Re: Vetruvian icon on a locked screen

[Francesco Fumanti <francesco fumanti gmx net>]

Hi

First of all, thanks for your replies and sorry that it took me so long to get back to you.

On 02/09/2010 04:50 PM, Willie Walker wrote:
> I agree as well.  I can also imagine a shared machine much like the
> one I have in my kitchen.  With this machine, there is a "switch
> user" option on the locked screen that allows me to get access to my
> account even if someone else has walked away from the machine without
> logging out.  In this case, someone with a disability coming up to
> the locked desktop would need some way to at least be able to
> activate the "switch user" button to get to a new login screen.
>
> So, a consistent a11y mechanism for the login screen, user desktop,
> and screen lock seems like it would make a lot of sense.

For pointer-only users there is another situation besides login, desktop and a locked screen that should be considered, though I am not sure whether it is directly related to this: the situation, where an application goes fullscreen and requires some keyboard input to leave the fullscreen.

Is there some mechanism that an onscreen keyboard can use to remain visible also when an application goes fullscreen?

By the way, many thanks to Brian for telling me about about the possibility of embedding an onscreen keyboard to the gnome-screensaver. We were able to add that functionality to onboard before the feature freeze of Ubuntu lucid.

To come back to a consistent a11y mechanism for the various situations, I suppose that this could be a basis for another problem we already discussed a little: Carrying over ATs from GDM to GNOME session


> On Feb 8, 2010, at 1:09 PM, Brian Cameron wrote:
> > > However, from the perspective of the pointer only user, there is
> > > at least one additional topic that has to be taken into account:
> > > how should he start the onscreen keyboard when the desktop gets
> > > locked after a period of inactivity. My first idea would be to
> > > add the vetruvian man icon, that is already available in GDM,
> > > also to the locked screen.
> >
> > Yes, it would make sense for the lockscreen program to provide an
> > a11y menu for launching AT programs.  It would also make sense for
> > it to be configurable so that users can set it up so that needed
> > a11y programs are automatically launched each time the lockscreen
> > is displayed.  For example, if the user has the on-screen keyboard
> > configured to be automatically started in their user session, then
> > it seems sensible that it should also be available when the lock
> > screen is dislayed.
> >
> > > Among the things that have to be determined are: - What are the
> > > applications that are shipped with GNOME that can lock the
> > > screen? (One of these applications is probably the screensaver.)
> >
> > VT switching also locks the screen when you switch away from a
> > running user session.

For a pointer only user, switching to a virtual terminal will render his computer inaccessible for him, because as far as I know, the user lands in a fullscreen shell with only keyboard input.  Having a way to at least get out of that situation would be great.

On the other hand, let's suppose that a pointer only user has a way to use a virtual terminal. If the main use of a virtual terminal (I don't know what the main use of a virtual terminal is) is to get out of a desktop that got stuck because of a problem, this will probably not be helpful for a pointer only user, because in this case chances are that also the onscreen keyboard will not respond anymore to mouse clicks, making it impossible for him to even get to the virtual terminal.

> > > - I can imagine that some assistive tools (maybe the screen
> > > reader for example) remain active, even if the screen gets
> > > locked.
> >
> > Note that from a Trusted Path perspective, you really do not want
> > programs running as the user to interact with programs that ask
> > for things like system passwords.  Ideally, the lockscreen GUI
> > should be run as a different user than the user whose session is
> > locked.  In this sort of setup, you would not want the a11y
> > programs running in the user session to be able to interact with
> > the lock screen, and would instead want them to be relaunched.
> > However, this could be done automatically so that the user wouldn't
> > notice the switch.
> >
> > Currently, the lock screen programs do not work this way, but it
> > probably makes sense to work towards designing a next generation
> > lock screen that better meets both a11y and Trusted Path
> > requirements.
> >
> > > Consequently, one might argue that the vetruvian man icon with
> > > its corresponding dialog to enable the assistive tools might be
> > > overkill for a locked screen.
> >
> > Not at all.  It is important to provide users with the ability to
> > configure a11y features for the lock screen.  I believe gnome-
> > screensaver already has interfaces for setting it up to work with
> > on-screen keyboards.  Check out the gnome-screensaver FAQ:
> >
> > http://live.gnome.org/GnomeScreensaver/FrequentlyAskedQuestions#Can_I_embed_an_on-screen_keyboard_for_use_with_mobile_devices.3F

Thanks again for telling me about this.

Cheers,

Francesco.