Re: [orca-list] Is anyone still using the Orca console setup?

[Janina Sajka <janina rednote net>]

Hi, Joanie:

I still like to use 'orca -t' from a console without the gui loaded on a
new machine. It hasn't self-voiced for some time, but I've been able to
get an initial configuration because Speakup has covered voicing the
options.

Probably my best reason for still using this old, mostly broken feature
is that it gives me a fairly good indication whether or not I have a
working desktop environment installed. For instance, I have recently
installed Arch on an old laptop, and I still don't have audio working
correctly. I need both console and desktop audio, and I prfer alsa
without pulseaudio in the console, but this can be difficult to
configure.

It has helped to debug the above situation to see orca listed in a 'ps
-ef' in the above scenario. 

In the desktop I find I need Alt+F2 and 'orca -r' several times a week
for one reason or another. This is on my very stable Fedora 22
workstation/home server.

hth

Janina


Joanmarie Diggs writes:
> Hey all.
>
> As part of testing the changes I am making to break up the key echo
> settings into more configurable parts, I noticed that the preferences
> configured in the console setup are not getting written out or used
> correctly. So the console setup is pretty much useless. It seems equally
> broken in 3.16 and 3.14 and 3.12 and 3.10 (and maybe even earlier, but I
> stopped trying).
>
> Therefore, unless something is weird/busted in my environment (which
> I've not dug into yet), my guess is that the answer to the question I
> asked in the subject is: "No, Joanie, we are not, and we haven't in
> quite some time."
>
> Before I debug and fix something which potentially no one is using or
> has a need for, I figured I'd ask you all what (if any) purpose console
> setup still serves?
>
> As a reminder, to meet various configuration needs you can:
>
> 1. Launch the GUI setup with orca -s or orca --setup. This you might
>    wish to do if, for instance, you were on a laptop and couldn't use
>    Insert+Space to get into the preferences dialog to switch to laptop
>    layout.
> 2. Move or remove your $HOME/.local/share/orca directory if your
>    settings are totally borked.
> 3. Launch Orca with -u/--user-prefs followed by the path for an
>    alternate preferences location.
>
> And as another reminder, the only things you were ever able to configure
> in the console setup -- when it actually works -- is speech synthesizer,
> whether or not to use braille, and the type of keyecho to use.
>
> So what is the use case for which you need to set up Orca (which
> requires a GUI desktop environment in which to run) but lack a GUI
> desktop environment in which to set it up? And how critical is this use
> case given that it looks like it may have been going unmet for quite a
> while now without anyone screaming in pain and horror?
>
> Thoughts?
> --joanie
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
> Orca wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca
> Orca documentation: https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
> GNOME Universal Access guide: https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html
> Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org

-- 

Janina Sajka,   Phone:  +1.443.300.2200
                        sip:janina asterisk rednote net
                Email:  janina rednote net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:       http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,  Protocols & Formats     http://www.w3.org/wai/pf