Re: GDM accessibility sans AT-SPI

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Henrik:

> > I suppose it might be possible to code an on-screen keyboard directly
> > into GDM, but this might be more work than you think.  Note GOK supports
> > "dwell" mode so that it works for users who can only manipulate a single
> > button.  Making an on-screen keyboard that supports the same sorts of
> > disabilities that GOK supports might be tricky.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "dwell" mode here. In AT terminology that 
> usually means making mouse clicks by hovering over an area. As far as I 
> know GOK does not have this feature built i, but you can use KmouseTool. 
> We should really get this built into X IMO. You may be thinking of 
> switch operation, of which GOK has a much more advanced implementation 
> than onBoard.

You are incorrect.  GOK supports both direct selection and dwell
selection.  It also supports modes which are designed so that people
who can only push a single button can type.  It has a mode where it
cycles through the rows and highlights them one at a time.  The user
clicks and selects the row they want.  Then it cycles through the
columns and highlights them one at a time.  By clicking again, the
user types a letter.  It has several other modes as well for supporting
unique needs.

While it might be possible to embed a light on-screen-keyboard into
GDM that would meet the needs of some users, it might be too much of
re-inventing the wheel to support all types of users with such a
light on-screen keyboard.

There are two issues here:

1) It would be nice if GDM had a light built in on-screen keyboard
   and better audio promptings so that for environments which are not
   configured to run GOK/Orca could have some support.

   Also better theming for supporting magnification, theme uses fits
   into this area.

2) It is also probably a requirement to allow GOK/Orca to be run
   from the GDM screen to support some use cases.  Users who really
   need advanced features in Orca/GOK, or users who need braille
   support.

> > Text to speech would probably be hard to get working with gdmlogin,
> > gdmgreeter, gdmsetup, gdmchooser and all pop-up dialogs.  While it might
> > be possible to do something that would work okay without AT-SPI, the
> > danger is that users might end up in a situation where they don't know
> > what is going on with the GUI.  The advantage of AT-SPI is that it
> > works better for following the focus and context of what the user is
> > doing. 
>
> I agree that an AT-SPI solution is probably the best if you want to 
> navigate all the menus of GDM and have read out exactly what they 
> contain. I'm just pointing out that adding the spoken line "Welcome to 
> <distro>. Please enter your user name." would be relatively simple to 
> implement (though the login sound almost serves the same purpose).

I think this just requires some thought.  While it may be possible to
make GDM work well for blind users with simple audio promptings, it
probably is more work than just prompting for username/password entry.
Probably the common pop-up dialogs that the user might encounter
("you need to change your password, please enter your password",
"enter it again" for password expiration is one example).  We'd need
to really consider what navigation would need to be supported.  Right
now the minimal audio promptings for "ready to enter password",
"password success" and "password failure" are probably enough for
some users but probably not as feature-full as we'd really want
it to be if we thought it through.

Brian