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

I don't know.  I think comparing how well something can be accessibly accomplished in Linux to how well that 
same task can be done in Windows is a valid exercise as long as you don't make sweeping statements like "The 
overall accessibility experience in Linux sucks compared to Windows."  If you are used to being able to do X 
on one platform, it is natural to feel you should be able to do it on another just as accessibly and with as 
little extra effort on your part as you had to expend on the other platform.  

With Linux, my main gripe is presentations.  I rely on them every day at work since I'm a trainer and they 
are something of a lifeblood for me.  In Windows, we use PowerPoint which Window Eyes, in particular, works 
extremely well with.  Jaws does OK but Window Eyes is absolutely outstanding with it.  I can't say the same 
with Orca and Impress.  If I got hired somewhere and their company policy was to have all their class 
presentations in Impress format, I'd be in deep trouble.  I'd have to argue for letting me use Beamer which 
is a part of LaTEx.  I'd still be in hot water because the output is to PDF's which Evince handles only 
rudimentarily in regular documents and very poorly in pdf slides.  I'd have to see about having them let me 
make a very basic Windows vm so I can use Adobe while that all gets sorted out.  I understand there's a way 
to do this sort of thing with html and javascript but I don't know it yet.  So, it would be natural for 
someone like me to wish that presentations were as easy to do accessibly in Linux as they are in windows 
where you don't  have to learn a complex markup language to get the job done.  

Just an example.  
Alex M

-----Original Message-----
From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of kendell clark
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2015 4:22 PM
To: Vincenzo Rubano; Keith Hinton
Cc: orca-list
Subject: Re: [orca-list] The State Of Linux Accessibility

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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 
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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 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


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_______________________________________________
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
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