[orca-list] Flag Days Redux

[Joanmarie Diggs <joanmarie diggs gmail com>]

Hi Gang.

I'm working with David Price trying to get a patch working/verified.  In
the process, we've learned a couple of things -- or one thing really: We
as a team should have been more explicit about the potential impact of
the changes from our past two "flag days."  Please allow me to try to
remedy that now.

Note:  If you are not using the latest trunk, this does not affect you.

At the start of May, we did an overhaul breaking scripts up, moving
them, renaming them, etc.  The reason for this overhaul was to allow
better scalability and maintainability, and hence a better Orca
experience in the long run.  In the short run it means that on systems
where you had pre-overhaul Orca installed, you might now have:

1. Script files hanging around in the wrong place and being found by
Orca before Orca has a chance to look in the new place. 

2. App settings files pointing to settings in the wrong place.

With respect to issue #1 (script files hanging around in the wrong
place):  Should this be the case, Orca will use the old script rather
than the new script -- even though you've checked out and built the
latest trunk, even though the patch was correctly applied.  Doesn't
matter: The old script gets found first and wins.  Therefore, the old
scripts need to go.  And the most reliable way to get them out of there
is to delete them from their installed location.  At least in Ubuntu,
they live in the following location:

/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/Orca

Were it me, I would delete that directory right before doing a sudo make
install to reinstall the latest trunk.  Also, I would be very, very,
very careful about deleting the right directory.  As I mentioned to
David, I was doing some troubleshooting the other day while also talking
on the phone.  As a result, I accidentally removed my *entire*
site-packages directory rather than just the Orca site-packages
directory.  After attempting to sudo apt-get install --reinstall all
things python related, I gave up and just reinstalled my entire system.
> From scratch. Don't be the idiot that I am. <grin>  Delete just that
Orca directory.

Dealing with issue 2 (App settings files pointing to settings in the
wrong place) is far easier -- and less hazardous -- to fix.  In your
~/.orca directory, you may have an app-settings directory with
individual application-specific files (e.g. gnome-terminal.py and
gnome-terminal.pyc).  These files contain individual preferences (like
key echo, punctuation level, pronunciation dictionary, etc.) which you
set at the application level by pressing Control+Orca+Space while using
the application in question.  I *believe* that the only files that are
in danger of pointing to settings in the wrong place are those in which
there are app-unique settings.  By app-unique settings, I mean settings
that *only* exist in a given application and can be found on their own
specific page in the Orca Preferences dialogs.  Thus key echo is *not*
an app-unique setting, even if you configure it for gnome-terminal; in
contrast, whether Gecko is controlling the caret or Orca is, *is* an
app-unique setting.  If you have customized app-unique settings, I would
delete both the *.py and *.pyc files related to that app (e.g.
Mozilla.py and Mozilla.pyc).   If you've customized a ton of settings in
those files and don't want to have to start from scratch, you can edit
the *.py manually.  But rather than explaining that, I'll wait until --
or if -- it comes up.

Finally, note that if you already worked out back in early May that the
above needed doing, issue 2 came up again a few days ago as we had to
tweak the new location of those settings.

Finally, finally:  We realize that, to put it bluntly, changes like the
above suck.  They're a pain for us, and they're a pain for you.  Sure,
some might argue, "that's what you get for living on the bleeding edge."
My response:  I don't care, it's still a pain. <smile>  As a result, we
try hard to avoid inflicting such changes on everyone and only do so
when we really, really believe it needs doing.  And we really appreciate
everyone's patience and tolerance when such changes indeed prove to be
necessary.  Thanks folks!!  (And thanks David for all your help!)

Hopefully all of the above makes sense, but you know where to find us if
you have questions.

Take care.
--Joanie