GNOME.org
 

Re: [orca-list] FW: Trying Quantal Quetsal Alpha 3

Either separate screen readers or, what I suspect might be much more
realistically attainable, some modifications to Orca that allow
pluggins and the like to be written.  Or, maybe, it's at-spi that
needs the pluggins, I'm not sure.  I do realize that standardization
wil not happen in Linux.  It's a bazaar after all and not a department
store, if you catch my meaning.  I was merely trying to make a point.
anyway, another solution I've pondered would be a special project
solely dedicated to tracking down and "accessifying" all the different
gui libraries in use.  Ok, probably not all since that would be too
wide a scope but, maybe the top 10 with membership in that top 10
determined by how many applications use it and number of users e.g.
applications' popularity.  This project team would then go out and
fetch the source code for these libraries and either make
modifications to the code itself or beef up atk and at-spi such that
all the widgets of said library will provide Orca enough information
to make them usable.  Orca's a good screen reader.  Having a whole
bunch of them pop up all over the place would be reinventing the
wheel.  Better to contribute to making what we already have even
better.  So, as possible solutions, we have:

1.  Orca gets pluggins that make it work with other widget toolkits.
2.  At-spi gets modified to include the pluggins feature (if possible)
3.  A team takes the widget libraries, i.e. wxwidgets, QT, fltk, tk
ETK, x11, Athena, ETC. and methodically takes these one by one
modifying either the libraries themselves or expanding ATK and at-spi
to accomodate them.

Something tells me that the best solution is really some combination
of all 3.  Times like these I really wish I had money, people and time
to dedicate to something like this.  It'd be a worthy project, it
really would.

Alex M


On 8/2/12, Albert Sten-Clanton <albert e sten_clanton verizon net> wrote:

It occurs to me that too much standardization (however much you may think
that is) can take much of the freedom out of free software.  Closed source
may not be the issue, but narrowing too much the the space within which to
change source code very well could be.  Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but
it looks to me as if a high level of standardization will give a great deal
of power to a single entity or group, and the rest of us will be left
mostly
out in the cold void of space unless we go along with that entity's
changing
notions, accessibility usually dragging behind.  (I'll have to do it when I
move to Fedora 17 and a new box, but I'm sure not looking forward to
relearning gnome, as it seems I must.)

Maybe it would be better for a dozen new screen readers to develop, each
especially suited for a particular application or group of applications,
than to try to get one screen reader to work with everything, which I
suspect is difficult or impossible.  Be clear that this is not a comment on
Orca itself, and especially not on the great amount of work that has gone
into it and continues to.  It's a tentative comment on the nature of the
software beast.  I welcome any thoughts on that.

Al

-----Original Message-----
From: orca-list-bounces gnome org [mailto:orca-list-bounces gnome org] On
Behalf Of Alex Midence
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 4:58 PM
To: orca-list gnome org
Subject: [orca-list] FW: Trying Quantal Quetsal Alpha 3



-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Midence [mailto:alex midence gmail com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 3:56 PM
To: 'Andy B.'
Subject: RE: [orca-list] Trying Quantal Quetsal Alpha 3

Why would everything have to be closed source?  Why would concentrating on
four or five libraries and desktops instead of the myriads and myriads out
there so that they can be made accessible to everyone who would want to use
them cause people to stop letting you get your hands on the source code?

Alex M


-----Original Message-----
From: Andy B. [mailto:sonfire11 gmail com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 11:03 AM
To: 'Alex Midence'
Subject: RE: [orca-list] Trying Quantal Quetsal Alpha 3

Then everything would start to be closed source.


-----Original Message-----
From: orca-list-bounces gnome org [mailto:orca-list-bounces gnome org] On
Behalf Of Alex Midence
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 9:32 AM
To: orca-list gnome org
Subject: Re: [orca-list] Trying Quantal Quetsal Alpha 3

Only trouble with all that diversity everyone in Linuxland loves so dearly
is that it makes accessibility problematic.  The overwhelming majority of
Linux graphical environments are not accessible.  Here's a list for you to
sink your teeth into:

IceWm
Fluxbox
XFCE (sorry but noone seems to be able to get it to work) FvWM Sawfish
Sugar
CDE (common in Unix proper environments) Enlightenment Openbox Razor QT
Étoilé Unity 3d (let's not forget that one)

Here's a list of usably accessible desktop environments just so you can
compare:

Gnome
Unity 2d (technically a subsystem of Gnome but, what the heck?) LXDE (only
in Knopix Adrienne)

Now, here's a list of partially or allegedly accessible environments just
to
drive the point home even more:

KDE (you can use it as long as you don't need to enter text anywhere) XFCE
(rumor has it it's usable but has gaps and setting it up to work seems to
be
an unsolved mystery for most of us)

These are some pretty grim discrepancies here especially when you consider
this list of fully accessible commercial one choice environments which get
so maligned in the free software world:

Windows:  More screen readers than you can shake a stick at and very
productively accessible for most tasks.

Mac:  Built in screen reader which gives comparable accessibility on all
devices that run Apple OS variants such as iPhone, iPad, iPod iTouch ETC.
You can litterally walk up to any of them and turn this thing on and use
it.
Even right at the store.

So, there are times, and I know this is an unpopular sentiment around these
parts, there are times, I say, when I wish there wasn't quite so much
choice
of interface available in Linux.  This would centralize things a bit and
make it a more realistically attainable goal for you to be able to walk up
to any Linux computer and get to work on it because its interface, whatever
it may be, will be accessible to you.

Regards,
Alex M


On 8/1/12, Jason White <jason jasonjgw net> wrote:

Thomas Ward <thomasward1978 gmail com> wrote:


Yes, I know. However, I was merely pointing out that the apps menu is
still there in Gnome-shell its just not as easy to get to as it was
in earlier versions of Gnome. Although, I agree with you its often
easier just to type the name of an application into the Dash and have
it locate the launcher in question. This seems to be a fairly common
design feature of modern graphical user interfaces as typing the name
of an app in the start screen on Windows 8 will do the same thing.


Based on what I have read, the influences on Gnome 3 come from a
review of the user interface literature and from developments in
mobile devices, especially touch-screen interfaces. The same
influences appear to be shaping the design of other desktop
environments and operating systems, but by no means all of them.

Its definitely not unusual at all. However, there lies the true power
of open source software. With Linux a person can technically pick the
user interface he or she likes, use the applications they like, and
can have absolute control over the OS where with Mac OS and Windows
what you see is what you get.


Yes, exactly. Also, each of those alternatives will survive and thrive
for as long as there are people with sufficient interest and resources
to maintain and improve the software.

This is very different from a situation in which a single vendor's
business and technical decisions determine what is and is not
available in future releases.

I think diversity of interfaces is desirable and inevitable in the
free and open-source software world. I would argue that one can't have
freedom without creating the conditions for diversity to arise, given
inevitable divergences of needs and preferences, and human creativity.
The idea that there will ever be only one user interface, desktop
environment, etc., is as unrealistic as it is unwelcome.

Accessibility needs to be designed to work well amid this diversity. I
think the widespread acceptance of AT-SPI 2 and its D-Bus APIs (Gnome,
KDE, XFCE, Unity etc.) helps in that process. This really is
unprecedented. Meanwhile, the underlying textual environment inherited
from the UNIX tradition continues to develop, and there are good
access tools for working with it. Then there are environments such as
Emacs and Chromium that have their own access tools (e.g., Emacspeak
and Chromevox, respectively). With these tools it's possible to
provide interfaces that would be much harder to achieve with a screen
reader, because you have access to the internals of the application
and you're creating a special-purpose tool rather than a generalized
assistive technology.

Thus again there are different solutions on offer and that's
ultimately good as well as inevitable.

_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out
how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp


_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to
help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp



_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to
help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp
[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Thread Index] [Date Index] [Author Index]