Re: [orca-list] [Testers wanted before the official release] Slint64-4.2.1 release candidate is accessible.

[Didier Spaier <didier slint fr>]

Hello,

good news, I think.

At startup we mount tmpfs as /dev/shm with this line in /etc/fstab:
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults  0 0
So, why not use that?

Having read again the XDG Base Directory Specification:
https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html
we can use the same dir in /dev/shm for both environment variables:
XDG_CACHE_HOME
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR

So, after a test in ~/.xinitrc.lxde, I wrote following lines in
~/.profile:
export XDG_CACHE_HOME=/dev/shm/$(whoami)
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=$XDG_CACHE_HOME
mkdir -p /dev/shm/$(whoami)
chmod 700 $XDG_CACHE_HOME

I will leave in .xinitrc just the environment variable settings:
cut here
# Start the window manager:
if [ -f ~/.config/startorca ]; then
        # Graphical environment A11y Initialization
        export LOGNAME="GDM"
        export SAL_USE_VCLPLUGIN="gtk"
        export GTK_MODULES="gail:atk-bridge" # for GTK2
        export GNOME_ACCESSIBILITY=1
        export QT_ACCESSIBILITY=1 # for QT4
        export QT_LINUX_ACCESSIBILITY_ALWAYS_ON=1 # for QT5
fi
if [ -z "$DESKTOP_SESSION" -a -x /usr/bin/ck-launch-session ]; then
    ck-launch-session dbus-launch --exit-with-session startlxde
else
    startlxde
fi
cut here

So far, everything works, including the hand shake between speechd-el
and speech-dispatcher.

Additional benefit, the user does not need to clean ~/.cache any more.

I think that this complies to the above mentioned specification.

Caveats:
~/.profile is not read by csh, but probably few people use it, and bash
is the default in Slint. We could write the same thing in ~/.login to
make csh happy. According to its man file, ksh reads ~/.profile.
We ship other shells in Slint but well, their users should know the
differences and we can document that somewhere.

One can be frightened that the cached files do not survive a reboot, but
I think that's a minor inconvenience. For instance a user who wants to
read a log in the cache can do so or copy it elsewhere before rebooting.
And the system logs are still in /var/log.

I look forward for your comments.

Greetings,

Didier



Le 22/10/2017 à 20:26, Didier Spaier a écrit :
> Hello,
>
> Peter, you made my day!
>
> Not only does it work, but now KDE apps start instantly.
>
> @Jude: I think that I don't need to investigate further about the lag
> when starting these apps, nevertheless thanks for your input.
>
> I think you were right about dbus trying to start twice,
> as I have seen warnings like "application may misbehave"
> that could be a consequence of that.
>
> That could also explain another oddity: typing "orca -r" in a terminal
> didn't work (no output, terminal frozen), now it does. 
>
> I intend to put the .desktop in /etc/xdg/autostart, as that will avoid
> to put one more file in /etc/skel, which we would need to be taken care
> of in ~ when upgrading, or a manual config by the user.
>
> Now, I will dig the issue with sockets, not only to help speecd-el
> cooperate with speech-dispatcher, but also to preferably put them in a
> a temp dir in ram. That would avoid my ugly remval of stale dirs
> containing sockets.
>
> So, let's play with XDG_RUNTIME_DIR. Stay tuned.
>
> Greetings,
>
> Didier 
>
>
>
> Le 22/10/2017 à 17:34, Peter Vágner a écrit :
> > Hello,
> >
> > Some more experiments here.
> >
> > In our xinit config we are roughly doing something like this - see some
> > added comments to explain my thoughts:
> > if [ -f ~/.config/startorca ]; then
> > # init some ENV variables
> > /usr/bin/speech-dispatcher -d
> > /usr/bin/orca # Orca will start at-spi if it's not running which will
> > launch dbus if it's not running.
> > fi
> > if [ -z "$DESKTOP_SESSION" -a -x /usr/bin/ck-launch-session ]; then # Here
> > console kit would also try to run dbus however dbus is already running so I
> > guess we might end up missing some bus addresses or something
> >     ck-launch-session dbus-launch --exit-with-session startlxde
> > else
> >     startlxde
> > fi
> >
> > When orca starts up and there is no instance of at-spi and
> > speech-dispatcher orca will try to spawn both of them.
> > In gnome, at-spi is started via
> > /etc/xdg/autostart/at-spi-dbus-bus.desktop
> > By looking to the at-spi2-core build configuration I can verify this is a
> > part of at-spi2-core.
> > It's specific to gnome and it appears gnome is the only DE it has
> > accessibility turned on by default.
> > It reads...
> > [Desktop Entry]
> > Type=Application
> > Name=AT-SPI D-Bus Bus
> > Exec=/usr/lib/at-spi2-core/at-spi-bus-launcher --launch-immediately
> > OnlyShowIn=GNOME;Unity;
> > NoDisplay=true
> > AutostartCondition=GSETTINGS org.gnome.desktop.interface
> > toolkit-accessibility
> > X-GNOME-AutoRestart=true
> > X-GNOME-Autostart-Phase=Initialization
> >
> > When converted to our setup it might look like
> > [Desktop Entry]
> > Type=Application
> > Name=AT-SPI D-Bus Bus
> > Exec=/usr/libexec/at-spi-bus-launcher --launch-immediately
> > NoDisplay=true
> > AutostartCondition=[ -f ~/.config/startorca ]
> >
> >
> > So based off of that I guess we need to seperate accessibility setup into
> > two parts:
> > * Configure all the variables and settings within the xinit configuration
> > before launching the actual session.
> > * Where possible configure session autostart features to start orca.
> >
> > Only we need to decide if we are going to start at-spi as a part of our
> > session startup or we can keep orca handling its launch as soon as it
> > starts.
> > I originally assumed seperate at-spi startup might be usefull if we wish to
> > have orca access to apps running as root because gnome is the only DE where
> > I have this seen working consistently so far, however on this install of
> > slint I can use su to gain root and then launch gparted for example and
> > orca reads it all fine no mather how at-spi is started.
> >
> > Here is orca desktop file I have put into my
> > ~/.config/autostart
> > after I have commented out call to it and call to speech-dispatcher in the
> > xinit config.
> >
> > [Desktop Entry]
> > Type=Application
> > Version=1.0
> > Name=orca
> > Exec=/usr/bin/orca
> > AutostartCondition=[ -f ~/.config/startorca ]
> >
> > With session autostart handling orca startup I do also have desktop icons
> > and they are accessible. Sometimes after closing all the windows focus is
> > not automagically placed to the desktop so flat review or random mouse
> > clicks are needed but still it's a good move I feel.
> >
> > Greetings
> >
> > Peter
> >
> >
> > 2017-10-22 15:19 GMT+02:00 Didier Spaier <didier slint fr>:
> >
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I just made some tests and am puzzled.
> > > 1) If I have no ~/.config/startorca
> > > - I have no sound in LXDE, of course
> > > - I have desktop icons
> > > - pcmanfm --desktop-pref works
> > > 2) If i have a file ~/.config/startorca
> > > - I have sound in LXDE
> > > - I do not have desktop icons
> > > - pcmanfm --desktop-pref pops up an error message:
> > >   "Desktop manager is not active"
> > >
> > > I have been unable to understand why so far.
> > >
> > > On another topic, I made some more tests of qtatspi and noticed that
> > > when it is installed it seems that LXDE be less responsive, and the
> > > windows of KDE apps need 30 seconds or so to appear. I don't know why,
> > > maybe looking at the output when starting them from a terminal could
> > > give a clue, unfortunately these outputs are very verbose.
> > >
> > > Also, some apps are accessible, e.g. lokalize, others less so like kate
> > > or kwrite.
> > >
> > > PS: Maybe we could let users know that XFCE is more accessible, and also
> > > Maté (Jude and Peter, could you please check that?).
> > >
> > > I will manage to include startoca.snip in xinitrc.mate either by default
> > > or as an automatic post-install task.
> > >
> > > Greetings,
> > >
> > > Didier
> > >
> > >
> > > Le 21/10/2017 à 23:08, Peter Vágner a écrit :
> > > > > > Some lxde pannels are accessible with the flat review. However it
> > > appears
> > > > > > the desktop is not configured. Wouldn't it be more awesome if PCManFM
> > > > > would
> > > > > > be configured to provide the desktop? That way we would get
> > > inaccessible
> > > > > > pannels but very accessible gnome 2 style desktop that would receive
> > > the
> > > > > > focus when all apps are closed.
> > > > >
> > > > > I would be grateful for guidance on how to do that. I am a complete
> > > > > beginner in the field of accessibility, with zero experience as I see.
> > > > When pcmanfm is started with a --desktop switch it should provide the
> > > > desktop icons.
> > > > On an installed system I can see it's specified inside the file
> > > > ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/autostart
> > > > but it is not running when lxde is showing, so it needs further
> > > > investigation.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > > Now when starting orca after the X session launch it just says Screen
> > > > > > reader on with nothing else. The only way on how to start working with
> > > > > the
> > > > > > system in this point is pressing alt+F1.
> > > > >
> > > > > Well, you can also press all+F2 to get a Run dialog, and also have a
> > > > > terminal focused when going graphical. To get that just type as regular
> > > > > user, for instance:
> > > > > cp /usr/share/applications/lxterminal.desktop ~/.config/autostart
> > > > >
> > > > > Well I have tried to place modified pcmanfm.desktop into
> > > > ~/.config/autostart and it has not been started for me. Perhaps these two
> > > > things might contribute to each other. I will be looking again into this
> > > > tomorrow. I just wanted you to know my progress.
> > > >
> > > > Greetings
> > > >
> > > > Peter
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