Re: GTK & SOUND

[Bill Haneman <bill haneman ireland sun com>]

Hi Vlad:

I (personally) take your point that sound stuff is useful as well as
cool.

[Bill dusts off the soapbox...]

However please keep in mind (as we all should when creating visual
interfaces, animations, etc.) that it's important to be able to expose
the same information in other ways.  

If sound *were* to become part of GTK, or any other toolkit, it would
be best to use signals or a similar technique so that alternate
notifications could be implemented for hearing-impaired.

The "flashing screen" is sort of the lowest-common-denominator,
corresponding to the system beep for audio.  AccessX or a similar
technology allows system beeps to be mirrored with screen flashes, but
when other types of audio notification are used then other ways of
providing this information in an alternate way need to be developed.

I imagine you consider the sound optional, which is fine, but in order
to comply with accessibility regulations "all" meaningful features of
a user interface must be accessible via alternate means.  Until now we
haven't had to worry too much about alternate audio (except for
content providers - for instance if web pages use audio they should
provide closed-captioning) but if as you suggest the different sounds
convey different messages, then the information they convey should be
made available via another means as well.

(If one thinks about it, the idea that an audio "message" from an
inactive/invisible desktop is audible is a little inconsistent, albeit
useful.  How come desktops don't have separate audio as well as video
contexts?)

-Bill
-- 
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Bill Haneman
Gnome Accessibility / Batik SVG Toolkit
Sun Microsystems Ireland