[orca-list] just some stupid questions

[Justin Pospical <justin pospical gmail com>]

Hi all,

Some of these questions are going to sound really stupid, since I
haven't been keeping up to date with orca for a while. I've made two
or three abortive attempts to switch from Windows to arch, and have
always reverted because of all the firefox bugs and other stability
issues. I'm going to install arch with XFCE and start it from the
console whenever I want to run an x application. I've heard that
firefox and orca have gotten slightly better in the latest master and
nightly builds. So, is orca master and/or firefox in the arch testing
repository, and if so, to install would I just temporarily disable the
stable ones in the config file, sync, and then install, or do I need
to get the source from git and build from there?
Also in the past I've tried installing openoffice and libreoffice on
arch but have never gotten them accessible. I don't remember if I
installed java, but I believe the default JRE installation now comes
with the access bridge, and the latest beta versions of OO and LO are
now using iaccessible2. So, will everything just work out of the box
when AT support is enabled, and if not what must I do to get them
accessible. What are other accessible programs, most importantly a
media player (I'll just use audacity if I have to, and don't want to
use the console for whatever reason), and instant messenger. I know
pidgin is accessible, but how well does empathy work?
I've never been able to get used to any of the GTK file managers I've
worked with, especially the browse for a file dialogs. It seems that
whenever I tab, I'm either in a places list or a search box, and
whenever I actually do get into the file list view, it's very easy to
move off accidentally with an arrow key, and then have to find it all
over again. Keep in mind I'm used to Windows, which has a pretty
consistent file manager layout. Any tips for navigating these dialogs?
Another problem is the pulseaudio volume control. I install the
pavucontrol package as suggested in the arch wiki, but the interface
is inaccessible, and one accidental misstep in the sound preferences
window, at least in gnome, can permanently mute the sound; I actually
had to use a live CD once to delete the pulseaudio configuration file.
I'm pretty sure there's something obvious I'm missing, but typing
'amixer set Master 200' or 'alsactl init' or so in a terminal doesn't
always work, and my desktop does not have multimedia keys on the
keyboard.
Another thing, I can get qt-at-spi installed from the AUR for using
things like virtualbox, but is there any way I can keep it installed
without also pulling 345 MB of dependencies?
This one isn't related to orca, but I'm not on the speakup list, so
figured I might as well ask. I've never been able to use lynx on the
console with any degree of success. It seems that whatever I do,
arrows or tabbing either the element before or after the one I'm on
always gets announced first. What gives? I've tried with highlight
tracking on and off, and that doesn't seem to help. Any tips on using
lynx, mc or other interactive menu-based console programs would be
welcome. Also if there's anything I need to know when installing
emacspeak that's not mentioned in the tutorials. Sorry for my many and
probably mostly pretty obvious questions. I'd appreciate any help you
guys can provide.