Re: [orca-list] some plans for improving general accessibility of the linux platform

From: kendell clark <coffeekingms gmail com>
To: Alex Midence <alex midence gmail com>
Cc: Orca List <orca-list gnome org>
Subject: Re: [orca-list] some plans for improving general accessibility of the linux platform
Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 22:25:37 -0600

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hi
Tintin is a command line mud client. Storm has created a sound pack,
similar to mush z for windows, which works with alter aeon and a few
other muds. Tintin itself is completely accessible, being a terminal
program, but using orca in a terminal emulator has some issues. It
does not always announce new incoming text. I plan to, if I can get
some help from the orca community, add code to the sound pack to allow
orca to automatically speak new incoming text. The way mush on windows
does it is it speaks nearly all stuff coming in, which may be way too
spammy. I plan to make it configurable exactly what is and is not
announced, so you can get only the stuff you want, while ignoring the
rest. I know there's a method to make orca speak, something like
orca.speak, but I want it to speak using whatever rate, pitch, etc you
have set up. This is where I need help from the orca community. If I
can get that working, then I can just hook it up to tintin, and write
the options in tintin to configure what is and is not spoken. Oh, and
I spoke way too soon when I was mentioning songr this morning. If
anyone is interested, there's a gui to a program called plmaxe, called
pymaxe, that does the same things, but also allows you to specify what
format you want the music saved in. Ok, I've rambled enough, time for
more coffee. And when I was complaining about bugs sitting, I wasn't
talking about orca bugs, but bugs in applications where there's no
accessibility dev on hand.
Thanks
Kendell clark
Alex Midence wrote:

Not sure about what is causing the lack of replies to your emails,
but, one thing, I don't know what Tintin is. Can you go into detail
about that? I am certainly all for doing what can be done to
improve the overall excess ability of applications on this
platform. I wish more TLC was given to the KDE desktop. It is a
major desktop. It is on a par with Gnome. Well I am certainly glad
to know that mate is now accessible, I don't think everyone is
necessarily interested in a lightweight solution. I am subscribed
to the KDE accessibility list but I do not know how many other orca
users are.

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 9, 2014, at 5:05 AM, kendell clark
<coffeekingms gmail com> wrote:

hi all The subject sounds very vague, so I'll try to clarify. After
a lot of thinking and considering and a lot of, well windows has
feature x but linux doesn't, I've decided to do what I can to
polish off some of what I see as linux's rough edges. Before you
get out the flamethrowers, let me explain. I mean things such as,
filing bugs against applications, helping desktops improve
accessibility, that sort of thing. I also intend to, if I can get
help, write a graphical configuration dialog for the tintin alter
aeon pack, and add something similar to nvda's controller.
Essentially, I want orca to automatically announce incoming text,
what it says of course configurable in tintin itself. This should
be possible by simply staying focused on the terminal window, but
due to bugs in some layor of the terminal a11y stack, this doesn't
always work. This would allow you to do other things and still get
updates without having to tab over, and try to figure out who said
what. I'm beginning to wonder, to be honest, if I've done or said
something to alienate people on this list. Whenever I send an email
here, I usually get at most one or two responses, and then nothing.
If so, what was it? I can't think of anything. If people are busy
and just don't see my mails than I apologize, but I've gotten the
impression for a while that my messages seem to be falling into a
hole. Joanie responds if she can, but otherwise I don't see much.
I'd also like to suggest, if possible, a keystroke in orca that,
when pressed, opens up an edit window with information about the
currently focused object, possibly also the entire window. At the
moment, the only way to dig into what orca sees is by generating a
debug log, which isn't hard, but it would be nice to be able to
paste a couple of lines into an email that non devs can understand.
Perhapse also make some kind of log viewer to look at orca's logs
in realtime? No, I'm not suggesting orca be made more like nvda.
I'm not even sure orca logs at all unless it's told to do so, so 
this might not be possible. I'm trying to smooth the way for
windows users coming over from other screen readers, most noteably
nvda, and from my own experiences being able to look at a log and
see what orca's seeing does help, especially if you can interpret
it a little. There are various little bugs in at-spi that need
smoothing out, such as the label bug that keeps orca from not being
able to see new content or changed content, etc but I've already
mentioned that so won't go into that here. Some little things that
need fixing. I can't get into the guts of at-spi, etc that stuff is
way over my head but I intend to help where I can. I will need some
sort of indication that I'm helping, instead of my messages being
swallowed up by that great server in the sky. More blind specific
applications wouldn't hurt either, but that's a topic for another
time. I'm basically trying to get other blind linux users
interested in improving things, instead of being content to simply
sit back and let things progress. Not mandatory at all, just trying
to find any interest if there is any. People are busy, and have
lives, etc and I'm not asking for a committment or anything, just
thoughts on what could be improved, etc. It's late and I'm
rambling, so I'll shut up now. I'll finish by saying there's
nothing wrong with orca and most of the rough edges aren't in 
orca's area, but at the lower layors, or the lack of applications
ofr features i think might be useful. Thanks Kendell clark

_______________________________________________ orca-list mailing
list orca-list gnome org 
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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
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References:
- [orca-list] some plans for improving general accessibility of the linux platform
  - From: kendell clark
- Re: [orca-list] some plans for improving general accessibility of the linux platform
  - From: Alex Midence

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