Re: KDE Accessibility - sorry, off topic.

[Olaf Jan Schmidt <ojschmidt kde org>]

Hi Darragh!

Thanks for your comments. It would be nice if you could subscribe to 
kde-accessibility so that we can continue the discussion there.

We are well aware that only a real screen reader addresses the needs of blind 
users. Gary Cramblitt, the main author of kttsd, is currently investigating  
how to best make Orca work with KDE.

But screen readers do not help partially sighted users, users with learning 
difficulties, or people who simply love to have system notifications or IRC 
messages spoken. kttsd is being used successfully by all these user groups.

For example, there is a German company that installs KDE-based computers in 
schools for people with learning difficulties. They are making extensive use 
of kttsd and the other KDE accessibility aids. The big GNOME technologies 
such as GOK, Gnopernicus, Dasher and Orca are far too special-purpose to 
address their needs. They could use a simple on-screen keyboard that responds 
to mouse clicks, but it is very difficult to set up GOK in a way that 
supports this. I hope the new on-screen keyboard (SOK) will be fill this gap.

Our strategy for KDE accessibiilty therefore contains two parts:
1. Help the GNOME accessibility team to extend their assistive technologies 
for KDE applications
2. Write modular accessibility aids that can be combined to help all those 
users that are not sufficiently addressed by the GNOME technologies, such as 
most partially sighted users.

Olaf


[ Darragh ]
> Hello,
>
> I'm sorry but out of curiosity I have a quick question.
>
> >From looking at the KDETTS page shown below it looks like the plan is not
> > to
>
> necessarily have a screen reader for KDE but to try to get indevidual
> application developers to include support for speech output via the KDETTS
> sub-system. I may be reading that wrong. If so, could someone enlighten me?
> It would seem like an absolutely crazy idea to go down that route so I'm
> sure I'm missing something.
>
> In case I'm not, How do the developers of KDETTS think that developers of
> applications will know what information needs to be spoken in their
> applications? Consistancy will go out the window!
>
> http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd/
> Quote from page:
> It is hoped that more programmers will begin adding speech capabilities to
> their KDE programs using KTTS. Eventually, when Qt 4 is distributed, it is
> hoped that Screen Readers will be adapted to use KTTS.
> End of quote.
>
> Second quote:
> Provide a lightweight and easily usable interface for applications to
> generate speech output.
> End of quote.
>
> Quote 3:
> KTTS -- KDE Text-to-Speech -- is a subsystem within the KDE desktop for
> conversion of text to audible speech. KTTS is currently under development
> and aims to become the standard subsystem for all KDE applications to
> provide speech output.
> End of quote.
>
>
> Darragh Ó Héiligh
>      Website development, Application and O/S Technical Support
>      Website:   http://www.digitaldarragh.com
>      Email:     d digitaldarragh com
>      Tel:       +353-87-767-0464
>
>
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> gnome-accessibility-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-list

-- 
Olaf Jan Schmidt, KDE Accessibility co-maintainer, open standards 
accessibility networker, Protestant theology student and webmaster of 
http://accessibility.kde.org/ and http://www.amen-online.de/