[g-a-devel] Making Orca the default screen reader?

["Al Puzzuoli" <alpuzz gmail com>]

Hi all,

Just wondering what would need to happen in order to get Orca officially 
added as part of the desktop, and to ultimately have it become the default 
screen reader for the gnome environment?
I understand that gnome 2.14 was just released, and that Orca itself is 
still in prerelease status, so, this obviously wouldn't be a decision that 
would be made over night.  however, I believe this should be given strong 
consideration for a number of reasons:

Orca is scriptible.  The advantages of that fact alone are quite apparent. 
Although the program is still in its infancy, look at the level of 
accessibility it has already provided to popular desktop applications, such 
as Evolution, GAIM, and star office, just to name a few.  Once the community 
begins scripting applications in earnest, the possibilities will be exciting 
to say the least.

It functions well out of the box, and there is virtually no learning curve. 
Most applications that feature a standard UI just work.  The contents of 
dialogs are for the most part read automatically, and if need be, flat 
review mode provides a very intuitive means by which to
explore applications in greater detail.

Over all, I think most of us who have used the program thus far would agree 
that it already offers the most comfortable UI, as well as significantly 
more power and flexibility than the alternatives.


Again, I'm not sure how this process works, but if the input of the user 
community carries any weight, then I definitely count myself as someone who 
would like to see this happen.

--Al