Re: [orca-list] Can we drop FireVox support in Orca?

[Michael Whapples <mwhapples aim com>]

Hello,
I know that mathml support is probably not something most users will
need, so having it disabled by default is fine. As an indication of how
little it might be used, when I reinstalled linux on one of my machines
(probably a couple of months or so ago) I still haven't reinstalled
firevox, but as I said I may need to in the future (unless another
mathml access system is available). In some ways I think if firevox was
to support speech-dispatcher then orca support wouldn't be needed (as
orca doesn't produce braille output for firevox anyway so nothing would
be lost).

From
Michael Whapples
On Sat, 2008-04-05 at 07:42 -0400, Willie Walker wrote:
> Thanks Michael!  Good enough - we'll keep it.
>
> At a minimum, however, would you be OK with us disabling the support by 
> default and then requiring you to edit your user-settings.py or 
> orca-customizations.py files to re-enable it?  We could alternatively 
> add an enable/disable checkbox to the GUI preferences dialog, but I'd 
> like to avoid exposing it at that level if we can.
>
> Will
>
> Michael Whapples wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I will state one use of firevox which I am unaware of orca providing,
> > but should orca and firefox provide a solution (which in my mind might
> > be more preferrable as the mechanisms which would be used might be able
> > to be used by other software, and braille support might be possible)
> > then firevox support would not be needed. The case I am on about is
> > mathml. Admittedly the firevox support has limitations, it doesn't know
> > all the characters and other more complicated maths stuff, but I feel
> > some access is better than none. I will also admit that currently I am
> > not actively using firevox for this at the moment, but there may be
> > times in the future and in the past where I may/have benefitted from
> > access to mathml documents.
> >
> > I know there may be more important features orca needs and there may be
> > very good reasons for dropping this support, so I hope you will use the
> > above while making the decission, so as to improve orca in the best way
> > with the resources available.
> >
> > Michael Whapples
> > On Fri, 2008-04-04 at 16:42 -0400, Willie Walker wrote:
> > > Hey All:
> > >
> > > Before your heart stops and your flaming fingers start typing: that's 
> > > Charles Chen's FireVox with a 'V'.  Not Mozilla's Firefox.
> > >
> > > Is anyone depending upon Orca for FireVox's speech synthesis output? 
> > > The support is currently done via a hacky HTTP server in Orca and I'm 
> > > considering getting rid of that server for various reasons.  The main 
> > > impact will be on FireVox users that use Orca for the TTS output -- I'm 
> > > guessing there are no real users of this feature, but I want to be sure.
> > >
> > > Please only respond if you are using this feature and it will impact you 
> > > negatively if it goes away.
> > >
> > > Will
> > >
> > > PS - Again, please respond only if this will have a negative impact on 
> > > you.  Here's an example of a response that will not help: "The HTTP 
> > > server support in Orca is bad.  You suck."
> >
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