Re: [orca-list] my thoughts/decisions about orca

[Steve Holmes <steve holmes88 gmail com>]

On Tue, Dec 06, 2011 at 09:29:03AM +1100, Jason White wrote:
> As to Orca and the Gnome accessibility project in general, I think a lack of
> developers following the decline of interest from Sun and IBM has truly taken
> a toll, despite the admirable efforts of the community to keep pace with
> changes in desktop environments and applications while improving Orca
> significantly.
>
> In the long term, I worry that unless more experienced and capable developers
> can be attracted to these projects, they fall into a semi-maintained state in
> which there are too many bugs to make them viable for daily and productive
> use. At the moment, we're relying on a small number of highly committed, very
> accomplished people to do most of the work, which isn't healthy over the long
> run.

+1 for the comments above.  In addition, I really wish one could find
some good well agregated information on how to develope for ggnome
a11y and the infrastructure that Orca needs to behave in.  If this
were clearer and easier to track down, maybe more people could get
involved without so much specialization or in depth training before
anything can be accomplished.  I learned some by having conversations
in the past with Joannie and other misc readings so I can understand
basically how orca scripts work and their hierarchy but as for the
relationship between other applications through at-spi and friends,
that's where it goes way over my head in a hury.  I personally think
if the a11y structure wasn't so complicated, many more people could
get involved in getting things to work properly.  No wonder software
developers in general thumb their noses at a11y issues.  they are
probably clueless on what proper steps to follow.  Even Web
Accessibility Initiative documentation buried me in the mud with
convoluted talk and dep writings.  I guess I'm a simple minded guy who
likes clear and concise information and not a bunch of deep theory
before learning a simple step.