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

[Kyle <kyle4jesus gmail com>]

Python not being fully compatible with GTK doesn't make sense to me 
either, considering the Orca screen reader itself is written in Python. 
It not only interfaces well with at-spi2, but it also implements an 
extensive GTK preferences window, and handles it quite well. Of course 
some toolkits for use in any programming language need work. But Python 
itself does have toolkits available that are working very well already, 
so something not working well cannot be the fault of the underlying 
programming language, but rather the fault of either the toolkit not 
implementing accessibility correctly or a developer making custom 
widgets that don't expose themselves to at-spi.


It has been my experience that it takes more effort to break things than 
it does to make accessible applications. This seems to apply to just 
about anything currently available. Sure there are toolkits that don't 
correctly or fully implement accessibility to at-spi, but more often, 
I've found that such problems are caused by added complexity that tends 
to break things, when just using the toolkit as it was designed to be 
used will generally result in a more accessible and even a cleaner 
application. For one thing, complete custom widgets are largely 
unnecessary, as many toolkits do allow their widgets to be customized 
and remain accessible to at-spi. So just customize what is already 
available and working, instead of breaking things by implementing fully 
custom widgets that don't expose themselves to the accessibility stack. 
This alone would go a very long way toward better accessibility across 
the board, both for applications and even for websites.

~Kyle