Re: [gdm-list] GDM 2.28 a11y issues




Willie:

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

Great.

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.

Sounds like a good idea to me.  The RFE can highlight that there are a
few different ways to solve the problem (integrate MouseTweaks or make
GDM just support hover directly), and we can discuss how to best
implement this.

- 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).

Since the "gdm" user has its own GConf configuration settings in the
gdm $HOME directory, it should be possible for the gdm user to specify
the commands that are appropriate for the login screen separately from
the user session.  I believe the commands that are used to launch
various default AT programs are stored in GConf, so I would think this
should work.

- 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.

Yes, I'd imagine if you file a bug with a patch that it would get
upstream pretty easily.

- 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)?

The gdm user's $HOME directory is typically /var/lib/gdm (you can check
/etc/passwd to check on your system).  So, it should just be a matter of
setting the right GConf key values in the /var/lib/gdm/.gconf or
/var/lib/gdm/.gconf.mandatory directories.

- 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.

That sounds like a bug, then.  That is odd since the same Xserver
process is used for both the login screen session and the user session.
I'd file a bug so we can look at this.

- 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)?

That would seem reasonable to me.  Though we would need to review the
applet to make sure that it doesn't expose anything inappropriate for
the login screen.

- 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)?

I don't know, hopefully someone else can answer.  Might be a better
question for someone more familiar with the Xserver.

- 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.

We should file a bug about the SlowKeys/BounceKeys issue mentioned above
and I would include this issue in the same report.  I'd bet these are
all related problems.

- 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.

Sounds like a GOK bug, and probably not something that is productive to
discuss in this forum then.

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

It will probably take me a week or so, but I will work on getting this
fixed in the new GDM and will let you know when there are updated
packages for you to test.  It shouldn't be a problem to get this
fixed quickly.  It would help if you could file a bug at
defect.opensolaris.org to help track it.  I believe this is really a
Solaris specific issue, though.  So it is probably better to continue
discussing this issue at defect.opensolaris.org instead of here.

Brian


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