Re: [orca-list] [Kde-accessibility] Menu bar in qt apps in Ubuntu Precise

[Alex Midence <alex midence gmail com>]

Hi, Krishnakant

Please see my responses to your questions inline in the quoted message
below.  Be warned, it's rather long.


Thanks.

Alex M



On 3/4/12, hackingKK <hackingkk gmail com> wrote:
> Hi Alex,
> If you are intending to make a virtual machine available, I would be
> interested in testing it.

Great!  That's the idea, actually.  Thank you for being willing to do
so.  The more of us get in on this sort of thing, the better we are
able to provide useful and constructive feedback to those who are
working so hard on improving accessibility in these areas.

> Will you provide a virtual hard disk which I can put into a virtual box
> and run it/

Not virtualbox.  I don't use it.  I use VmWare so, the virtual machine
is in vmware format.

> I use Ubuntu 11.04 and will be shifting to 12.04 in most cases.
> would you suggest giving KDE and qt apps a try for production use?

No.  As of right now, accessibility in them is still in the beginning
stages so, I do not recommend them for production use.  This is why
I'm proposing a virtual machine and not an iso people can install.
What I am making is absolutely *not* to be used as somebody's primary
desktop.  It is intended to provide people with a platform on which to
test qt applications and also to explore KDE, XFCE, Unity and Gnome
along with all associated applications.  As a testing system, I think
it's quite good.  As a production system, it is far too close to the
bleeding edge, massively bloated and in dire need of being slimmed
down with redundant applications uninstalled.  It's not even using a
stable Linux distribution but, a testing version of Ubuntu Precise
scheduled for release in April.

Having said that, I bet it won't be long at all before KDE aps can be
used for production because a lot of work is being done on them in
this area.  There's a mentorship program that will go into effect this
summer for people who use assistive technology to provide developers
feedback and guidance in omptimizing accessibility for KDE and its
apps in this regard.  If you are wanting to start using these apps for
production use quickly, I suggest you reach out to them and offer your
assistance as I'm sure you have a lot to offer being a long time Orca
user as you are.

> Further I also have a question on accessibility of various apps.
> I wish to know if I can use libre office, firefox, and other apps with
> the same accessibility like that of gnome with orca?

I've been focusing my attention on native qt apps so, I don't know.  I
imagine they work just the same from KDE as they do from Gnome insofar
as accessibility is concerned.  I don't think they turn into qt apps
while run from there or something but, I am no expert so, I could be
wrong.

> Further more, is VlC going to be accessible?

I haven't tried vlc yet.  I've tried Amarok media player and found it
fairly accessible.  Download the vm when I make it availalbe and try
it out.  I'm personally partial to Rhythmbox as my music player but I
rather liked Amarok.
<snip>

> Also interesting will be to see if programming tools like eclipse are
> accessible on KDE desktop with qt apps.

Eclipse is not qt-based.  It's an swt-based application written in
pure Java which uses the gtk+ port of swt to render its widgets in
x-windows.  I would be greatly surprised to find that it has been
affected in any way by qt apps being accessible.  I suspect turning on
accessibility in KDE's configuration utilities should make sure it can
be used properly with Orca.   Now, I have heard excellent things about
KDevelop, the IDE for KDE.  As someone who dabbles in c++ from time to
time, I am enormously intrigued by it and intend to explore it at
first opportunity.  There are other qt-based developer tools like
Gambas and Eric which I'd like to look into as well for things like
Python.

I hope I've answered your questions.  I'm talking with some people now
about hosting the vmware folder archive containing the multi-desktop
installation.  Hopefully, there'll be more than one person who hosts
it and these people will be all over the world which should facilitate
downloads in theory.  It's a truly massive file at 2.5 GB and takes an
eternity to download under the best of conditions.  Incidentaly,
Krishnakant, I understand you have some connections and resources at
your disposal in India.  Do these include anything that would allow
you to help with hosting the file?  It might make a difference in
success of download for some folks in the Middle East, southern and
Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent in particular.

Have a nice evening,
Alex M