[g-a-devel] startup of a11y tools

["Matthias Clasen" <matthias clasen gmail com>]

Hey guys,

I've looked today at what it would take us to make the a11y tools that
were running on the login screen carry over into the session, and I'm
coming away somewhat disillusioned about the state of our a11y
support...

Here are some of the issues I found while quickly looking at the a11y
tab in the default-applications capplet and at gnome-at-visual:

- What is the benefit of the somewhat forced categorization into
'visual' and 'mobility' ? How is orca a 'visual' tool ? I always
thought it was a screen reader...

- gnome-at-visual and gnome-at-mobility are two identical scripts (not
symlinks), which do a totally unncessary basename[0] switch.
Interestingly, the switch has a third case, for which we fail to
install the script, The missing case seems to be the one we actually
want for autostart...

- We still don't seem to have a solution for ensuring the a11y modules
are loaded when any a11y tools are configured to run in the session ?
Ie the "enable a11y" checkbox sits on another capplet, and has no idea
that a bunch of a11y tools have been started in the preferred
applications capplet.

Imo an approach like the one taken by Jon McCann in the new gdm a11y
dialog (see  http://live.gnome.org/GDM/Screenshots ) is much more
straightforward and we should look at doing something similar inside
the session.


Matthias