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

From: kendell clark <coffeekingms gmail com>
To: Alex Midence <alex midence gmail com>, '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 16:57:58 -0500

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hi
Impress is an absolutely valid point. I don't know why orca works with
it so poorly, but if I had to guess, I'd say a combination of poor
libreoffice accessibility support and no orca specific code for it. If
no one has filed a bug against impress, I'll go ahead and do that now.
As for being able to do things on linux you could do on windows, this
is valid, up to a point. The people that usually make statements like
this, or at least the people I deal with who do,  often mean, "I want
to do the same thing on linux that I did on windows, using the same
programs and doing it the exact same way I used to do it on windows".
Which means, for example, when you tell them that there's no mush z in
linux but that there's tintin and a sound pack for alter aeon, "that's
too hard. I want a gui installer that does all of this for me because
that's how windows does it. If I can't have that then linux sucks and
I won't use it." Pdf files is another area where linux needs
improving. This is supposed to improve greatly in gnome 3.18, but I
haven't tested it yet. Then again, the only accessible pdf reader on
windows is adobe's own, so while it might work better there, you are
limited in what programs you can use. None of the open source or
alternative pdf readers in windows as far as I know work with any
screen readers. I'd argue that linux is accessible enough for
beginner, intermediate, and advanced work, depending of course on the
kind of work you do. Audio production is one area where blind people
cling to windows. There are people on this list who know a lot more
about this than I do but if windows wins out in this area then we need
to buck up and fix it. For what little audio work I do, download from
youtube, converting and editing files and audio metadata, linux works
absolutely fine and there are gui options for all. As for the
crackling, this is a well known issue. I understand it has something
to do with speech-dispatcher's use of the pulse audio api. Luke and
jeremy ... something, can't remember his last name, are actively
working to fix this, which should be available in either a new
speech-dispatcher 0.8 release or a 0.9 release, I'm not sure yet. But
it's definitely known and being worked on. I'd say this in closing. No
matter which platform you use, linux, windows, ios, android, osx,
there are going to be areas where accessibility is great and those
dark corners where it could be better. It's just the nature of
accessibility. Linux wins out in my opinion mostly due to it's open
source model, it's lack of activation and it's ease of maintenance. I
can throw a distro on a usb drive and boot it on any computer and have
a live working environment. I can either use that as is or install it.
I understand osx can do something similar, I've never used it. I say
linux wins out because it's not limited to a particular brand of
computer by license agreements. My two scents.
Thanks
Kendell clark


Alex Midence wrote:

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

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


_______________________________________________ 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
- Re: [orca-list] The State Of Linux Accessibility
  - From: kendell clark
- Re: [orca-list] The State Of Linux Accessibility
  - From: Alex Midence

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