[orca-list] [possibly OT] Empathy questions(please read entire message)

["Bill Dengler(arch Gnu/Linux)" <billkd2008 gmail com>]

Upon opening Empathy, I am presented with a "messaging and VOIP
accounts" dialog. Orca says, "add, panel". I try to press enter on the
panel but nothing happens, so I use flat review to click on the first
unlabeled push button on the screen.
Then, Orca says "adding new account, what kind of chat account do you
have?"
At this point, I cannot tab or arrow, so I use flat review. I find a
panel, a filler, and a combo box. The combo box cannot be left clicked
with flat review, so I turn on the trackpad of my laptop and attempt to
use it to click the control.

After exploring the screen, I find out that in order to add an account I 
need to
have a backend installed for each protocol.
So, perhaps, I don't have any backends on this system? I looked up the 
optional dependancys of the empathy package :
telepathy-gabble: XMPP/Jabber support
telepathy-butterfly: MSN support
telepathy-idle: IRC support
telepathy-salut: Link-local XMPP support
telepathy-sofiasip: SIP support
telepathy-haze: libpurple support
Well, I want to set up a jabber account, so I need the telepathy-gabble 
package.

root billkd-pangolin-performance ~]# pacman -Sy telepathy-gabble
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 core is up to date
 extra is up to date
 community is up to date
 multilib is up to date
resolving dependencies...
looking for inter-conflicts...

Packages (1): telepathy-gabble-0.17.3-1

Total Download Size:    0.66 MiB
Total Installed Size:   3.11 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] y
:: Retrieving packages ...
 telepathy-gabble-0....     0.0   B  0.00B/s 00:00 
[----------------------]   0%
 telepathy-gabble-0....    95.4 KiB   159K/s 00:03 
[###-------------------]  14%
 telepathy-gabble-0....   241.6 KiB   350K/s 00:01 
[#######---------------]  35%
 telepathy-gabble-0....   375.2 KiB   456K/s 00:00 
[############----------]  55%
 telepathy-gabble-0....   527.1 KiB   557K/s 00:00 
[#################-----]  78%
 telepathy-gabble-0....   675.1 KiB   690K/s 00:01 
[######################] 100%
(0/1) checking keys in keyring [----------------------]   0%
(1/1) checking keys in keyring [######################] 100%
(0/1) checking package integrity [----------------------]   0%
(1/1) checking package integrity [######################] 100%
(0/1) loading package files [----------------------]   0%
(1/1) loading package files [######################] 100%
(0/1) checking for file conflicts [----------------------]   0%
(1/1) checking for file conflicts [######################] 100%
(0/1) checking available disk space [----------------------]   0%
(1/1) checking available disk space [######################] 100%
(1/1) installing telepathy-gabble [----------------------]   0%
(1/1) installing telepathy-gabble [######################] 100%

OK, now we have a backend. So let's restart Empathy and see if we can 
set up my account.
I am now presented with an import accounts dialog. It shows account 
details from another chat client on this machine, and all controls work 
and can be found and clicked with standard tab/shift+tab/enter.

I click on the import button.
I am now presented with a dialog to configure local network discovery. 
It asks me to confirm if details are correct, and gives me a skip and 
connect button. I can't find the details with tab or shift+tab so I use 
flat review to find them. I hear three fields, first name, last name, 
and nickname. I try to left click, but again, nothing. So I just click 
on connect and leave the fields blank.
Orca says, "contact list fraim, text." I find an account settings button 
buy tab and shift+tab but nothing else, so again I use flat review. Orca 
tells me in flat review that I need to configure an account to see 
contacts here, and I have a filler and a control that just says offline.
After clicking on the account settings button, I am taken through the 
same import and local network discovery wizard as before. After 
finishing it, Orca locked up and stopped speaking, so i rebooted the 
machine to bring it back. After the machine rebooted fully, I reopened 
Empathy.
When Empathy opened, tab and shift+tab gives me a combo box set to 
available, a text field with available written in it, and a panel. Flat 
review gives me the word available and a filler.
I checked if the window was maximized, this is not the problem.
I attempted to perform a call with the empathy menu on the panel, and it 
showed my contacts in that window, but I can't seem to find the contact 
list on the main window(if they're supposed to show up on the main window).
So, my questions are :
1. how do I find my contacts?
2. how do I start a conversation?
3. How do I read a conversation once I've started it?

Thanks,
Bill