Re: [g-a-devel]Accessibility for "Stock Ticker Applet "

["Padraig O'Briain" <Padraig Obriain Sun COM>]

> To: "Padraig O'Briain" <Padraig Obriain sun com>
> Cc: "Gnome Accessibility" <gnome-accessibility-devel gnome org>
> Subject: Re: [g-a-devel]Accessibility  for  "Stock Ticker Applet "
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> 
> Hi Padraig
> 
> > Can the applet be used with just the keyboard, i.e without using the
> mouse?
> 
> No. This applet cannot be used with just the keyboard. We need mouse for
> this.
> 

This something we need to fix.

> > What widgets in the applet can receive focus?
> 
> The mouse track enabled ferret shows BonoboWidget when the focus is on
> the drawing area and PanelAppletFrame when the focus is on the right and
> left shift scroll buttons.
> 

One problem with using ferret for this is that the applet is running in a 
different process and ferret is just an in-process tool.

I believe that there may be some problems with focus handling when going fro 
panel to applet (across a process boundary from a GtkSocket to a GtkPlug); I am 
currently trying to figure out what is happending in this scenario.

> > Concerning implementing AtkText for scrolling items, what is so wrong
> about
> > presenting all the text. The only problem I can see is that it is
> difficult to
> > determine exactly what text is being displayed at a specified time but I
> would
> > expect that the consumer of the AtkText interface is interested in all the
> text.
> 
> If we decide to implement the AtkText interface, the problem is how to read
> the text
> written on the drawing area.  The text (Stock Inforamation) is written on
> the
> drawing area using gdk calls and pixmap. The current application has no
> custom
> widgets in the application.
> 
> Does any of the following approaches will provide solution
> 1. Write a new custom widget and implement the AtkText Interface.
> 2. In the applet source call gtk_widget_get_accessible(GtkDrawingArea) and
>     set the stock information text as the description. But the problem is
> the
>     GtkDrawingArea doesn't receive the focus.

I do not see the fact that the GtkDrawingArea  doesn't receive focus as a 
problem. The AT will be able to navifate the objuect hierarchy to reach the 
object and read the text.

I am not sure that the description is the appropriate place for the stock 
information and the text will be constantly updated.

> 3. Provide gail implementaion for the gtk drawing area.
> 

Rather than a gail implementation of gtk drawing area, I would have thought that 
you would need to implement a custom ATK object for the gtk drawing area. This 
ATK object would derive from a GAIL object and would implement the AtkText 
interface.

I also think that we need to be careful here, to avoid committing ourselves to a 
significant amount of work for a small benefit.

A caveat here, is that although I have looked at the code of gtik I still do not 
really understand how it works. 


Padraig


> Please suggest.
> 
> Thanks & Regds
> Jagadeesh
> 
> 
> > Padraig
> >
> >
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I have done a study of "Stock Ticker" applet from the accessibility
> > > perspective.
> > >
> > > Applet Name :  gtik - "Stock Ticker"
> > >
> > > Description of the Applet :      "Its a scrolling stock ticker applet
> and
> > > gets a page from
> > >                                                Yahoo finance for the
> stock
> > > symbols that are being
> > >                                                entered into the
> properties
> > > dialog".
> > >
> > > Custom Widgets :     No Custom Widgets present
> > >
> > > Required AtkInterface :
> > >
> > > When this applet is launched through panel it creates a drawing area
> > > by calling gtk_drawing_area_new().  Both end of the drawing area
> > > has left-shift (<<) and right-shift(>>) buttons for scroll change.
> > > The stock symbols to display and the update frequency can be
> > > configurable through properties dialog box.
> > >
> > > It saves the fetched html file from yahoofinance to our home directory
> > > and then parses the HTML to get the data it will scroll.
> > >
> > > This text data is written on the drawing area using gdk calls
> > > gdk_draw_text() etc. Note that the parent of the GtkDrawingArea is
> > > GtkWidget so the AtkComponent interface is inherited.
> > >
> > > From the perspective of Accessibility we need to provide AtkText
> interface.
> > > From the Bills words for Deepa's mail regarding gnome-about
> > >  "Implementing AtkText for scrolling items is a real mess". Is it
> applicable
> > > here also. What approach we should adopt here to get the text out of the
> > > drawing area since the text will change dynamically.
> > >
> > > We may have to provide ToolTips for the left & right shift buttons.
> > >
> > > Could you please comment on the above
> > >
> > > Thanks & Regards
> > > Jagadeesh
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
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