Re: [orca-list] KDE Plasma Launcher "Kickoff" makes progress in accessibility



Yes, I am interested in KDE being accessible.  I had pretty much gave up Qt ever becoming accessible by version 4.  Well, it surprised me when stuff started happening in the later part of 4.8.  I realize this is an orca list but I would love to see more cross platform GUI frameworks with solid accessibility for Windows, OSS, and Mac as well mobile platforms even should that happen.

 

I am trying to learn enough to give a shot at getting Tk from Tcl (and thus tkintern) to have cross platform accessibility.  There is so many quick & dirty GUIs which is written with that toolkit which will never be accessible.  Just imagine if the standard python GUI tools were accessible across its supported platforms (e.g., IDLE).

 

                Dan

 

From: orca-list <orca-list-bounces gnome org> On Behalf Of chrys
Sent: Saturday, December 26, 2020 2:05 PM
To: Peter Vágner <pvagner pvagner tk>
Cc: orca-list gnome org
Subject: Re: [orca-list] KDE Plasma Launcher "Kickoff" makes progress in accessibility

 

Howdy Peter,

 

well hopefully it should not take too long til the menu gets merged. maybe you can try it out then. i use X11 docker for testing using an developer version of KDE Neon docker container.

 

I haven't discovered how to access and use widgets aka plasmoids such as plasma-pa so far.

well yea, you got the point. you can set a shortcut to focus active the plasmoids, but those are not assigned by default (but for the menu). you need to assign the shortcut first. so there is a way to access them. but you need to access them first lol. some kind of chicken egg issue. i currently try to write a accessibility like switcher for the desktop, or integrate it into the krunner search, maybe that's a way to fix the issue. maybe the default plasmoids for volume, network, Bluetooth and stuff should have an shortcut by default as well.

 

overall i see there is some interest by users to have KDE accessible :).

 

 

Am 26.12.20 um 21:42 schrieb Peter Vágner:

Hello,

 

I have finally installed and actually tryed out plasma desktop.

 

I haven't yet managed to build this new reworked kickoff as it requires rebuilding more packages besides plasma-desktop but I'm impressed so far.

 

If we are calling xfce as being enough accessible so it's viable then KDE plasma is at least on a similar level if not better.

 

Krunner is awesome, the edit field and the autocomplete is fully accessible and works great.

Desktop is working fine.

Kwin alt+tab switcher is great and awesome.

I haven't discovered how to access and use widgets aka plasmoids such as plasma-pa so far.

But still with xfce and pure window managers such as ratpoison we don't really have this functionality so it's just my curiosity.

 

 

Greetings

 

Peter

 

Dňa 26. 12. 2020 o 16:59 chrys napísal(a):

Howdy Peter,


However I can't find the latest accessibility related commits on the kde github.

The pull request doesnt land yet. it brings more than accessibility. its a complete rework of kickoff launcher
you can find the request here:
https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-desktop/-/merge_requests/258


Also what about the desktop it-self?
Is dolphin showing the desktop icons?
How much accessible it is?


the workspace is accessible ( i completed this task a couple of month ago and it is already shipped by latest Plasma).

No dolphin is not drawing the desktop icons here. its done by the plasma shell itself.



KDE desktop has nice keyboard shortcuts for example alt+f1 to bring up the launcher,

by the way, the launcher "Krunner" is already fully accessible and is even more than a run dialog for applications. it almost implements a search for anything like gnome-shell or gnome-do. i realy enjoy this part very well. until the rework of the main menu "kickoff" lands, it might be the only accessible way to start applications in accessible way by default (i already made the 2 alternatives layouts what are shipped by default for kickoff accessible some months ago, but this need sighted assistance to chenge the alternative layout AFAIK)

IMO KDE offers a lot of power i wanna have from a modern desktop environment. and fun fact... after a very quick test, it also has a similar or even smaller memory foodprint than Mate or Gnome here on my machine.

cheers chrys

Am 26.12.20 um 16:24 schrieb Peter Vágner:

Hello,

I'll be testing KDE hopefully tomorrow.
I haven't yet installed kde apps just bare minimum kde-desktop.

As far as I can see kickoff is part of the kde-desktop package.
However I can't find the latest accessibility related commits on the kde github.
Or are these changes a few months old and the video you have linked to is new?

Also what about the desktop it-self?
Is dolphin showing the desktop icons?
How much accessible it is?
KDE desktop has nice keyboard shortcuts for example alt+f1 to bring up the launcher, alt+f2 for run command, ctrl+f12 to show the desktop and many more.
Interesting one is ctrl+alt+a show the window demanding action. If this is working as advertised, it might be a nice accessibility feature by it-self.
See here for Common Keyboard Shortcuts - https://docs.kde.org/trunk5/en/applications/fundamentals/kbd.html


Greetings

Peter

26. 12. 2020 12:38:54 Linux A11y <chrys linux-a11y org>:


Howdy,

Well KMail should be accessible (as it uses chromium to show HTML content, what got very recently a11y support), dolphin KDEs filemanager should also have basic accessibility, so i would say the state isn’t here that bad at all.
Kate and konsole still has some issues, but its a WIP.

Making KDE accessible is less a try to have just another desktop alternative, but its attempt to get its huge developer base understand how important accessibility is.  This should lead to an overall accessible application landscape.
I assume its wrong as small community like a11y to try to fix all the issues by our own, but instead show the developers of the software how a11y works and what fits the requirements.
Latest success of this  attempt but the launcher is elisa, the KDE music player what got full accessibility without any attempt to force it.

KDE has IMO an great, friendly, open minded community we should definitely get on board to make not only plasma but all KDE software or QT /software accessibility over all.

So things working out very great, also if it still needs more time and work to iron out.

Cheers chrys


Am 26.12.2020 um 09:07 schrieb Peter Vágner via orca-list <orca-list gnome org>:

Hello,

QT accessibility needs more adoption so it can be improved further.
Most of the GTK apps feel more polished but the trend is that accessibility on gnome is slowly degrading.

For example yesterday I've tried krusader a KDE file manager for a spin and I am impressed what I've got.
It's twin panel file manager similar to what Total commander is on windows it even has some nice features inspired from that such as integrated ftp / webdav client, tabs, multi rename tool, synchronize directories and similar. It also includes configurable file actions and keyboard shortcuts.
Some parts are accessible by using flat review, a few buttons are not labbelled but other than this it's working amazingly well.
What is so special about it that file tree widget is super super responsive when comparing it with all the GTK based file managers such as nautilus or pcman fm. And also incremental search is working great too.
It is working like a list combined with a tree view. Right arrow key expands folders and left arrow key jumps up a level. When using it it feels similar to browsing a popup menu. It's really damn fast and super responsive.
Multi selection needs a11y improvements.
Also popup menus need a bit of tweaking as it is not clear wich entries are menu items and which ones are submenus. But still it's very usable and in my opinions KDE developers need to hear some positive comments as a reward so they can keep up their great work.

Also remember plasma mobile is powerfull linux mobile environment and one day we might hopefully see it in action once we have accessible touch input support.

Greetings

Peter

26. 12. 2020 2:55:49 Devin Prater <r d t prater gmail com>:


I'd rather wait until the KDE apps, like Kate and KMail, and all that are made accessible, but yeah I'm very glad we'll have another option, as long as the KDE folks keep it up. QT still doesn't feel as great as GTK, but Mumble is a QT app and still works amazingly well, so maybe it's just general QT developers not taking advantage of QT accessibility.


On 12/25/20 9:27 AM, Jason White via orca-list wrote:

On 12/25/20 5:17 AM, Peter Vágner wrote:

Once notification area aka system tray / top pannel whatever alternative there is on the KDE desktop gets a11y support, it would be about time to move to KDE.

I understand from a recent podcast that the system tray code in Plasma is being rewritten. I don't know of any accessibility work on it, however.

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