Re: [orca-list] Gnome Boxes vs. Virt Manager

[Peter Vágner <pvdeejay gmail com>]

Hello,

Orca it-self does not intercept key presses. It's relying on the 
operating system support. So when you are inside your VM window pressing 
letter S makes orca to report S I guess Virt manager is not passing keys 
to the guest OS.

Unfortunatelly I don't know more and I haven't yet tried virt manager 
although after reading your comments I will be trying to use it instead 
of virtualbox what I am using today.

Greetings

Peter


On 02.09.2015 at 11:52 Tony Baechler wrote:
> All,
>
> I posted here a few days ago asking about the accessibility of 
> Virt-Manager.  While I didn't get a direct answer, Gnome Boxes was 
> suggested.  The reason why I didn't ask about or install Gnome Boxes 
> in the first place is because it didn't show up in my Debian testing 
> package search for KVM, therefore I had no reason to think that it 
> works with KVM.  Even after looking at the full package information, 
> it doesn't depend on KVM, but does suggest qemu-x86, so I don't think 
> it does actually let me use KVM.  However, since several people here 
> suggested Boxes, I installed it.
>
> While I am able to use Virt-Manager with ease, Boxes is mostly 
> inaccessible.  Specifically, it has no way to create a new VM from the 
> keyboard.  I had to use the Orca left click to get the dialog for a 
> new machine to come up. Similarly, pressing Tab does not seem to work 
> and I couldn't get to the Continue button. Therefore, I gave up.  I 
> didn't have the time or interest to read everything on the screen with 
> flat review when Virt-Manager is already a very good alternative.
>
> In contrast, Virt-Manager is very accessible.  When it first opens, it 
> lists all configured machines and lets you tab to the various 
> buttons.  It has the wizard interface I was looking for and lets you 
> pick the amount of memory, storage space, etc.  It also let me add a 
> sound card without difficulty.  I used the Debian 8.1 installer as my 
> test image since I know that speech should come up if I press "s" and 
> Enter after it boots.  I was able to create a new VM and boot it.  It 
> says it's running and a new window comes up with the name of the VM 
> (VM1 in this case) in the title.  I've verified that the CD image is 
> good because it works fine with KVM from the command line. Speech 
> comes up as it should.
>
> The only problem I'm having is apparently keys aren't being passed 
> through to the VM.  Could this be related to Orca?  I know Linux is 
> not Windows, but Windows screen readers intercept all key presses and 
> don't always pass them to the underlying program.  As I say, it says 
> the VM is running and I can Alt-Tab between "Virtual Machine Manager" 
> and "VM 1," but pressing "s" and Enter in the VM window doesn't seem 
> to work.  I turned on emulation for both AC97 sound and the PC 
> speaker, but I don't hear a beep at boot either.  Orca says "s" when I 
> press it, but nothing else seems to happen.  Pressing Alt-F4 shuts 
> down the program, making me think keys aren't being passed through. 
> I'm running Orca 3.14 if that matters.
>
> Once I can get that problem solved, I'll have a very nice, accessible 
> VM manager which meets my needs and is exactly what I'm looking for.  
> I don't see how Orca could be causing a problem, but I can't think of 
> what else I'm missing.  I guess I should try looking at the help, but 
> the only thing in the Help menu is About.  Have you had any similar 
> experiences with this odd behavior and do you have any ideas how to 
> work around it?