Re: [orca-list] State of accessibility in GNOME/Others, from an absentee

[Alex Midence <alex midence gmail com>]

If you want the Desktop accessible, you have to install the gnome-tweak-tool
and then set the desktop to Nautilus.  .  Personally, I don't really see the
point unless you just want to get to some of your files more quickly.  I use
either search for that or just open them directly from the application
itself.  About the only thing I find handy on there is the trash can.

Alex M


-----Original Message-----
From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of Peter
Vágner
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2013 7:36 AM
To: Jacob Schmude
Cc: orca-list gnome org
Subject: Re: [orca-list] State of accessibility in GNOME/Others, from an
absentee

Hello,
Desktop and activies don't appear to be accessible in gnome.
However top pannel menus are all verry accessible, dock is accessible, list
of apps is accessible, notification area is accessible and also search is
accessible.
You can navigate with arrow keys in most of the cases, and you can cycle
with these using alt+ctrl+tab or alt+ctrl+shift+tab.
Frankly the search is now most frequently used feature by me and also by
many blind people using gnome 3.x as its is always ready and working verry
well.
Second most frequently used feature of gnome is the top pannel with its
menus.

Greetings

Peter


On 21.06.2013 14:05, Jacob Schmude wrote:
> Hi all,
> Well, it's been a few years since I used Orca and GNOME. I've been happily
using Mac OS X for several years, but am looking into possible alternatives
as Apple (both in hardware and in OS X) is slowly drifting in a restrictive
direction I don't much care for. I've had all the Windows I can stomach at
home (especially that usability nightmare called Windows 8) and so I'm
testing various Linux/GNOME combinations in virtual machine environments.
I've got a few observations, then a few quick questions.
> ** GNOME 3
> I've got GNOME 3 (both 3.6 and 3.8) running in a few virtual environments.
I have two Ubuntu environments, one running 3.6 and one running 3.8 on
Ubuntu 13.04. I also have Arch running 3.8. I've got them all working, but
Orca doesn't read much of anything in any of them. The accessibility
switcher (ctrl-alt-tab) reads, as do the run dialog and most applications I
launch. I've even got the QT bridge running in all these environments.
However, GNOME itself barely reads at all. The activities overview doesn't
say anything when focus changes, and with Orca's flat review I just get
images and panels, no labels. This really isn't of much use. The desktop, if
indeed there is one, exhibits the same behavior and the alt-tab list is
erratic at best.
> ** Unity
> In contrast, I find Ubuntu's Unity environment to be a bit quirky in the
accessibility department, but fairly workable. Most things do read at least
to some extent and, since I'm no novice to either Orca or GNOME, I can get
around it quite easily, so that's what I'm testing with for now. To be
perfectly honest, I'm surprised at just how well Ubuntu works these days.
> Questions
> 1. Are my results typical of the current state of affairs? In other words,
is GNOME behaving as it should or is there something I've missed (perhaps a
setting I need to enable)?
> 2. Are there any other desktop environments that I can test, i.e. Cinnamon
on LinuxMINT, or Mate? Anyone know if these work before I go to the trouble
of installing them? I've done some playing with XFCE and LXDE and, while
they sort of work, they're a bit too minimalist for my taste coming from a
Windows and Mac background. I've got the command-line for minimalism when I
need that as I often do (having a full UNIX command-line in addition to a
nice GUI is one of the things I do love about OS X to begin with).
> 3. What options are there for decent text to speech? I'd like US English,
German, and Swedish (US English being primary). Espeak does have them all,
but listening to Espeak for any period of time gives me a raging headache
and its German is sub-par. Looking around I do see Cepstral still offers
their Linux voices. Apparently Ivona does too, but for some reason they're
not willing to sell me a personal license for their Linux voices, only for
Windows. Not sure what's up with that, or why they'd turn down my money :).
I know a version of Neospeech for Linux exists, but I can't seem to find any
concrete information about that one. ViaVoice is out, as it's far too
unstable. Are there other tts engines I could look into? Speech is my only
option, so decent tts is a must.
> Thanks for any help :)
>
> Jake
>
> _______________________________________________
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> 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