Text alternatives and GtkPixbuf [Was: GNOME Launches Campaign for Accessibility]

[Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis <bhawkeslewis googlemail com>]

On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 1:24 AM, Bill Cox <waywardgeek gmail com> wrote:
> Because several e-mails on this topic have attacked my emotional
> response to my patch to pixmap objects being rejected, I want to
> explain my philosophy about GUI objects and a11y.  If an object is
> going to be displayed on the screen, I feel extremely strongly that
> the programmer using that object should have the opportunity to attach
> a text description to that object.  Not only does pixmap not allow
> this, but GTK uses pixmap objects in all lists, tables, and tree
> displays, which is why no icon in any list, table, or tree in any
> single GTK program says anything other than "icon".  Any programmer
> who takes the time to examine how GTK programs are typically written
> can come to any conclusion other than pixmap objects are a fundamental
> core object, used just about everywhere, and that the programmers
> using them are not to blame for not making accessible descriptions.
> GTK doesn't allow it.
>
> This is why the icons on the Qt version of Unity talk.  They rock.  Is
> there any way to get through to the GTK team that displayed objects
> need an opportunity for accessible descriptions?

The maintainer on the bugs for which you provided patches agreed that
GTK should provide that opportunity.

But they argued that text alternatives should be stored in the data
structures containing GtkPixBuf, not in the GtkPixBuf data structure
itself.

The equivalent structure in QT appears to be QPixmap, and as far as I
can tell this does not contain text alternatives either:

   https://developer.qt.nokia.com/doc/qt-4.8/qpixmap.html

So I'm sceptical of your analysis of why the Qt icons talk, but maybe
you can elaborate on how this works in terms of the QT data structure
hierarchy?

What would be the problem with adding text alternatives higher in the
GTK object hierarchy, for example at the GtkCellRendererPixBuf level?

   http://developer.gnome.org/gtk/2.24/GtkCellRendererPixbuf.html

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis