Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
Today at 17:41, Sri Ramkrishna wrote: So there's been no comment on this (or I must have missed it). Are we considering Orca for GNOME 2.16[1]? It is pretty clear that we want to replace Gnopernicus with Orca, especially since Gnopernicus maintainers support that as well. It is? Where have they said this? If so, that would resolve a lot of confusion. Or is the old This'll make them actually comment on it. trick? Who are we to argue them? ;) Murray Cumming [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.murrayc.com www.openismus.com ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
So there's been no comment on this (or I must have missed it). Are we considering Orca for GNOME 2.16[1]? sri [1] I'm assuming this is the time to propose new modules. Although it seems kind of early to me. On Tue, 2006-06-06 at 10:21 -0400, Willie Walker wrote: Hi All: We (the Orca team) have been very busy the past few weeks and would like to provide more status of where we are with respect to the proposal to include Orca in GNOME 2.16. I believe we have implemented the missing features in Orca that are present in Gnopernicus, and we've also done a fair amount of stability and testing work. We've also broached the subject of including Orca in GNOME 2.16 on [EMAIL PROTECTED] The discussion thread can be found here: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/2006-June/msg2.html We've received positive feedback thus far (public and private), including the following message from Baum, the maintainer of Gnopernicus: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/2006-June/msg4.html as well as the following from the Ubuntu accessibility team: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/2006-June/msg00012.html I believe we are on track here, and we are definitely committed to the effort. With the exception of carrying on a discussion on desktop-devel-list@gnome.org, the proposal/acceptance process is still a mystery to me. I'd like to make sure we are not missing something really big here, and I'm curious about what other barriers to adoption may exist for getting Orca into GNOME 2.16. We will work hard to address the issues that arise. Thanks! Will (Orca project lead) ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list -- Sri Ramkrishna [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
On Sun, 2006-06-11 at 08:41 -0700, Sri Ramkrishna wrote: So there's been no comment on this (or I must have missed it). Are we considering Orca for GNOME 2.16[1]? sri [1] I'm assuming this is the time to propose new modules. Although it seems kind of early to me. The mail from Thomas Friehoff at Baum[1] is pretty much a clincher. If the Gnopernicus team is behind Orca, and favors Orca being Gnopernicus's successor, then it really isn't a question of if, only when. What we need to think about now is the migration path for our users. Many users have vested time and resources into making Gnopernicus work for them, so unless we can have a completely seamless forced transation (a difficult thing to do), we are going to see users using Gnopernicus for some time. So we do need to consider how we're going to accomodate those users as we shift stuff over to Orca. This means thinking about our accessibility control panels, how we present our accessibility tools to the users, and how we're documenting our accessibility stack. Perhaps an IRC meeting could be set up among the Orca developers, the Gnopernicus developers, and a couple of user interface and documentation people. Hash out a plan, report it back to the community, and make it happen. I'm excited. Are you excited? I'm excited. Let's make good things happen. -- Shaun [1] This one: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/2006-June/msg4.html On Tue, 2006-06-06 at 10:21 -0400, Willie Walker wrote: Hi All: We (the Orca team) have been very busy the past few weeks and would like to provide more status of where we are with respect to the proposal to include Orca in GNOME 2.16. I believe we have implemented the missing features in Orca that are present in Gnopernicus, and we've also done a fair amount of stability and testing work. We've also broached the subject of including Orca in GNOME 2.16 on [EMAIL PROTECTED] The discussion thread can be found here: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/2006-June/msg2.html We've received positive feedback thus far (public and private), including the following message from Baum, the maintainer of Gnopernicus: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/2006-June/msg4.html as well as the following from the Ubuntu accessibility team: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/2006-June/msg00012.html I believe we are on track here, and we are definitely committed to the effort. With the exception of carrying on a discussion on desktop-devel-list@gnome.org, the proposal/acceptance process is still a mystery to me. I'd like to make sure we are not missing something really big here, and I'm curious about what other barriers to adoption may exist for getting Orca into GNOME 2.16. We will work hard to address the issues that arise. Thanks! Will (Orca project lead) ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list -- Sri Ramkrishna [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
Today at 17:41, Sri Ramkrishna wrote: So there's been no comment on this (or I must have missed it). Are we considering Orca for GNOME 2.16[1]? It is pretty clear that we want to replace Gnopernicus with Orca, especially since Gnopernicus maintainers support that as well. Who are we to argue them? ;) Cheers, Danilo ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
On 6/11/06, Sri Ramkrishna [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So there's been no comment on this (or I must have missed it). Are we considering Orca for GNOME 2.16[1]? I did respond[2] but I think your email points out some potential confusion in the community worth addressing. [1] I'm assuming this is the time to propose new modules. Although it seems kind of early to me. Actually, (application) module proposal time has come and passed. We're now in the extended module evaluation period. In past releases, the proposal deadline and module freeze were so close together that we weren't ever even close to actually meeting the module freeze deadline. The decision would always come like a month afterwards when we were deep into freezes. So, we changed things this time around[3]. As per the release schedule[4], new application modules needed to have been proposed by April 24th; we have a longer module evaluation period, module discussion will heat up on July 10th to discuss any lingering issues, the release team meets the following week with the community input, and module choice is frozen July 24th. I believe all the modules that have been proposed have been added to http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointFifteen/Desktop and http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointFifteen/Bindings. If anyone spots a missing module, please add it. Also, it'd be great if everyone could build and test the proposed modules[5]. Thanks, Elijah [2] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2006-June/msg9.html [3] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/devel-announce-list/2006-April/msg0.html [4] http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointFifteen [5] Along those lines, I updated the meta-gnome-proposed module in jhbuild just this last week to assist with that. However, it's missing gtk-sharp and tomboy, which should probably be fixed somehow. It's similar to the missing gtk2-perl and gtk-java issue, which I also don't know quite how to solve. I'm pretty sure there's a bug I filed somewhere with some advice from James that I said I'd follow up on but which I never got around to. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
On 6/6/06, Willie Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We've received positive feedback thus far (public and private), including the following message from Baum, the maintainer of Gnopernicus: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/2006-June/msg4.html That email pretty much looks like the clincher to me; it looks to me like it resolves the only big issue I remember anyone bringing up. I believe we are on track here, and we are definitely committed to the effort. With the exception of carrying on a discussion on desktop-devel-list@gnome.org, the proposal/acceptance process is still a mystery to me. I'd like to make sure we are not missing something really big here, and I'm curious about what other barriers to adoption may exist for getting Orca into GNOME 2.16. We will work hard to address the issues that arise. Thanks for your awesome work. We've kind of sucked at getting the proposed modules all listed. Could you go to http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointFifteen/Desktop and add orca (and, if you have time, the other proposed modules)? We should start getting those into the modulesets going out with releases and doing a better job of verifying the build and so forth (though I'm betting GARNOME is ahead in the game and has them included, which would be cool). As per the schedule at http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointFifteen, the Module inclusion discussion heats up on the week of July 12th. I can't imagine why orca wouldn't make it at this point, as it looks like you've already addressed any potential issues that could come up. But if you want to be on the safe side, just watch your d-d-l email that week and if any additional issues about orca are brought up you can address them. Hope that helps, Elijah ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
Willie Walker wrote: [snip] 3. The current gap of the Configuration GUI is an issue. Orca configuration currently is done via a command line setup script, although Orca has also been designed to run w/o requiring setup. Post setup configuration is managed by hand editing a settings module. We realize the 1990's clunkiness of this, and we definitely plan resolve this with a real GUI. The main issue is getting the manpower and we welcome help from the community to do it in a timely manner. I still need to point out the irony of requiring a screen reader to configure your screen reader. ;-) I propose that we recognize that the Configuration GUI is a much needed thing, but we realize that the users have other accessible options for configuring Orca. As such, the lack of the GUI is a very small notch below show stopper status for GNOME 2.16, and is a must have for GNOME 2.18. While the GUI aspect may not make sense for the target audience, it makes sense for developers and other users who may support the interface. I also would love to see the documentation in the accessibility guide updated with instructions on how to use Orca. This document lives in gnome CVS as gnome-user-docs. Discussion takes place on gnome-doc-list. -- Brent Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] IRC: smitten ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
Hi All: Thanks for working on a summary. This is very useful :-) No problem! My hope here is that we can reach a good practical conclusion. Is there any way to evaluate what's missing in Orca (or in Gnopernicus) compared to the Gnopernicus (resp. Orca)? The two main gaps between Orca and Gnopernicus are magnification and the Configuration GUI. Magnification: there is skeletal support in Orca to support magnification and to follow the mouse and the object with focus. We realize there is much more to magnification than this, however, and we are working with a community member to flesh out the support. This is something I'm quite sure that will be completed in the GNOME 2.16 timeframe. Configuration GUI: Rich Burridge from the Orca team has created a prototype proof-of-concept Configuration GUI. With a little more work (definitely doable in the GNOME 2.16 timeframe), it is looking as though it will be useful, and is something that can be extended over time. In addition, I think we can make some minor tweaks to the Orca architecture to allow the Configuration GUI to be pluggable. This, for example, might allow different Configuration GUI's to be created that might suit a different disability better. But, the Highlander Principle will apply to the Configuration GUI for now. :-) Note that other members of the community (e.g., Ubuntu) are hearing the need the Configuration GUI and have some interesting ideas. So...I'm confident that something will come together for GNOME 2.16. Finally, we've a number of very positive comments regarding Orca in terms of the quality of the information it gives you. I'm Do you have some concrete plans so people can know how much work this would need and how they can help? I suggest we keep it simple for GNOME 2.16: let people choose the main features they want (speech, braille, magnification) and the general parameters for each (default voice, speaking rate, verbosity, zoom level, key/word echo, etc.). This simple GUI will cover the main things people want to configure and is not a huge time sink to write. Furthermore, the more ambitious users with a desire to highly customize Orca will still be able to hand edit their customizations. The next go around can start adding more specialized features, such as custom key bindings and specialized voices (e.g., upper case, hyperlink, etc.). 4. How users start Orca is a question. The general use case for a screen reader is that it will automatically be started when the desktop starts. The System-Preferences-Assistive Technology Support dialog is the common thing used to set this up. This dialog currently enforces the Highlander principle, allowing only Gnopernicus to be started. It seems as though improvements to the automatic starting of applications for the GNOME Desktop in general, however, may provide a means to obsolete this dialog. Alternatively, this dialog could be modified to provide the user with a choice of which screen reader to use. I'm not sure what to propose here. It definitely makes sense to let the user be able to choose another screenreader than the one(s) we provide, so they can install another one and easily use it. This sounds like a general accessibility question for the desktop. Would you be looking to the Orca team to provide patches to the Assistive Technology Preferences dialog? Thanks! Will PS - How does the overall new module acceptance process work? I realize we're in one phase (proposal/discussion), but who makes the final decision? ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
Darn...somehow I pressed Send before completing my e-mail. I think it's the stupid touch pad on my laptop: it seems to be producing a lot of stray clicks these days. :-( I'll finish this sentence... Finally, we've a number of very positive comments regarding Orca in terms of the quality of the information it gives you. I'm We've received a numer of positive comments regarding Orca in terms of the quality of the information it gives you. The following e-mail on [EMAIL PROTECTED] represents the general flavor of the comments: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/2006-April/msg00099.html Will ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
Hi All: I'd like to thank everyone for their responses to this proposal. The discussion has been quite informative. Now that the initial discussion has died down, I'd like to summarize what I think are the main points and then work to reach a decision. 1. People generally think it is the right thing to do. The growing Orca user community is finding good access with Orca as it is and feel that Orca is the right thing to focus on. 2. The Highlander principle is a concern, meaning that there is question about whether or not both Gnopernicus and Orca can be options. I describe this as a concern because there seem to be mixed feelings about whether the opinions in this area should be strictly adhered to for this case. I propose that both ship. With this, users will be able to choose the one that works for them. Note that the choice is often based upon whether the user can actually use the system or not. This is much different than the choice of whether one happens to like one e-mail application or content viewer better than the other. 3. The current gap of the Configuration GUI is an issue. Orca configuration currently is done via a command line setup script, although Orca has also been designed to run w/o requiring setup. Post setup configuration is managed by hand editing a settings module. We realize the 1990's clunkiness of this, and we definitely plan resolve this with a real GUI. The main issue is getting the manpower and we welcome help from the community to do it in a timely manner. I still need to point out the irony of requiring a screen reader to configure your screen reader. ;-) I propose that we recognize that the Configuration GUI is a much needed thing, but we realize that the users have other accessible options for configuring Orca. As such, the lack of the GUI is a very small notch below show stopper status for GNOME 2.16, and is a must have for GNOME 2.18. 4. How users start Orca is a question. The general use case for a screen reader is that it will automatically be started when the desktop starts. The System-Preferences-Assistive Technology Support dialog is the common thing used to set this up. This dialog currently enforces the Highlander principle, allowing only Gnopernicus to be started. It seems as though improvements to the automatic starting of applications for the GNOME Desktop in general, however, may provide a means to obsolete this dialog. Alternatively, this dialog could be modified to provide the user with a choice of which screen reader to use. I'm not sure what to propose here. 5. There was some question about Orca dependencies on things that are not a part of the GNOME desktop (e.g., GNOME Python, PyOrbit, etc.), but this was deemed acceptable via general GNOME policy if I understood correctly. Thoughts? Thanks again! Will ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
Hi, On Wed, April 19, 2006 14:54, Willie Walker wrote: Hi All: I'd like to thank everyone for their responses to this proposal. The discussion has been quite informative. Now that the initial discussion has died down, I'd like to summarize what I think are the main points and then work to reach a decision. Thanks for working on a summary. This is very useful :-) 1. People generally think it is the right thing to do. The growing Orca user community is finding good access with Orca as it is and feel that Orca is the right thing to focus on. 2. The Highlander principle is a concern, meaning that there is question about whether or not both Gnopernicus and Orca can be options. I describe this as a concern because there seem to be mixed feelings about whether the opinions in this area should be strictly adhered to for this case. I propose that both ship. With this, users will be able to choose the one that works for them. Note that the choice is often based upon whether the user can actually use the system or not. This is much different than the choice of whether one happens to like one e-mail application or content viewer better than the other. I'm not that fond about the shipping both solution. We'd still have to choose a default or recommend one of the two screenreaders for most of the cases (eg, in the doc). However I understand that Orca might be a regression in some case, and that Gnopernicus does not match Orca in some other cases. Is there any way to evaluate what's missing in Orca (or in Gnopernicus) compared to the Gnopernicus (resp. Orca)? 3. The current gap of the Configuration GUI is an issue. Orca configuration currently is done via a command line setup script, although Orca has also been designed to run w/o requiring setup. Post setup configuration is managed by hand editing a settings module. We realize the 1990's clunkiness of this, and we definitely plan resolve this with a real GUI. The main issue is getting the manpower and we welcome help from the community to do it in a timely manner. I still need to point out the irony of requiring a screen reader to configure your screen reader. ;-) I propose that we recognize that the Configuration GUI is a much needed thing, but we realize that the users have other accessible options for configuring Orca. As such, the lack of the GUI is a very small notch below show stopper status for GNOME 2.16, and is a must have for GNOME 2.18. Do you have some concrete plans so people can know how much work this would need and how they can help? 4. How users start Orca is a question. The general use case for a screen reader is that it will automatically be started when the desktop starts. The System-Preferences-Assistive Technology Support dialog is the common thing used to set this up. This dialog currently enforces the Highlander principle, allowing only Gnopernicus to be started. It seems as though improvements to the automatic starting of applications for the GNOME Desktop in general, however, may provide a means to obsolete this dialog. Alternatively, this dialog could be modified to provide the user with a choice of which screen reader to use. I'm not sure what to propose here. It definitely makes sense to let the user be able to choose another screenreader than the one(s) we provide, so they can install another one and easily use it. 5. There was some question about Orca dependencies on things that are not a part of the GNOME desktop (e.g., GNOME Python, PyOrbit, etc.), but this was deemed acceptable via general GNOME policy if I understood correctly. Those dependencies are in the bindings set, so it's perfectly okay to use them. Thanks, Vincent -- Les gens heureux ne sont pas pressés. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
Willie: I think ORCA is a great product, and I agree it is good to give users with accessibility needs a choice of different programs to use. One issue I see is that ORCA depends heavily on Python. Python (and probably more importantly gnome-python) isn't officially a part of the GNOME Platform. If the GNOME desktop community thinks it is a good idea to expose these interfaces via ORCA, it would be good if the GNOME community could clearly describe how supported the imported interfaces are. Perhaps this proposal should also mention the need to make gnome-python a part of the GNOME platform to support ORCA? I think a part of your proposal should include details about what interfaces outside of the GNOME Platform are imported by ORCA. I notice that you describe some of this here in Chapter 2 of the ORCA documentation, but you do not provide much detail there. http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/*checkout*/orca/docs/doc-set/orca.html#AEN2220 Brian I'm writing this to propose that Orca becomes an official module of GNOME 2.16. Orca is a scriptable, extensible, AT-SPI-based screen reader that provides access to the graphical desktop for people with visual impairments. Orca has been part of the GNOME CVS repository for over two years, and has undergone a substantial overhaul in the past 10 months, with blind people being involved in the design each step of the way. The Orca team recently outed Orca at CSUN '06, which is the California State University Northridge, Center on Disabilities, Annual International Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities. The response to Orca at CSUN was outstanding, and the activity and comments on the [EMAIL PROTECTED] (archives at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/) have been very positive. More information on Orca can be found here: http://www.gnome.org/projects/orca/ http://live.gnome.org/Orca Sincerely, Willie Walker, Project Lead, Orca ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
quote who=Brian Cameron One issue I see is that ORCA depends heavily on Python. Python (and probably more importantly gnome-python) isn't officially a part of the GNOME Platform. As discussed in numerous previous release cycles (and finally consummated in 2.14), Python software can and will be included in the Desktop suite. 2.14 marked the inclusion of the first set of Python software - deskbar, pessulus and sabayon. Python is not an issue for orca's proposed inclusion in the Desktop suite. - Jeff -- LinuxWorldExpo: Johannesburg, South Africa http://www.linuxworldexpo.co.za/ ... *bounce*bounce*bounce* ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
On Mon, 2006-04-10 at 18:45 -0400, Willie Walker wrote: 2) Add orca to the Startup Programs entries for gnome-session. I've never been quite sure why this wasn't something that was done for the current assistive technologies - was it because the Startup Programs dialog requires so many steps to get to it? no need to do that, you can use the autostart mechanism, that is, install a .desktop file in /etc/xdg/autostart or $prefix/share/gnome/autostart and that will be read by gnome-session and start it on login. Users that don't want to run it can go to the Startup programs capplet and disable it. -- Rodrigo Moya [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
On Tue, 2006-04-11 at 00:11 +0200, Fernando Herrera wrote: [X] Screen Reader ( ) Use generic screen reader (gnopernicus) (*) Use per-app customizable screen reader (Orca) [Show supported apps] The user has no chance of answering this question correctly. Per-app? What if I have an app that is not supported? What does gnopernicus mean? I just want to use my computer! Federico ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
On Tue, 2006-04-11 at 11:17 -0500, Federico Mena Quintero wrote: The user has no chance of answering this question correctly. Per-app? What if I have an app that is not supported? What does gnopernicus mean? I just want to use my computer! Additionally, it's not like ATs are falling from the trees. There's already code in that capplet to check which existing programs are available, and display the radio buttons appropriately. Surely we can just add Orca to the logic there. Thanks, -Jonathan signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
Willie- This sounds awesome. How does it fit with gnopernicus? Should we retire gnopernicus from the release, or do they play nicely together, or...? (Forgive me if this has been discussed before and I missed it.) Luis On 4/10/06, Willie Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi: I'm writing this to propose that Orca becomes an official module of GNOME 2.16. Orca is a scriptable, extensible, AT-SPI-based screen reader that provides access to the graphical desktop for people with visual impairments. Orca has been part of the GNOME CVS repository for over two years, and has undergone a substantial overhaul in the past 10 months, with blind people being involved in the design each step of the way. The Orca team recently outed Orca at CSUN '06, which is the California State University Northridge, Center on Disabilities, Annual International Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities. The response to Orca at CSUN was outstanding, and the activity and comments on the [EMAIL PROTECTED] (archives at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/) have been very positive. More information on Orca can be found here: http://www.gnome.org/projects/orca/ http://live.gnome.org/Orca Sincerely, Willie Walker, Project Lead, Orca ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
Hi Luis: As with gpdf/evince and galeon/epiphany and others, Orca and Gnopernicus provide the same high level reason for being, and you typically would use one or the other. As the lead for Orca and friends of the Gnopernicus team, however, it find it hard for me to make an unbiased comparison between Orca and Gnopernicus. What I would feel very comfortable saying is that two approaches to screen reading are different, and giving people with disabilities a choice of which to use is a good thing. Thanks! Will On Mon, 2006-04-10 at 16:10 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: Willie- This sounds awesome. How does it fit with gnopernicus? Should we retire gnopernicus from the release, or do they play nicely together, or...? (Forgive me if this has been discussed before and I missed it.) Luis On 4/10/06, Willie Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi: I'm writing this to propose that Orca becomes an official module of GNOME 2.16. Orca is a scriptable, extensible, AT-SPI-based screen reader that provides access to the graphical desktop for people with visual impairments. Orca has been part of the GNOME CVS repository for over two years, and has undergone a substantial overhaul in the past 10 months, with blind people being involved in the design each step of the way. The Orca team recently outed Orca at CSUN '06, which is the California State University Northridge, Center on Disabilities, Annual International Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities. The response to Orca at CSUN was outstanding, and the activity and comments on the [EMAIL PROTECTED] (archives at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/) have been very positive. More information on Orca can be found here: http://www.gnome.org/projects/orca/ http://live.gnome.org/Orca Sincerely, Willie Walker, Project Lead, Orca ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
Hi, The problem I see with Orca in current state for including it in the Desktop is the zero-integration with Preferences. I mean, how is an user supposed to launch Orca?. Currently you need to enable a11y using gnome-at-properties do not enable Screen Reader, then you need to launch orca from command-line or Run menu. So I think we need to agree before a sane way to integrate it with current AT preferences: [X] Screen Reader ( ) Use generic screen reader (gnopernicus) (*) Use per-app customizable screen reader (Orca) [Show supported apps] Or maybe just move the choice between gnopernicus/orca configuration inside gnopernicus Voice Preferences: ( ) Use gnopernicus internal speech engine ( ) Use external orca speech engine Also currently orca-setup is a text based configuration tool, we'd need to allow the user to select voice/language using an UI. So IMHO I think we should agree a good way to integrate Orca before the final inclusion in the Desktop. I'd love to see Orca in the next GNOME release and it this happens it would be great to have too a new GnomeGoal about having an Orca script for almost every application in the Desktop. Salu2 On 4/10/06, Willie Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Luis: As with gpdf/evince and galeon/epiphany and others, Orca and Gnopernicus provide the same high level reason for being, and you typically would use one or the other. As the lead for Orca and friends of the Gnopernicus team, however, it find it hard for me to make an unbiased comparison between Orca and Gnopernicus. What I would feel very comfortable saying is that two approaches to screen reading are different, and giving people with disabilities a choice of which to use is a good thing. Thanks! Will ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
On 4/10/06, Willie Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Luis: As with gpdf/evince and galeon/epiphany and others, Orca and Gnopernicus provide the same high level reason for being, and you typically would use one or the other. As the lead for Orca and friends of the Gnopernicus team, however, it find it hard for me to make an unbiased comparison between Orca and Gnopernicus. What I would feel very comfortable saying is that two approaches to screen reading are different, and giving people with disabilities a choice of which to use is a good thing. So, in those cases, we have tended to prefer that the experts involved pick one, so that (for example) the translation teams and QA teams spend their time and effort improving the 'best of breed' app, instead of doing both. You'll note that is what we did with gpdf/evince (the lead gpdf hacker now hacks on evince, I believe) and what we did with galeon/epiphany (galeon is now folding itself into epiphany, though I have no idea how far along this is.) This is not necessarily the best procedure- it certainly means we have to pick a winner/loser (which sucks), and means we typically have to do it prematurely (even worse.) And I'm sure in the a11y case, this is even worse, since most feature needs are non-negotiable. But this approach does reduce duplication of effort from outsiders (good for us), focuses core developers on one tool (usually good for us), and gives clear signals to our users about what they should typically use (which is good for them). So... dunno. We've always made it a fairly strict rule to keep apps that have substantial duplication out of the desktop. This might be the right time to break that rule, or throw it out altogether and consider alternatives, like certification. I think on balance, though, there are some very good reasons for it and we'd do well not to toss it lightly just because we're faced with a difficult choice that the experts appear reluctant to do for us. Luis On Mon, 2006-04-10 at 16:10 -0400, Luis Villa wrote: Willie- This sounds awesome. How does it fit with gnopernicus? Should we retire gnopernicus from the release, or do they play nicely together, or...? (Forgive me if this has been discussed before and I missed it.) Luis On 4/10/06, Willie Walker [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi: I'm writing this to propose that Orca becomes an official module of GNOME 2.16. Orca is a scriptable, extensible, AT-SPI-based screen reader that provides access to the graphical desktop for people with visual impairments. Orca has been part of the GNOME CVS repository for over two years, and has undergone a substantial overhaul in the past 10 months, with blind people being involved in the design each step of the way. The Orca team recently outed Orca at CSUN '06, which is the California State University Northridge, Center on Disabilities, Annual International Conference on Technology and Persons with Disabilities. The response to Orca at CSUN was outstanding, and the activity and comments on the [EMAIL PROTECTED] (archives at http://mail.gnome.org/archives/orca-list/) have been very positive. More information on Orca can be found here: http://www.gnome.org/projects/orca/ http://live.gnome.org/Orca Sincerely, Willie Walker, Project Lead, Orca ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
The problem I see with Orca in current state for including it in the Desktop is the zero-integration with Preferences. I mean, how is an user supposed to launch Orca?. The current design of the preferences is indeed a bit troublesome in that it takes the Highlander principle, meaning there can be only one assistive technology of a given type. It would be nice to refactor the preferences dialog accordingly. There are other ways to launch Orca, however, which are quite acceptable to many users: 1) Don't start gdm. Use xinit and put gnome-session and orca in your ~/.xinitrc. This is an option preferred by several blind users that I know. 2) Add orca to the Startup Programs entries for gnome-session. I've never been quite sure why this wasn't something that was done for the current assistive technologies - was it because the Startup Programs dialog requires so many steps to get to it? But, a refactored preferences approach definitely seems like a good thing to have as well. So I think we need to agree before a sane way to integrate it with current AT preferences: [X] Screen Reader ( ) Use generic screen reader (gnopernicus) (*) Use per-app customizable screen reader (Orca) [Show supported apps] This seems reasonable, and I look to the desktop-devel-list to help flesh out a sane way to do this. Keep in mind that the wording here needs to be careful so as not to imply the requirement that Orca has to have a custom script for every application. Orca provides a one size fits all default script that provides reasonable access to most well behaved applications and graphical toolkits that support the AT-SPI. This default script is automatically used in the absence of a per-app script, and most per-app scripts actually just subclass it so they only need to provide the app-specific behavior. As such, scripts are really only needed to provide super duper compelling access for some apps in addition to working around accessibility issues in other apps. Or maybe just move the choice between gnopernicus/orca configuration inside gnopernicus Voice Preferences: ( ) Use gnopernicus internal speech engine ( ) Use external orca speech engine This suggestion has me very confused since both Gnopernicus and Orca are screen readers, not speech engines. BTW, both Gnopernicus and Orca use gnome-speech to get to their speech engines. Also currently orca-setup is a text based configuration tool, we'd need to allow the user to select voice/language using an UI. A configuration GUI is indeed planned. The thing I've always found amusing, however, is the seemingly Catch-22 requirement: you require a screen reader to configure your screen reader. ;-) So IMHO I think we should agree a good way to integrate Orca before the final inclusion in the Desktop. I'd love to see Orca in the next GNOME release and it this happens it would be great to have too a new GnomeGoal about having an Orca script for almost every application in the Desktop. The more people that wrote scripts, the better. It would not only help us improve the overall accessibility of the desktop, but the feedback would help us improve the Orca scripting architecture. In addition, as patterns emerge, we could continually add to a set of useful scripting tools for script authors. In addition, if the script writers were the app writers themselves, they may be so inclined as to try to do two things better: 1) write more accessible apps, and 2) test their apps for accessibility. This would be cool. :-) Will ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Proposal to add Orca to GNOME 2.16
Hi, On Mon, 2006-04-10 at 18:45 -0400, Willie Walker wrote: 2) Add orca to the Startup Programs entries for gnome-session. I've never been quite sure why this wasn't something that was done for the current assistive technologies - was it because the Startup Programs dialog requires so many steps to get to it? I think the main reason was the fact that adding startup programs programatically wasn't very easy - the file format was pretty ugly, and pretty unsupported. This should be a bit easier with the new Autostart spec, which allows you to create a .desktop file and pop it into the autostart locations [1] Glynn [1] http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Standards_2fautostart_2dspec ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
