if we just had the applet always installed (as we would do with 
MouseTweaks)?

> > - Ctrl+Alt+Backspace doesn't seem to work any more (maybe an X Server 
> > configuration issue?).
>
> This is not really a GDM issue.  This is managed by the Xserver
> configuration.

Mattias also wrote: "This got converted from a server configuration 
thing to a regular xkb action."  Was that a change caused by something 
actively done somewhere in GNOME or somewhere else (e.g., the X Server 
folks made a modification in some X server revision)?

> > - Entering Ctrl, Alt, Tab in sequence when StickyKeys is enabled 
> > doesn't seem to permit the selection of the bottom panel.  It should.
>
> Again, this sounds like an Xserver issue.

Odd.  It seems to work in the user session.

> > - The GOK keyboard does not reflect the physical keyboard layout (it 
> > probably should -- if not possible, it probably should reflect a 
> > PC-101/PC-102/etc. layout).  Instead, it's a minimal A-Z keyboard.  
> > This simplified keyboard does not include an "Alt" key.
>
> Is this an issue specific to launching GOK when GDM is running, or is
> this a problem in the user session as well?

This one does seem to be a general GOK/XKB interaction problem.  GOK 
fails to pick up the keyboard layout for both the desktop and login screen.

> > - No audio cues seem to be given.  We should have a login screen sound 
> > enabled by default.  This might be an audio permissions or 
> > configuration problem on my machine.
>
> I am not sure, but I do not think this feature was ever ported to the
> new GDM.  If it has, you might be running into the audio permissions
> issue I mention below.
>
> > - Speech doesn't work.  It seems to launch, but no output is sent to 
> > the speakers.  Running 'test-speech' as the gdm user from a shell 
> > logged in via a different machine also seems to result in no speech.  
> > Note that the speech synthesis process runs, so this might be an audio 
> > permissions or configuration issue.
>
> If you are testing on Solaris, it might be a permissions issue.  The old
> GDM used to call /usr/bin/setfacl to add the gdm user to the /dev/audio
> and /dev/audioctl device permissions.  I wonder if that needs to be
> ported to the new GDM also.

Yep - most likely a permissions issue:

wwalker osol:~$ ls -lL /dev/audio*
crw------- 1 wwalker staff 238, 3 2009-10-16 09:06 /dev/audio
crw------- 1 wwalker staff 238, 4 2009-10-16 09:06 /dev/audioctl

Thanks!

Will