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
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