Re: [g-a-devel]Support for Color in ATK

["Draghi Puterity" <mp baum de>]

I think we should ask ourselves the following question:

"Can I have in a well behaved GTK application a widget which has a red
text/background and another widget with let's say a blue text/background?"

If the answer is yes, then I think we need widget colors, because the blind
user should be able to distinguish between them. I also don't think that a
widget color will always express a state, it can be colored just to improve
app readability or to offer some extra (maybe app specific state)
information. A red button could mean in a given app or context "enabled" in
an other "disabled" but the difference is stil relevant for the blind user.
Or think for example at a viteotext app which could have four coloured and
unnamed buttons. Talking on a broader accessibillity scale, some apps could
use coloured widgets for iliterate users (so if SUN wants contracts from the
White House... ;-) ).

I don't know the "good behaviour rules" of GTK, but if using different
colors for widgets in a GTK app would make us say to the app programmers
that this is an ill-behaved app, I think they would laugh us at best. As
always, I'm not aware of what is really doable in the current time-frame and
of the costs of doing it. I just wanted to present my point of view from the
blind user perspective.

Draghi

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Haneman" <bill haneman sun com>
To: "Draghi Puterity" <mp baum de>
Cc: <gnome-accessibility-devel gnome org>; <Padraig Obriain sun com>
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 1:22 PM
Subject: Re: [g-a-devel]Support for Color in ATK


> Draghi Puterity wrote:
> >
> > Hi, and a happy new year !
> >
> > My oppinion is that color is important for accessibility.
> >
> > We will also certainly have (missbehaved?) applications which will use
color
> > to denote some kind of state (BearShare under Windows is comming into my
> > mind - you have some kind of coloured progress bars which denotes the
server
> > bandwith [progbar color] and the available slots [progbar width]). But
there
> > will be more like this, I'm sure.
>
> This is not reason to expose color information in our accessibility
> interfaces; the information exposed should be state information.
>
> Realize that in situations like this we must (internally in the
> accessibility support libraries) obtain the color information from the
> UI components in the first place, which will not always be possible for
> ill-behaved applications.  Behaviors like this are accessibility bugs
> which should be logged against the applications themselves.
>
> The point I am trying to make here is that the presence of explicit
> color information in our API is not the same as being able to
> expose/provide that information for a given application.  Ill-behaved
> applications can and do use non-GTK-widget means of displaying color, in
> which case we cannot provide that information without source changes to
> the application, in which case it is preferable to expose the state
> information via other means than color.
>
> In other words in the more ill-behaved situations we can't get to the
> color information anyway, we should not expose color unless there is a
> general case for it, not just as a solution for ill-behaved
> applications.  The situation we face is very different from the Windows
> cases in which we sniff/snoop existing APIs to get this information.
>
> Regards,
>
> Bill
>
> > RGB format will be enough. An acessibility utility would present a
number
> > predefined color like "red", "light blue" and so on and/or the RGB
triplet
> > itself.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Draghi
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Bill Haneman" <Bill Haneman sun com>
> > To: <gnome-accessibility-devel gnome org>; <Padraig Obriain sun com>
> > Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 3:07 PM
> > Subject: Re: [g-a-devel]Support for Color in ATK
> >
> > >
> > > >Delivered-To: gnome-accessibility-devel gnome org
> > > >From: "Padraig O'Briain" <Padraig Obriain sun com>
> > > >To: gnome-accessibility-devel gnome org
> > > >Subject: [g-a-devel]Support for Color in ATK
> > > >X-BeenThere: gnome-accessibility-devel gnome org
> > > >X-Loop: gnome-accessibility-devel gnome org
> > > >X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.6
> > > >List-Help:
> > <mailto:gnome-accessibility-devel-request gnome org?subject=help>
> > > >List-Post: <mailto:gnome-accessibility-devel gnome org>
> > > >List-Subscribe:
> > <http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-devel>,
> > > <mailto:gnome-accessibility-devel-request gnome org?subject=subscribe>
> > > >List-Id: Technical discussions and patches for at-spi, gail, and ATs
> > > <gnome-accessibility-devel.gnome.org>
> > > >List-Unsubscribe:
> > <http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-devel>,
> > >
<mailto:gnome-accessibility-devel-request gnome org?subject=unsubscribe>
> > > >List-Archive:
<http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-accessibility-devel/>
> > > >Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 13:48:07 +0000 (GMT)
> > > >
> > > >Currently the only support for color in ATK is the text attributes
> > > >ATK_TEXT_ATTR_FG_COLOR and ATK_TEXT_ATTR_BG_COLOR.
> > > >
> > > >Do we need to be able to support getting and setting of foreground
and
> > > >background colours for accessible objects which implement
AtkComponent?
> > >
> > > My opinion is no, since the color information, to the extent that is
is
> > meaningful,
> > > should be reflected in the STATE information (AtkState).  For
well-behaved
> > components
> > > the colors should be obtained from the GTK theme on the basis of the
> > widgets state (see
> > > gtkstyle.c).  We probably should check to see that our AtkStates are
> > currently
> > > reflecting the widget state information.
> > >
> > > There may be a case to be made for obtaining colors in order for, for
> > instance, a blind
> > > or color-blind person to make sense of instructions like "press the
green
> > button...",
> > > but again the real accessibility issue here is probably the use of
color
> > as a sole means
> > > of conveying information.  In the absence of such accessibility "bugs"
the
> > exposure of
> > > color information via ATK seems much less useful.  Anyway, what should
we
> > present to the
> > > user, an RGB triplet?  It's  not clear how helpful that would be to
the
> > end user, or
> > > what an assistive technology would do with the information.
> > >
> > > -Bill
> > >
> > > >Padraig
> > > >
> > > >_______________________________________________
> > > >Gnome-accessibility-devel mailing list
> > > >Gnome-accessibility-devel gnome org
> > > >http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-devel
> > >
> > > ------
> > > Bill Haneman x19279
> > > Gnome Accessibility / Batik SVG Toolkit
> > > Sun Microsystems Ireland
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Gnome-accessibility-devel mailing list
> > > Gnome-accessibility-devel gnome org
> > > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-devel