Re: [orca-list] Getting started with Orca scripting

["Krishnakant Mane" <hackingkk gmail com>]

On 17/05/2008, Willie Walker <William Walker sun com> wrote:
> > willi, if you remember I asked on this list a few days back about how
> > I can get back to orca hacking.
> > I read the arketecture page and feel pritty comfortable.
>
> I definitely need to do more work on both the architecture and script
> documentation.  It's on the list for GNOME 2.24.
the document might not be uptodate perhaps, but it is really well written.
> >   My question
> > now is a bit more specific.
> > I have to start scripting orca and my particular interest is firefox
> > thunderbird and openoffice.
>
> Ha!  So...pick the absolute hardest things to script first.  :-)
what to do?  they are the once which put accessibility in gnu/linux a
step backward as compared to windows, microsoft office etc.  And I
can't take that for free software.  It then becomes a kind of duty to
help the community and ease the way to attain freedom.
I really hait it when people say some thing like "ok gnome
accessibility is fine and I would use gnu/linux for some mundain tasks
but would have duel boot so that critical and complicated things can
be done in windows, because in office acccessibility windows rocks".
this is such a feeling of defeat and helplessness.  So I want to see
to it that in a few months at least, people should not have dual boot
machines with windows to do "mission critical complex things ".
If sited people can exclusively use gnu/linux or open solaris and be
totally independent of windows then why should blind users not get the
same kind of freedom?  and if that does not happen then shame on us.


> > now I want to know if there is some starting point where I can re
> > start to learn the way it is scripted?
>
> If you have some other smaller apps to try first, you might have better
> success.  Each of OOo, Firefox, and Thunderbird has its own, ahem,
> unique interaction models, making them somewhat complex to work with.
yes wili, I am aware of the ff model in particular and I know it is a
bit different since ff is directly implementing atk, and the dom tree
for accessibility in ff is a bit complex.
by the way talking about small applications, I beleive off late pidgin
is not as accessible as it was before.  Don't know what has happened
but I don't feel nice to use pidgin now a days with hardi and the
respective orca version.
for example, now I can't hold down f6 and move the up and down arrows
to read history.
the insert and f1, f2... keys are ok to some extent and flat review
works only untill there are not a lot of messages to read.
So may be I might look at it to start with.
But still a few things are pritty basic and they need to happen in
openoffice.  for example I have said this time and time again, I don't
find a way to get the current page number in openoffice writer and
sheet in calc.
in the proprietory screen readers this works pritty well.
also as far as firefox is concerned, I see a lot of issues like not
having a proper way to navigate between frames like structure created
on a web page with the use of <div> tag.
Further there has to be a way of navigating between tabs.  look at the
zmi or plone in particular.
I feel it will be very selfish on my part to just complain and not do
any thing about the problems which are really serious.  Why expect all
the time to have some one else solve your complaines?  this is free
software afterall.



> If you have some specific things you want to start with, though, we
> could try to discuss ways to approach them in the code.
see above in my comments.  I have mentioned a lot of "specific " problems.
> Will
happy hacking.
Kk
>