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

[Piñeiro <apinheiro igalia com>]

On 06/21/2013 02:05 PM, 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.

This is strange. As Thomas Ward mentioned in this same thread, on both
3.6 and 3.8 Activities overview should be accessible. At least it is
accessible when I implemented the accessibility support for 3.6, and
when I made a review on 3.8 in order to catch regressions. I have just
made a test with my Ubuntu 13.04 and it works. It is true that the
interaction is somewhat different compared with GNOME 2, but in theory
most of the stuff should be working. One of the different stuff is that
when you move to activities, orca just expose "window", in relation with
the new window presented, and the new stuff only appears if you start to
write. In the same way, on the activities view, the content of the
ctrl+alt+tab is more complete, with stuff like the Dash (something like
the list of favorites). Would you mind to elaborate which specific cases
(with steps if possible) are failing?

About the alt-tab being erratic: is about the next application that is
appears or because Orca doesn't expose their content?


> 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)?

AFAIK, the problems that you found are new to me. Right now there are
some missing stuff, like:
   * Volume bar slide not accessible
   * Calendar not accessible (the problem with the keyboard navigability
was solved [1], so we can resume looking at this).

But activities view should be accessible.

> Thanks for any help :)

Thanks for the feedback.

[1] https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=667434

BR

-- 
Alejandro Piñeiro Iglesias