Re: [g-a-devel]gok/gnopernicus questions

[David Bolter <david bolter utoronto ca>]

Hi Brian,

Brian Cameron wrote:
> Okay, I have collected a good bit of information about GOK and 
> Gnopernicus in relation to the following questions that I asked about a 
> week ago:
>
> 1. What preference options are available in gnopernicus and gok
>    which are necessary requirements in order for these programs
>    to be useful to people with disabilities?
>
> 2. Could the gnopernicus team provide me with a list of braille
>    displays that are currently supported?
>
> 3. What i18n issues exist in gok & gnopernicus.  My understanding is
>    that gnopernicus only supports English voices with text-to-speech,
>    that the braille display currently only supports Latin characters
>    and that certain Gok XML files have not yet been translated, and
>    that there are issues with translating them due to the length
>    of the files.  Is this a full/accurate understanding of the
>    existing l10n/i18n/g11n issues in gok & gnopernicus?
>
> The responses that I got included the following information.  I am 
> wondering if anybody has any more information or detail to add.  Thanks 
> much
>
> Brian
>
> --summary follows--
>
> + Peter Korn highlighted that Gnopernicus has the following Braille
>   Display support:
>
>   Gnopernicus directly supports the BAUM Vario (20, 40, & 80), the BAUM
>   DM80, BAUM INKA, and ALVA 380, 544, and 570 displays (see the BAUM
>   Braille device dialog).  Thanks to a patch from the folks at BrlTTY,
>   Gnopernicus supports a much larger list of displays - everything that
>   BrlTTY supports - when the user has BrlTTY installed and active.  That
>   list is maintain at: http://mielke.cc/brltty/details.html#displays
>   Currently (in version 3.3.1) it is:
>
>   * Alva B.V.: ABT3xx, Delphi, Satellite
>   * Baum: Vario/RBT 40/80 (emulation 1/2)
>   * Blazie Engineering: BrailleLite 18/40/M40
>   * EuroBraille: AzerBraille, Clio, Iris, NoteBraille, Scriba
>   * Handialog: VisioBraille 2040
>   * Handy Tech Elektronik GmbH: Bookworm, Braille Star 40/80,
>     Braille Wave, Modular 20/40/80,
>   * La O.N.C.E.: EcoBraille 20/40/80
>   * MDV: MB208/MB408L/MB408S (protocol 5)
>   * Papenmeier: Tiny, Compact, Compact 486, 2D Lite, 2D Screen Soft,
>     EL 2D-40, EL 2D-66, EL 2D-80, EL 40, EL 80, Elba 20, Elba 32,
>     IB 80 CR Soft
>   * Pulse Data International: BrailleNote 18/32
>   * Telesensory Systems Inc.:
>     Navigator 20/40/80 (latest firmware version only),
>     PowerBraille 40/65/80
>   * Tactilog: LogText
>   * Tieman B.V.: CombiBraille 25/45/85, MiniBraille 20,
>     MultiBraille MB125CR/MB145CR/MB185CR, Voyager 44/70 (USB)
>   * Tiflosoft: VideoBraille 40
>
>   Thanks to BrlTTY, Gnopernicus supports more Braille devices than any
>   other graphical screen reader "on the planet" (my favorite phrase of
>   the week).
>
>   The current PRD only mentions two Braille Displays.  Do we want to
>   mention a more complete list?
>
> + David Bolter from the GOK team highlighted that the ability the choose
>   scanning speed is an important GOK preference that we can consider
>   mentioning in the PRD.

Sorry about this miscommunication. Scan speed was just an example and 
was actually not quite correct. I think the following gok preferences 
are important to gok's audience:

Key Size (width and height), and Key Spacing.
The ability to override gok's theme colours and use the default desktop 
theme.
The ability to Define Actions.
The ability to select hardware input (Event Source).
The ability to select an Access Mmethod (currently there is "Direct. 
Selection", "Dwell", "Automatic Scanning", and "Inverse Scanning").
The ability to assign actions to the operations of the access method.
The ability to assign feedback to the operations of the access method.

For the scanning access methods types (Inverse and Automatic) the "Scan 
Delay", "Scanning Direction" and "Cycles Before Stoppign" are important 
preferences.

If you would like screen shots or other detail, please don't hesitate.

You can launch gok with the command line "gok --settings" if you want to 
make sure you can access the preferences dialog and confirm details.

good luck!

David
> + Not sure if it needs mention in the PRD, but a good summary about the
>   remaining i18n/l10n/g11n limitations came out of this discussion.
>   These include:
>
>   + Gnopernicus does not support non-English voices.  Sun currently only
>     supports the English TTS engine called FreeTTS.  William Walker at
>     Sun is looking at providing additional voices.  Gnopernicus can use
>     gnome-speech instead of FreeTTS which has drivers for DECTalk and
>     Eloquence, which do support other languages.  However, the a11y team
>     has so far not been testing the use of Gnopernicus in this way.
>   + Gnopernicus does not support multi-locale braille
>   + According to Peter Korn, Gnopernicus has Braille trasnlation tables
>     for English, German, Spanish, and Swedish.  Braille in the
>     non-European languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese and Chinese are
>     somewhat more complex.  I know BAUM has translation tables for
>     Arabic and Hebrew because they sell Windows products localized to
>     those languages (I think they are the only Braille vendor for those
>     markets).
>
>   + In GOK, the locale-specific keyboards for GOK have not been
>     localized.  The layout for these keyboards is stored in XML
>     files that are too large to be localized in the manner that
>     XML files are normally localized.  Bill has been working with
>     Mike Twomey to try and find a resolution for this problem.
>
> Brian