Re: [orca-list] The State Of Linux Accessibility

From: kendell clark <coffeekingms gmail com>
To: Vincenzo Rubano <vincenzo rubano studio unibo it>, Keith Hinton <keithint1234 gmail com>
Cc: orca-list <orca-list gnome org>
Subject: Re: [orca-list] The State Of Linux Accessibility
Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2015 16:21:36 -0500

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hi
This is partly valid and partly not. The stuff about unlabeled
controls in gnome is absolutely spot on. While it's gotten quite a bit
better in the newest gnome, version 3.16, there are still areas in the
control center that aren't labeled well. I've filed bugs against these
parts and we're just waiting for fixes. Mate is also pretty
accessible. You *do* get access to the applets. It is a bit weird
though, and I don't really understand what's causing orca to not like
the panel very much. I'd have to say a combination of old gnome 2 code
in orca that mate uses and old accessibility code on mate's part. Both
can be fixed. We *need* more users. I'm rather tired of people picking
on linux's accessibility issues as if they were written in stone. Not
that you've done that. The issues can get fixed. It's going to take
more orca users doing what I and joanie do. File bugs, test stuff,
report what doesn't work. I've not seen much of this here, though
granted not everyone has the luxury of sitting around all day like I
do. Gnome was part of GSOC this year and they had a couple of people
hacking on java atk wrapper specifically to bring java accessibility
up to snuff. Joanie has dropped a couple of hints that gnome 3.18's
accessibility will be much better, so I believe her, although I
haven't been able to find anything on that. I've used windows,
including the latest version from redmond. To be completely blunt, if
this is the best ms can put out, we've got it made. The accessibility
issues will no doubt get fixed with windows updates, but if this were
my first impression of windows I'd be saying it's accessibility were
going backwards. Tested with the latest windows 10 RTM build. We just
need to focus on makeing an already great OS even greater. We do this
by filing bugs, testing features. We don't do it by looking at what
windows does or does not do better and constantly comparing the two.
I'm guilty of this myself sometimes, particularly when I feel close to
burning out. That's my two scents
Thanks
Kendell clark


Vincenzo Rubano wrote:

Hi Keith,

I know this message will make some people angry, but I want to
share my point of view on linux accessibility. This came out rather
long, so enjoy a cup of coffee while reading. ;)

First off, when talking about linux accessibility I like to clarify
what I think is an important aspect: fragmentation is a problem for
accessibility. Since every piece of software can be configured with
different options/different library versions/different parameters
and each distribution can make a lot of decisions on these aspects,
it’s hard to say what’s accessible and what is not. As you can see,
there are too many variables to consider. Too many for my tastes…

This being said, we have to distinguish between command line
accessibility and GUI accessibility. If we talk about command line,
we’re in a great situation. Just choose a kernel which is optimally
configured for speakup (i.e. the debian kernel starting from
version 3.2 or the Talking Arch one are two examples that I’ve
used). If we talk about GUI, well, that’s another story…

The only “accessible” desktops out of the box are Gnome and Mate.
Please note the quotes wrapping the “accessible” word, their
meanings will be clearer after the lines below. Gnome works, but
there are some areas of the Gnome-Shell that are completely
inaccessible for Orca. Gnome Control Center has unlabeled controls
scattered here and there with some of them being not usable at all
and Gnome Tweak Tool has the same issues plus a few focus-related
ones. Evolution, the default mail client included in Gnome, is
completely inaccessible (1). There are other Gnome pieces that are
not accessible, but my memory does not recall their names. Tested
with Gnome 3.14.3 and Orca 3.14.3. Mate is a Gnome 2 fork. It is
accessible, if you mind not having access to most of the applets
(i.e. the applet to control wifi connections) and having unreliable
multiple file selection due to Orca not announcing properly when an
item is selected or not. Add a few other issues here and there and
that’s the Mate situation. Tested with Mate 1.8.* and Orca 3.14.3.

Libreoffice/openoffice are the only complete office suites for
linux. Saying that they’re accessible is really an abuse of the
word, though. Libreoffice Writer can be used to some degree, but if
you need to have complex formatting, multiple tables with many rows
and columns and form controls embedded in your document, then be
prepared to a lot of accessibility issues. And remember that you
won’t be able to use structural navigation within LibreOffice
documents due to a Libreoffice bug sitting in their queue for
years. Impress, Calc, Base and Math have even more severe and
critical accessibility issues that make them far from being usable
if you’re blind. Tested with Libreoffice 4.3.* and 4.4.* with Orca
3.14.3. Notice that LibreOffice seems to run a little bit better
under Debian than under Ubuntu, but don’t ask me the reason why.

The only decent way to browse the Web with orca is using Firefox.
There’s not too much to complain about that, if you don’t mind
having a lot of troubles with complex applications such as webmails
and with websites that often refresh the page via ajax. Also, make
sure to enable the Orca configuration option to show one control
for each line in a web page, otherwise you’ll have a lot of latency
whenever you get to a line with more than 10 controls (i.e. 10
radio buttons). (2)

Let’s spend some words on the Speech Dispatcher/Alsa/PulseAudio
thing. Wow, too many parties involved, don’t you think so? Anyways,
I’ve always had two issues: 1. From the SpeechDispatcher
configuration, enable a module which is not present in
SpeechDispatcher (i.e module for Pico under a Debian installation).
Restart the SpeechDispatcher service and… Voilà, no speech at all!
And no way to recover, unless you can remotely access your machine
or you have a Braille display or sighted assistance to rely on.
Tested with Debian Wheezy/Jessie. 2. While the computer is of, plug
in your headsets. Turn on the computer. Unplug the headsets: you
would expect audio to come from your laptop speakers, but you won’t
get audio output at all. Plug in again your headsets and… Audio is
there. Tested under Debian Wheezy/Jessie and Ubuntu-Mate 14.04.

Finally, let me spend some words on development. Accessibility bugs
that can be fixed/worked around in Orca get fixed rather quickly,
but the problem is that those fixes get to end users too slowly for
my tastes. If a bug is in the accessibility infrastructure (i.e.
pyatspi, atspi, atk and others), then they’ll be sitting there for
years. Not to mention bugs within Gnome itself or third party
apps/frameworks (LibreOffice and Qt just to mention two examples).

(1): Evolution accessibility is improving from what I can read, but
currently it’s tricky to get to the message body after you open it.
There is thunderbird as an alternative, but if you are like me and
use more than 5 different mailboxes with 20+ different folders and
thousands of messages, you won't find Thunderbird a great piece of
software to work with in terms of accessibility.

(2) Recently, there has been some work to improve these aspects in
Orca. We’ll see them in a 3.18 or something like that release, so
be patient if you need some serious accessibility support within
web content.

Vincenzo.

Il giorno 05 ago 2015, alle ore 08:30, Keith Hinton
<keithint1234 gmail com> ha scritto:

Hi folks, it has been a very long while since I have posted to
the Orca mailing list. In fact, more than a year. I was writing
in to find out from people who know what they are talking about
what the current state of Linux accessibility is with Orca, etc. 
I was wondering how the major Linux distributions like Fedora,
Open Sues, etc are doing with Orca, Speech Dispatcher, and
generally over all how is Linux these days? I have avoided Linux
for a long while because I have a friend who believes  actually,
who is utterly convinced that linux accessibility is going
backwards. But I don't honestly know for sure if that is so. So,
I naturally question him and would like to know from those of
you out their who are involved in Linux accessibility generally
how do you think Linux is? WouldI be able to run something under
Gnome these days like Virtual Box? How does Linux perform with
the latest and greatest CPUs, multi core SMP hardware and such
from your experiences>? My friend says to me that most of you are
using old clunky outdated hardware which is why you don't get
Speech Dispatcher or Orca subsystem crashes, etc. But I haven't
used Linux in so long that I figure the time is now to actually
just come out and ask and see what responses I get. Obviously, I
know that everybody will have their own distribution
prefferences. But I'm not here to start a war on Ubuntu, vs
Fadora, etc. I am trying aside from an OS specific fight to
figure out what the current honest state of Linux accessibility
is. Is it actually falling back and going backwards and thus
dying out? I don't know. Is it worth grabbing something like the
latest oh, I don't know, Open Suse, Fadora or similar and giving
Orca a spin?

So I was hopeing some of you out their might have a better idea. 
Thanks!

All the best, Keith 
_______________________________________________ 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


_______________________________________________ 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

Follow-Ups:
- Re: [orca-list] The State Of Linux Accessibility
  - From: Alex Midence

References:
- [orca-list] The State Of Linux Accessibility
  - From: Keith Hinton
- Re: [orca-list] The State Of Linux Accessibility
  - From: Vincenzo Rubano

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