Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Yes, very grue, what I ment is that if orca or anything else wich comes with ubuntu does not improve enough that there should be another option available even if it does not come with ubuntu. But yes orca came a long way it seems. On 07/01/2013, Nolan Darilek no...@thewordnerd.info wrote: Thanks, Chris. To be clear, my feelings about wanting to step back aren't due to your thoughts, or to those of any on this list. I'm sorry if my writing makes it appear otherwise, and I appreciate that you shared what you did. I develop apps for Android. At the moment my big hobby project is accessible GPS navigation based on OpenStreetMap, and with a level of spoken detail similar to what would be found on pricier GPS solutions. I'd like to keep building this out, with the very long-term goal of using it in sailboat navigation. Android is a cool platform, but I just grew tired of battling the JVM, Android's extensive customization of same, and all the assorted limitations thereof. I've also encountered unscientific and anecdotal evidence that native code generally runs faster and eats less battery than does the JVM. I'd really hoped to port these apps to Ubuntu, to leave Android behind, and to develop on what I feel to be a superior platform. Never mind if the audience is smaller; I do this for the love of it. So it hurts deep down that this doesn't look possible, and that there's no clear and apparent way to encourage Canonical to step up its efforts. Unity isn't trivial, and I never meant to imply that it was. But it's shiny, in the way that putting a nice paint job on a not-as-well-maintained car is shiny. And I don't see Canonical caring all that much about access, which is one of those areas in which the car isn't kept up. Canonical puts so much effort into encouraging developers and users to its platform. It hurts that the disabled community seems like an afterthought. I remember being here with Android in '09. I'm just not sure that I'm ready to be here again so soon. On 01/06/2013 09:52 PM, Christopher Chaltain wrote: Whether you advocate for greater accessibility in Ubuntu or not is a decision only you can make. I would not interpret the responses of two or three people though to be all this talk of diplomacy and catching more flies with honey is what people want. First, two or three people is not all of this talk or what people want, it's just the opinions of two or three people on a relatively low traffic list. Don't blow it out of proportion. For my part, the only point I made was that I don't consider Unity or Ubuntu Phone to be trivial or flashy. I think these were hard efforts involving quite a few people in an effort to make Ubuntu more popular, running on more devices and in the hands of more people. I know people have criticized Unity for being dumbed down, but I don't know what that means, and I'm not sure why it's a bad thing to make Ubuntu more popular and get it used by more people. Obviously, if you want to use the argument that Canonical is spending resources on bright new shiny things instead of accessibility then that will strike a chord with some Ubuntu and Unity critics, but I'm not sure it'll sway the decision makers at Canonical. I also wouldn't be too worried about what I or are other people think. The goal here is to get Ubuntu more accessible in all of it's releases and on all of the platforms where it's supported. If that means using honey then that's what should be done, if it means using vinegar then that's the way to go. I prefer honey myself, but I know there's a need for vinegar too. If you're not comfortable being diplomatic, political or tactful, but you want to fight for more accessibility in Ubuntu then do what you're comfortable with. At my previous employer, I got into quite a few debates with another blind person. I thought he was a bit hysterical at times and made outlandish claims. We debated quite a bit on our internal mailing list. I was surprised though when I found out how much he was appreciated by those working on accessibility within the company. I thought my more balanced and reasonable approach would have been more appreciated, but I found out that in the accessibility community you need the radicals, those calling out to man the barricades and the squeaky wheels. For my part, I hope you take up the fight, and I hope you don't take the fact that I'm a different person with a different approach as a reason not to take up the fight yourself. On 01/06/2013 08:21 PM, Nolan Darilek wrote: Great ideas and thoughts here, folks. To put my words in context, I've used Linux since Slackware '96 which, as its name implies, was released in 1996. I started using GNOME accessibility in the Gnopernicus days, and at the moment it is my full-time operating system of choice. However, my experience under Windows and NVDA is making me sit up and take notice. Firefox works very well. Similarly, I
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
I don't see how it's so hard, or detramental to your points to remove the shiny stuff line from a comment is hard, or in anyway takes away from the force of what you are saying; butt burnout is burnout. I wouldn't have even written to say that. I will say that you have just discovered or admitted or something what many, probably most people feel regarding accessible-web-browsing. For me, nvdafirefox is the current gold standard for web-browsing with a screenreader. Chrome is certainly usable with nvda as well, and chromevox adds another option although keystroke conflicts make that a harder than it should be. And yes, nvda works very well with ie as well and will get you access to some pages and content that don't work with other browsers in an accessible way. From what this non-coder understands there are basic accessibility infrastructure reasons that some things are easier to do under windows than under Linux, but no matter what NVDA is an impressive, I'd even say amazing, (awesome...lol.) program/project! The beauty of Linux, its flexibilitly/range of choice, specifically multiple desktop environments, means that for the blind person to have anywhere near the range of options that a sighted person has developers of multiple projects must think about accessibility. This means that the devs' hearts and minds must be in the right place as I doubt there's enough economic incentive to go around to be had from the blind-user market. OK, so it's unlikely that all the major desktops will be recoded so that accessibility is given a high priority, but it's ashamed that Mozilla and Orca can't or don't work together more; enough to give us a high quality experience navigating the range of websites that we are likely to encounter day in and day out. If web-browsing was all I did with my computer then no matter that my heart is with Linux I'd not be able to justify using GNU-Linux as my primary OS. Honestly, the browsing-experience on Linux is just not in the same league with what's available on Windows. On Windows I can do almost everything with Firefox, or IE if that was what I wanted to use, and seldom need to change browsers or screenreaders. I could get at almost everything I want to between these two browsers, and with one or two aditional browsers can get at a few of the bits that don't currently work with NVDA. Using Linux, as I do, as my primary OS I need to use a combination of Lynx and Firefox and for a few sites chrome/chromevox to approach the browsing efficiency i'D have if I used Windows. This means I need to know where I'm going when I start a browsing session so that I can pick the best browser or perhaps have to copy an url and switch browsers. Also it requires practice to have a decent experience with firefox. Some things I can do and not have any problem on a windows box are a mess with firefox/Orca such as using up and down arrows to get somewhere on a a webpage. If I press the arrow a bit to long and go past my goal I havwe to wait till Orca catches up and speech stops before changing direction. Even pressing the arrow too long can mean getting text repeated and again having to wait till things settle down to get an idea as to where I am. I could go in to much more detail and explain several similar problem s that make the learning curve much steeper for the blind-Linux-using web-browserk, not to mention many sites that just don't work, or don't give access to important content that's no problem under Windows. Even after over two years using Linux %95 of the time I still find myself clicking on the wrong link or button because I've not waited long enough for Orca to finish speaking or sometimes because it doesn't speak what's in focus. I'm taking a look at ELinks now as it has some java script support and other options that may mean I can do more browsing from the command line. Some of this would not be so troublesome on more powerful computers, but I don't know just how much difference a faster box with more cores and RAM would make. I'm also using older Ubuntu with gnome2 which means I'm not using the latest Orca as the xdesktop branch is no longer developed, but I've not heard many people say that their firefox experience is much better with latest Orca. I use Linux in spite of the browsing experience because I like most everything about it much better than Windows. There are notable accessibility issues besides browsing, and there are bright spots even with browsing such as surfraw and googleizer. Chromevox has a lot of potential. Someone who's not a tinkerer or not comfortable on the command line should probably not consider Linux as their primary OS at this point unfortunately. This post has been mostly about web-browsing. I don't think this is something that Ubuntu devs can do much about how firefox or other browsers work with Orca, so I really will stop going down this discussion path this time. To make one
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Check out the latest version of ChromeVox, it was just released in the last few days, it again allows you to set the ChromeVox key, and has more key mapping options, and just handles remapping of keys much more slickly! It doesn't eliminate the issue of key map collisions, but it does a lot to mitigate this issue. Also, the issue of switching between the command line and GUI has been around for quite a while. Vinux 3.x got around it by running PulseAudio in system mode, which creates some security concerns. The work arounds to get speech working in both the command line and the GUI as you jump back and forth between the two are pretty trivial. I personally wouldn't push this too high on the Ubuntu accessibility queue. On 07/01/13 11:50, B. Henry wrote: I don't see how it's so hard, or detramental to your points to remove the shiny stuff line from a comment is hard, or in anyway takes away from the force of what you are saying; butt burnout is burnout. I wouldn't have even written to say that. I will say that you have just discovered or admitted or something what many, probably most people feel regarding accessible-web-browsing. For me, nvdafirefox is the current gold standard for web-browsing with a screenreader. Chrome is certainly usable with nvda as well, and chromevox adds another option although keystroke conflicts make that a harder than it should be. And yes, nvda works very well with ie as well and will get you access to some pages and content that don't work with other browsers in an accessible way. From what this non-coder understands there are basic accessibility infrastructure reasons that some things are easier to do under windows than under Linux, but no matter what NVDA is an impressive, I'd even say amazing, (awesome...lol.) program/project! The beauty of Linux, its flexibilitly/range of choice, specifically multiple desktop environments, means that for the blind person to have anywhere near the range of options that a sighted person has developers of multiple projects must think about accessibility. This means that the devs' hearts and minds must be in the right place as I doubt there's enough economic incentive to go around to be had from the blind-user market. OK, so it's unlikely that all the major desktops will be recoded so that accessibility is given a high priority, but it's ashamed that Mozilla and Orca can't or don't work together more; enough to give us a high quality experience navigating the range of websites that we are likely to encounter day in and day out. If web-browsing was all I did with my computer then no matter that my heart is with Linux I'd not be able to justify using GNU-Linux as my primary OS. Honestly, the browsing-experience on Linux is just not in the same league with what's available on Windows. On Windows I can do almost everything with Firefox, or IE if that was what I wanted to use, and seldom need to change browsers or screenreaders. I could get at almost everything I want to between these two browsers, and with one or two aditional browsers can get at a few of the bits that don't currently work with NVDA. Using Linux, as I do, as my primary OS I need to use a combination of Lynx and Firefox and for a few sites chrome/chromevox to approach the browsing efficiency i'D have if I used Windows. This means I need to know where I'm going when I start a browsing session so that I can pick the best browser or perhaps have to copy an url and switch browsers. Also it requires practice to have a decent experience with firefox. Some things I can do and not have any problem on a windows box are a mess with firefox/Orca such as using up and down arrows to get somewhere on a a webpage. If I press the arrow a bit to long and go past my goal I havwe to wait till Orca catches up and speech stops before changing direction. Even pressing the arrow too long can mean getting text repeated and again having to wait till things settle down to get an idea as to where I am. I could go in to much more detail and explain several similar problem s that make the learning curve much steeper for the blind-Linux-using web-browserk, not to mention many sites that just don't work, or don't give access to important content that's no problem under Windows. Even after over two years using Linux %95 of the time I still find myself clicking on the wrong link or button because I've not waited long enough for Orca to finish speaking or sometimes because it doesn't speak what's in focus. I'm taking a look at ELinks now as it has some jav a script support and other options that may mean I can do more browsing from the command line. Some of this would not be so troublesome on more powerful computers, but I don't know just how much difference a faster box with more cores and RAM would make. I'm also using older Ubuntu with gnome2 which means I'm not using the latest Orca as the xdesktop
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Agreed as is often the case. I will say that vinegar's fine, but well applied. Take that how you as the readers will...lol. I just want to add that no one has to take the lead, or decide they want to take the lead to be of value in the fight. And if it turns out not to be a fight and more of a discussion then there is a God! We who care should all try and do a little. If your heart, mind and energy level make you able to do more then please consider doing so, but I suspect that a hundred more or less well thought out from the heart emails from a hundred different people are worth much more than a few people trying to say it all, whether tactfully or not. If a more hardline radical line is what is in your heart then that is where your words need to come from. The good cop/bad cop approach is often needed in this world. Again, there's so much to do that there's plenty of work for everyone! Regards, and hope to see lots of others commenting other places. -- B.H. On Sun, Jan 06, 2013 at 09:52:12PM -0600, Christopher Chaltain wrote: Whether you advocate for greater accessibility in Ubuntu or not is a decision only you can make. I would not interpret the responses of two or three people though to be all this talk of diplomacy and catching more flies with honey is what people want. First, two or three people is not all of this talk or what people want, it's just the opinions of two or three people on a relatively low traffic list. Don't blow it out of proportion. For my part, the only point I made was that I don't consider Unity or Ubuntu Phone to be trivial or flashy. I think these were hard efforts involving quite a few people in an effort to make Ubuntu more popular, running on more devices and in the hands of more people. I know people have criticized Unity for being dumbed down, but I don't know what that means, and I'm not sure why it's a bad thing to make Ubuntu more popular and get it used by more people. Obviously, if you want to use the argument that Canonical is spending resources on bright new shiny things instead of accessibility then that will strike a chord with some Ubuntu and Unity critics, but I'm not sure it'll sway the decision makers at Canonical. I also wouldn't be too worried about what I or are other people think. The goal here is to get Ubuntu more accessible in all of it's releases and on all of the platforms where it's supported. If that means using honey then that's what should be done, if it means using vinegar then that's the way to go. I prefer honey myself, but I know there's a need for vinegar too. If you're not comfortable being diplomatic, political or tactful, but you want to fight for more accessibility in Ubuntu then do what you're comfortable with. At my previous employer, I got into quite a few debates with another blind person. I thought he was a bit hysterical at times and made outlandish claims. We debated quite a bit on our internal mailing list. I was surprised though when I found out how much he was appreciated by those working on accessibility within the company. I thought my more balanced and reasonable approach would have been more appreciated, but I found out that in the accessibility community you need the radicals, those calling out to man the barricades and the squeaky wheels. For my part, I hope you take up the fight, and I hope you don't take the fact that I'm a different person with a different approach as a reason not to take up the fight yourself. On 01/06/2013 08:21 PM, Nolan Darilek wrote: Great ideas and thoughts here, folks. To put my words in context, I've used Linux since Slackware '96 which, as its name implies, was released in 1996. I started using GNOME accessibility in the Gnopernicus days, and at the moment it is my full-time operating system of choice. However, my experience under Windows and NVDA is making me sit up and take notice. Firefox works very well. Similarly, I can run Chrome and, gods forbid, IE reasonably well. I have a level of choice that I don't seem to under Linux, and there are other areas in which Windows is excelling for me. I'm not saying that it's the best choice, or the right choice for everyone. I'm just starting to give it a serious look, because the latest state of having to reboot multiple times per day under Ubuntu because accessibility is behaving oddly is starting to get to me. I hope that this discussion leads to someone taking up this cause. I did some soul-searching over the last two days, and am not the one to take this up--if all this talk of diplomacy and catching more flies with honey is what people want, that is. Having pushed and advocated and developed for Android for the past few years, I'm burned out on the access fight, and no longer have much diplomacy left in me. Best of luck. On 01/05/2013 06:12 PM, Kyle wrote: The spam system is completely automated and Akismet has been known to mark quite a large
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Hi KK and all, I certainly was not trying to suggest that writing about Windows should be anyone's focus in their interactions with Canonical execs, or any Linux devs. On the other hand howeverknowing that others have managed to make important bits accessible lets folks know that they need to find a way to give access to these same functions whether in similar or quite different ways. I'm not saying that ORCA should try and be NVDA anymore than I think NVDA should have tried to be jaws or Hal. At any rate these comments were part of an internal discussion between users of access tech, not my ideas as to what anyone should say to Mark Shuttleworth, or Orca devs in case that was not clear. I'd hope it would be sufficient to say that Orca needs to have a way to clear its buffers and speak where one actually is on a page instead of reading everything that the cursor has passed over, or perhaps that's not the right way to explain it, but anyway instead of saying that I want Orca to work like other screen readers manage to do and have done for years. It is important to say thank you. Sure, some people don't really care, but many, I reckon most do; and I always try to do so, and I try to find something possitive to say even when expressing major concerns or noting serious improvements that are needed and while some people will prefer you get to the point in as few a words as is possible I think the thank yous usually are worth the extra characters. Lastly, while I'm a serious supporter of FOS, it's unfair and just wrong to say that no one who makes proprietary software cares about what people ask for, even accessibility. Some do and will, many don't and probably never will. Same's true for FOS devs. I'll always choose FOS if all is equal as far as functionality and efficiency and then some. I won't do with out or spend twice as long doing something on a regular basis just to say I only use free software. Sure I can't afford some useful proprietary programs that exist, and others may not be able to even afford the $5 that a good Spanish voice costs for Linux, but I won't choose to starve to death because there's someone in the world who can't afford the price of their next meal. I'd be better off studying programming instead of commenting on such debates perhaps, but for the moment I do have a vague idea how to express myself so I'm doing so. I guess I mostly want to say that anyone who has subscribed to this list has an interest in Ubuntu and accessibility and I don't think the big decission makers at Canonical do read this list, but even if they do I don't see how the discussion would do anything but show them where things really stand; at least in the minds of many of the people who use and might use their products. Read my emial headers and you'll see I'm writing and pretty mucfh always do from a Linux box, usually a Ubuntu or Vinux built on Ubuntu box. I'm sold, but things can change. Let's make them change for the better, not slowly slip away from us. And sorry, I know I wasn't going to continue to post on this, but I've not heard from Krishnakant for a while and instinct got the better of me...lol. Regards, -- B.H. On Mon, Jan 07, 2013 at 11:33:01PM +0530, Krishnakant Mane wrote: +1 Kyle, And I would say the work has been awsome and Ubuntu 12.04 fits my bill very wel. I would take this opportunity to strongly urge all users to be positively critical and instead of saying what is great about Windows or any closed software for that matter, better tell developers what is required. I would go one step ahead and say, one encouragement for developers is to tell them what even your favorite non-free OS and software does not have and that you wished it was there in Orca/ Ubuntu/ what ever. This helps because proprietary fokes are not going to listen any ways, FOSS hackers do. happy hacking. Krishnakant. On 01/07/2013 11:20 PM, B. Henry wrote: I don't see how it's so hard, or detramental to your points to remove the shiny stuff line from a comment is hard, or in anyway takes away from the force of what you are saying; butt burnout is burnout. I wouldn't have even written to say that. I will say that you have just discovered or admitted or something what many, probably most people feel regarding accessible-web-browsing. For me, nvdafirefox is the current gold standard for web-browsing with a screenreader. Chrome is certainly usable with nvda as well, and chromevox adds another option although keystroke conflicts make that a harder than it should be. And yes, nvda works very well with ie as well and will get you access to some pages and content that don't work with other browsers in an accessible way. From what this non-coder understands there are basic accessibility infrastructure reasons that some things are easier to do under windows than under Linux, but no matter what NVDA is an impressive, I'd even say amazing,
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
I do lots of things with my computer using Linux. Granted, my primary distro is Arch Linux rather than Ubuntu, so I get all the latest stuff as soon as it's released, but I don't use Windows, except the very rare times when I need to print something, because I have yet to purchase a good printer, at which times I use a left-over XP install on a 10-year-old box. I browse many websites on my Linux box using Orca and Firefox, and I use no other browser, not even Chrome+ChromeVox. I have nothing against trying different things, but I tend to stick with what works, and Firefox+Orca works quite well here. I have yet to find a website that is impossible to navigate, with the exception of Flash content, which is more miss than hit on any browser in any OS. Yes, the times I still have to use Windows for printing, I find NVDA to be quite usable, but if making Firefox+Orca more usable for others means converting to a clunky virtual buffer system that doesn't handle dynamic content well, and cludgy work-arounds like lists of links, then I'll hold off on the downgr ... I mean upgrade, thank you very much. Yes, Firefox and the way Orca works with it could be improved, and this is happening. But saying that you'd rather use Windows for web browsing because you haven't even tried the latest versions of either Orca or Firefox is utterly ridiculous. So before spouting and spitting about how accessibility needs to improve, first start by trying the latest versions of things, so that you can file more informed bug reports based on the newest, dare I say shiniest, technology. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk/ -- Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle? Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - The Amazing Evie -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Well said. On 01/07/2013 03:14 PM, Kyle wrote: I do lots of things with my computer using Linux. Granted, my primary distro is Arch Linux rather than Ubuntu, so I get all the latest stuff as soon as it's released, but I don't use Windows, except the very rare times when I need to print something, because I have yet to purchase a good printer, at which times I use a left-over XP install on a 10-year-old box. I browse many websites on my Linux box using Orca and Firefox, and I use no other browser, not even Chrome+ChromeVox. I have nothing against trying different things, but I tend to stick with what works, and Firefox+Orca works quite well here. I have yet to find a website that is impossible to navigate, with the exception of Flash content, which is more miss than hit on any browser in any OS. Yes, the times I still have to use Windows for printing, I find NVDA to be quite usable, but if making Firefox+Orca more usable for others means converting to a clunky virtual buffer system that doesn't handle dynamic content well, and cludgy work-arounds like lists of links, then I'll hold off on the downgr ... I mean upgrade, thank you very much. Yes, Firefox and the way Orca works with it could be improved, and this is happening. But saying that you'd rather use Windows for web browsing because you haven't even tried the latest versions of either Orca or Firefox is utterly ridiculous. So before spouting and spitting about how accessibility needs to improve, first start by trying the latest versions of things, so that you can file more informed bug reports based on the newest, dare I say shiniest, technology. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk/ -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
On 01/07/2013 02:51 PM, kendell clark wrote: ouch. Pms, maybe? Nope, just my zero tact and diplomacy rearing its head. If people like their choices, then great. More power to them. But I have a short fuse with being criticized for daring to question the status quo, or for implying that something else does a better job for me in some instances. And besides...ouch. Misogynistic, maybe? -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
And yes, I agree, things are getting better. I never said they weren't, nor have I said that they were bad. My primary point is that we're seeing *lots* of companies backing QT for mobile accessibility, Canonical being the latest of those, and we aren't seeing any commitment by those companies to accessibility. I'm saying that, for me, Windows-based AT is starting to look more and more appealing because I do have increased access. And, for the record, I am testing out the more recent access tech than is available in Ubuntu packages, thanks for asking. But if companies are going to start making money off of Linux, and are going to urge consumers to jump ship from their Android/Windows/IOS devices, the time to advocate for accessibility *isn't* after said products have taken off. It's now. Good enough for me isn't always good enough for everyone. There are plenty for whom a Linux text console is good enough. It'd really suck if those people blasted those of you who used GNOME/X because Lynx wasn't acceptable for you. So when some of us come along and say sure, things are great and are getting better, but these other solutions are starting to look a lot more compelling to us, that has nothing to do with *your* needs or *your* choice to run what *you* want. And with that I'm stepping back from this thread, and will not read public or private responses. Either the community steps up and starts speaking out strongly for Canonical to up its accessibility game, or it doesn't. On 01/07/2013 03:04 PM, kendell clark wrote: I will say this though. Orca is *much* better than it was even a year ago. I started using linux when it was at v 3.2.0 and it has improved a lot, especially in the area of web browsing. Is it perfect? no but what access tech is, especially computers where a simple coding error can render an app inaccessible. If I must be honest, I think and probably always will taht without a money insentive, or a threat of legal action, most devs including companies put little or no thought towards accessibility. Yes we have the orca devs, and we have vinux, but they can't do everything and without cooperation from the major desktops gnome, xfce, etc they can't solve the problem on their own. Bug reports seem to sit unsolved for months, even years, while sighted problems get fixed fairly quickly. If there was a catastrophic bug that caused the screens on all desktops and laptops to go off, and wouldn't come back on, there would be a massive outcry. If the response from the dev community was meh, we'll fix it sooner or later, people would flock to windows, or mac, or whatever offered the fix. That's how accessiblity is imo. YOu can flame me if you like but that's my opinion. I love linux and I love orca and firefox but I'm trying to be realistic and I just don't think that many people care about a11y. There are people, but not nearly enough, imo. I can't code, and documentation on accessiility is sparse or non existent, making it difficult for anyone not familiar with gnome to dive in. On 01/07/2013 02:51 PM, kendell clark wrote: ouch. Pms, maybe? On 01/07/2013 02:49 PM, Nolan Darilek wrote: First, please confirm which versions of Firefox and Orca I am using. Since you know so much about my environment, I look forward to your abilities in this regard. Second, please justify why the fact that a given choice works for you is a good reason why that choice must be for everyone. I at no point said that you must use Windows or criticized your choices, so perhaps it would be wise not to criticize mine, or to criticize me when I claim that Windows suits my needs better. If you're happy with what you have now, fine. Be happy with it. But do step aside when others aren't and try to make things better. We're not trying to put *you* down or call *you* out, after all. On 01/07/2013 02:14 PM, Kyle wrote: I do lots of things with my computer using Linux. Granted, my primary distro is Arch Linux rather than Ubuntu, so I get all the latest stuff as soon as it's released, but I don't use Windows, except the very rare times when I need to print something, because I have yet to purchase a good printer, at which times I use a left-over XP install on a 10-year-old box. I browse many websites on my Linux box using Orca and Firefox, and I use no other browser, not even Chrome+ChromeVox. I have nothing against trying different things, but I tend to stick with what works, and Firefox+Orca works quite well here. I have yet to find a website that is impossible to navigate, with the exception of Flash content, which is more miss than hit on any browser in any OS. Yes, the times I still have to use Windows for printing, I find NVDA to be quite usable, but if making Firefox+Orca more usable for others means converting to a clunky virtual buffer system that doesn't handle dynamic content well, and cludgy work-arounds like lists of links, then I'll hold off on the
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
I agree with this sentiment. I'd only nit pick a few points. Canonical isn't making money at all yet, let alone with Ubuntu Phone. That being said, accessibility needs to be built in from the get though, and it can't wait until Canonical is profitable or making money off of Ubuntu Phone. I don't think Canonical is investing much in QT accessibility, but I know there are members of the Ubuntu community working on QT accessibility. It isn't perfect yet, but we have accessibility to some QT apps in Ubuntu 12.04, and Unity 2D, which is accessible, was written in QT. I'm not sure why you're stepping back from this thread, but hopefully, you'll continue to advocate for greater accessibility. On 07/01/13 15:15, Nolan Darilek wrote: And yes, I agree, things are getting better. I never said they weren't, nor have I said that they were bad. My primary point is that we're seeing *lots* of companies backing QT for mobile accessibility, Canonical being the latest of those, and we aren't seeing any commitment by those companies to accessibility. I'm saying that, for me, Windows-based AT is starting to look more and more appealing because I do have increased access. And, for the record, I am testing out the more recent access tech than is available in Ubuntu packages, thanks for asking. But if companies are going to start making money off of Linux, and are going to urge consumers to jump ship from their Android/Windows/IOS devices, the time to advocate for accessibility *isn't* after said products have taken off. It's now. Good enough for me isn't always good enough for everyone. There are plenty for whom a Linux text console is good enough. It'd really suck if those people blasted those of you who used GNOME/X because Lynx wasn't acceptable for you. So when some of us come along and say sure, things are great and are getting better, but these other solutions are starting to look a lot more compelling to us, that has nothing to do with *your* needs or *your* choice to run what *you* want. And with that I'm stepping back from this thread, and will not read public or private responses. Either the community steps up and starts speaking out strongly for Canonical to up its accessibility game, or it doesn't. On 01/07/2013 03:04 PM, kendell clark wrote: I will say this though. Orca is *much* better than it was even a year ago. I started using linux when it was at v 3.2.0 and it has improved a lot, especially in the area of web browsing. Is it perfect? no but what access tech is, especially computers where a simple coding error can render an app inaccessible. If I must be honest, I think and probably always will taht without a money insentive, or a threat of legal action, most devs including companies put little or no thought towards accessibility. Yes we have the orca devs, and we have vinux, but they can't do everything and without cooperation from the major desktops gnome, xfce, etc they can't solve the problem on their own. Bug reports seem to sit unsolved for months, even years, while sighted problems get fixed fairly quickly. If there was a catastrophic bug that caused the screens on all desktops and laptops to go off, and wouldn't come back on, there would be a massive outcry. If the response from the dev community was meh, we'll fix it sooner or later, people would flock to windows, or mac, or whatever offered the fix. That's how accessiblity is imo. YOu can flame me if you like but that's my opinion. I love linux and I love orca and firefox but I'm trying to be realistic and I just don't think that many people care about a11y. There are people, but not nearly enough, imo. I can't code, and documentation on accessiility is sparse or non existent, making it difficult for anyone not familiar with gnome to dive in. On 01/07/2013 02:51 PM, kendell clark wrote: ouch. Pms, maybe? On 01/07/2013 02:49 PM, Nolan Darilek wrote: First, please confirm which versions of Firefox and Orca I am using. Since you know so much about my environment, I look forward to your abilities in this regard. Second, please justify why the fact that a given choice works for you is a good reason why that choice must be for everyone. I at no point said that you must use Windows or criticized your choices, so perhaps it would be wise not to criticize mine, or to criticize me when I claim that Windows suits my needs better. If you're happy with what you have now, fine. Be happy with it. But do step aside when others aren't and try to make things better. We're not trying to put *you* down or call *you* out, after all. On 01/07/2013 02:14 PM, Kyle wrote: I do lots of things with my computer using Linux. Granted, my primary distro is Arch Linux rather than Ubuntu, so I get all the latest stuff as soon as it's released, but I don't use Windows, except the very rare times when I need to print something, because I have yet to purchase a good printer, at which times I use a
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
QT accessibility in Linux still has a long way to go. I'm not denying this. However, giving credit where credit is due, QT accessibility has made major improvements, going from near zero just 2 years ago to something that in many cases is mostly usable, and even surpasses the level of QT accessibility in other operating systems today, and most of these improvements have happened within the last 4 months. There are also reports that qt-at-spi, the plugin responsible for making QT work with Orca and the accessibility stack, will be included in the core of QT version 5, hopefully due out this year. If I'm jumping the gun, let me know, but I have read this in several places. Accessibility is something I fight for every day in many aspects of my daily life; I do need it after all. Having said this, it is extremely important to give credit where it is due, to file informed bug reports when something isn't working correctly and to contribute code and financial resources if possible, rather than just fussing andd whining that something isn't accessible, ABC developers don't care about accessibility, or XYZ Company's product works better, without providing meaningful insight into what we need to work and how it can work better for us, and where improvements and increases in resources devoted to accessibility can help to make something easier for us to use. Keep in mind that a lack of accessibility features in applications and operating systems is generally not caused by developers or companies not caring. After all, how many blind, visually impaired or otherwise disabled developers, who know exactly what they need, actually work to develop the applications and operating systems we use every day? How many more of us don't necessarily know how to code, but can put into simple terms exactly what we need an application, OS or interface to do in what situations that can help us use it more effectively? Many of us can probably educate developers about our needs and how to best meet them, but most of us just whine and scream on e-mail lists about how much better XYZ is or how little ABC's devs seem to care about accessibility, without providing any meaningful feedback. It's enough to make most developers want to give up; I know I would. However, when meaningful discussions take place between developers and end-users, when developers are made aware of our needs and how best to meet them, and when we have the patience to explain concepts that are difficult for people who don't have certain physical disabilities to understand, our access to more operating systems, interfaces and applications will begin increasing quite rapidly, because we will be recognizing the fact that developers are in fact human beings, and developers and the companies who employ them will recognize that we are also human beings. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk/ -- Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle? Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - The Amazing Evie -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Couldn't have said it better myself. On 01/07/2013 06:21 PM, Kyle wrote: QT accessibility in Linux still has a long way to go. I'm not denying this. However, giving credit where credit is due, QT accessibility has made major improvements, going from near zero just 2 years ago to something that in many cases is mostly usable, and even surpasses the level of QT accessibility in other operating systems today, and most of these improvements have happened within the last 4 months. There are also reports that qt-at-spi, the plugin responsible for making QT work with Orca and the accessibility stack, will be included in the core of QT version 5, hopefully due out this year. If I'm jumping the gun, let me know, but I have read this in several places. Accessibility is something I fight for every day in many aspects of my daily life; I do need it after all. Having said this, it is extremely important to give credit where it is due, to file informed bug reports when something isn't working correctly and to contribute code and financial resources if possible, rather than just fussing andd whining that something isn't accessible, ABC developers don't care about accessibility, or XYZ Company's product works better, without providing meaningful insight into what we need to work and how it can work better for us, and where improvements and increases in resources devoted to accessibility can help to make something easier for us to use. Keep in mind that a lack of accessibility features in applications and operating systems is generally not caused by developers or companies not caring. After all, how many blind, visually impaired or otherwise disabled developers, who know exactly what they need, actually work to develop the applications and operating systems we use every day? How many more of us don't necessarily know how to code, but can put into simple terms exactly what we need an application, OS or interface to do in what situations that can help us use it more effectively? Many of us can probably educate developers about our needs and how to best meet them, but most of us just whine and scream on e-mail lists about how much better XYZ is or how little ABC's devs seem to care about accessibility, without providing any meaningful feedback. It's enough to make most developers want to give up; I know I would. However, when meaningful discussions take place between developers and end-users, when developers are made aware of our needs and how best to meet them, and when we have the patience to explain concepts that are difficult for people who don't have certain physical disabilities to understand, our access to more operating systems, interfaces and applications will begin increasing quite rapidly, because we will be recognizing the fact that developers are in fact human beings, and developers and the companies who employ them will recognize that we are also human beings. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk/ -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Thank you for this, Its good to no, and I agree with all said, its just to me very unfortunet because I don't like the command line, neither do I understand it, I have great respect for all older computer users who noes these things better and who come out of the dos era, as they no of a world wich young guys like me no nothing about. But sorry for my ignoarance, but then if I may ask as I don't no these things wel, is orca then the only screenreader available except for speakup wich is drivvin command line? I mean shouldn't we also need perhaps more third party access software if ubuntu won't incorperate one in their system? I also never new that firefox didn't work wel on mac, intresting. On 06/01/2013, B. Henry burt1ib...@gmail.com wrote: Yes, you can have the eloquence voices on Linux systems. There are packages built for DebianUbuntu, and I know that people have it working on other distros as well, probably from the same tarballs, but don't remember for sure. Try googling Voxin or oralux. (I may have the spelling wrong on that last one) Anyway, the same ibmtts that is used by eloquence and ibmviavoice is used by voxin. It's refferred to as ibmtts in speechdispatcher configuration files. The voices cost $5 per language. They work with both speechdispatcher and emacspeak speech servers. There's a special installation package that configures your system to be able to use the voices with emacspeak that is updated as new releases of Debian and Ubuntu come out. I have used the Spanish voices as espeak doesn't sound good at all with Spanish. I'm tired/not looking for urls nor writing very well right now, but write me off list and I can hook you up with more information if you have any trouble finding these voices. Orca, and speakup for that matter have nothing to do with Ubuntu, or at least no more is Ubuntu responsible for their development than is Microsoft responsible for NVDA, Jaws or any other windows screen-reader. I will say that Orca's only been around for about a third of the time that jaws and window-eyes have more or less. NVDA does for sure give a better experience in most cases than does Orca, but if you are willing to do a fair amount of your computing on the command line I find that you can make up for some of the shortcomings with GUI accessibility in Linux. Any conparisons are OT for this thread anyway, and really OT for this list, so I'll just leave it there except for saying that I think most of us are glad to see improvements in access for any and all platforms. I certainly want to have as many options as possible. I for one do %95 of my computing on Linux, but I wish it were more practical for me to use Linux for that other %5, and I wish I was more efficient for some tasks I do under Linux that I could sometimes do faster on a windows machine. Regards, -- B.H. On Sat, Jan 05, 2013 at 09:51:11PM +0200, Aidan Maher wrote: Wel, I am stil learning this thing, but I don't see how I can get away from windows, I mean we don't even have elliquence in linux systems, neither half of the functions jaws can offer, but very true that ubuntu is a great system and I agree with all said that it must be taken much more seriously. I just think that many people should not be blamed if they stil use windows as there are reasons for that. A balance is always helthy. On 05/01/2013, B. Henry burt1ib...@gmail.com wrote: Terrible! I am appauled reading that your msg was marked spam. Sadly, your friends and you are in the majority of blind computer users in deciding that Windows meets their needs better than current Linux realeases due to the lack of major progress of accessibility.i There is no doubt that as far as web-browsing goes NVDA/firefox gives a muuch better experience on most web-pages than does any browser with Linux screenreading options. I'd go as far as to say that NVDA/firefox is the gold standard for accessible web-browsing. There's also no doubt that web-browsers are if not the most important programs on most computers they are one of the most used and most indespensible pieces of software for the majority of users. This is close to as true for blind users as it is for the population in general, and I think that I'm not alone when I say that it is very hard to continue to be pasient waiting on an acceptable level of web-browser accessibility. The ball is not in Ubuntu's court in general here, but as is said below at the very least it is important to fast track the inclusion of latest accessibility software in to Ubuntu. I think I'm correct in saying that it's a scramble to get the LTS releases minimally accessible when first deamed ready for production use. When major accessibility bugs are still not fixed when the LTS comes out of beta this says to me that Canical needs to dedicate more resources to making Ubuntu usable by blind users. I'd like to see mid-term Ubuntu
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
What do you mean by the statement ... also need perhaps more third party access software if ubuntu won't incorporate one in their system? Orca is included with Ubuntu and Speakup is built into the kernel used by Ubuntu. Are you referring to the Ubuntu Phone or the Voxin text to speech engine? Ubuntu and the Mac OS's are the only two OS's I know about where a blind person can install the OS with no sighted assistance. I agree with the statement below that Canonical isn't responsible for Orca, but I think Canonical has more to do with Orca than MS has with NVDA, JAWS, Window Eyes and so on. I know MS has contributed to NVDA and provides technical information to the screen reader vendors, but Canonical does have an employee contributing to Orca and Orca is included in the Ubuntu desktop OS. On 01/06/2013 04:14 AM, Aidan Maher wrote: Thank you for this, Its good to no, and I agree with all said, its just to me very unfortunet because I don't like the command line, neither do I understand it, I have great respect for all older computer users who noes these things better and who come out of the dos era, as they no of a world wich young guys like me no nothing about. But sorry for my ignoarance, but then if I may ask as I don't no these things wel, is orca then the only screenreader available except for speakup wich is drivvin command line? I mean shouldn't we also need perhaps more third party access software if ubuntu won't incorperate one in their system? I also never new that firefox didn't work wel on mac, intresting. On 06/01/2013, B. Henry burt1ib...@gmail.com wrote: Yes, you can have the eloquence voices on Linux systems. There are packages built for DebianUbuntu, and I know that people have it working on other distros as well, probably from the same tarballs, but don't remember for sure. Try googling Voxin or oralux. (I may have the spelling wrong on that last one) Anyway, the same ibmtts that is used by eloquence and ibmviavoice is used by voxin. It's refferred to as ibmtts in speechdispatcher configuration files. The voices cost $5 per language. They work with both speechdispatcher and emacspeak speech servers. There's a special installation package that configures your system to be able to use the voices with emacspeak that is updated as new releases of Debian and Ubuntu come out. I have used the Spanish voices as espeak doesn't sound good at all with Spanish. I'm tired/not looking for urls nor writing very well right now, but write me off list and I can hook you up with more information if you have any trouble finding these voices. Orca, and speakup for that matter have nothing to do with Ubuntu, or at least no more is Ubuntu responsible for their development than is Microsoft responsible for NVDA, Jaws or any other windows screen-reader. I will say that Orca's only been around for about a third of the time that jaws and window-eyes have more or less. NVDA does for sure give a better experience in most cases than does Orca, but if you are willing to do a fair amount of your computing on the command line I find that you can make up for some of the shortcomings with GUI accessibility in Linux. Any conparisons are OT for this thread anyway, and really OT for this list, so I'll just leave it there except for saying that I think most of us are glad to see improvements in access for any and all platforms. I certainly want to have as many options as possible. I for one do %95 of my computing on Linux, but I wish it were more practical for me to use Linux for that other %5, and I wish I was more efficient for some tasks I do under Linux that I could sometimes do faster on a windows machine. Regards, -- B.H. On Sat, Jan 05, 2013 at 09:51:11PM +0200, Aidan Maher wrote: Wel, I am stil learning this thing, but I don't see how I can get away from windows, I mean we don't even have elliquence in linux systems, neither half of the functions jaws can offer, but very true that ubuntu is a great system and I agree with all said that it must be taken much more seriously. I just think that many people should not be blamed if they stil use windows as there are reasons for that. A balance is always helthy. On 05/01/2013, B. Henry burt1ib...@gmail.com wrote: Terrible! I am appauled reading that your msg was marked spam. Sadly, your friends and you are in the majority of blind computer users in deciding that Windows meets their needs better than current Linux realeases due to the lack of major progress of accessibility.i There is no doubt that as far as web-browsing goes NVDA/firefox gives a muuch better experience on most web-pages than does any browser with Linux screenreading options. I'd go as far as to say that NVDA/firefox is the gold standard for accessible web-browsing. There's also no doubt that web-browsers are if not the most important programs on most computers they are one of the most used and most indespensible pieces of software for the majority of users. This is close to as true
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Great ideas and thoughts here, folks. To put my words in context, I've used Linux since Slackware '96 which, as its name implies, was released in 1996. I started using GNOME accessibility in the Gnopernicus days, and at the moment it is my full-time operating system of choice. However, my experience under Windows and NVDA is making me sit up and take notice. Firefox works very well. Similarly, I can run Chrome and, gods forbid, IE reasonably well. I have a level of choice that I don't seem to under Linux, and there are other areas in which Windows is excelling for me. I'm not saying that it's the best choice, or the right choice for everyone. I'm just starting to give it a serious look, because the latest state of having to reboot multiple times per day under Ubuntu because accessibility is behaving oddly is starting to get to me. I hope that this discussion leads to someone taking up this cause. I did some soul-searching over the last two days, and am not the one to take this up--if all this talk of diplomacy and catching more flies with honey is what people want, that is. Having pushed and advocated and developed for Android for the past few years, I'm burned out on the access fight, and no longer have much diplomacy left in me. Best of luck. On 01/05/2013 06:12 PM, Kyle wrote: The spam system is completely automated and Akismet has been known to mark quite a large number of false positives, so having a comment of any kind marked by Akismet as spam is not at all uncommon. Having said this, I'm not sure where the perception comes in that non-free operating systems provide a better accessibility experience, or how that perception will help further our cause. I have been using GNOME+Orca+free GNU/Linux operating systems exclusively since 2009, and I can't say that my experience with accessibility has been even close to unfavorable, and it has improved quite rapidly just over the past year, since I now have a level of access to qt applications that I never even dreamed possible just 2 years ago, and that level of qt accessibility far surpasses the level of qt accessibility on Apple computers and devices, not to mention the fact that Firefox can't be made to work with VoiceOver on a Mac, which is a state I find extremely sad, albeit typical, from a company who continually receives the highest praise for its lackluster accessibility performance. On the Microsoft side, accessibility is also taking backsteps, as Windows 8 is a nightmare, and is in fact seen by many Windows users, as a complete joke as relating to accessibility, as well as many other aspects of the OS. Does Canonical need to devote more resources to the expansion of the accessibility team and the improvement of the accessibility stac? Absolutely. Does accessibility need to be a primary concern for any OS or desktop or smart phone environment? No question. But the best way to make it known that this is a requirement is not by telling developers and companies that it's sad that their competitor does abc better when in fact, their competitor has bigger problems with xyz. Rather, the best way to raise awareness of what we need in an accessibility stack and a team of developers working on it is simply letting them know that accessibility is a major requirement for any OS or interface, letting them know what improvements are needed that would help us to be able to use the OS or interface better, and contributing to development of the codebase if possible, which is something that can *never* happen on a non-free operating system where even error reports fall on deaf ears. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk/ -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Whether you advocate for greater accessibility in Ubuntu or not is a decision only you can make. I would not interpret the responses of two or three people though to be all this talk of diplomacy and catching more flies with honey is what people want. First, two or three people is not all of this talk or what people want, it's just the opinions of two or three people on a relatively low traffic list. Don't blow it out of proportion. For my part, the only point I made was that I don't consider Unity or Ubuntu Phone to be trivial or flashy. I think these were hard efforts involving quite a few people in an effort to make Ubuntu more popular, running on more devices and in the hands of more people. I know people have criticized Unity for being dumbed down, but I don't know what that means, and I'm not sure why it's a bad thing to make Ubuntu more popular and get it used by more people. Obviously, if you want to use the argument that Canonical is spending resources on bright new shiny things instead of accessibility then that will strike a chord with some Ubuntu and Unity critics, but I'm not sure it'll sway the decision makers at Canonical. I also wouldn't be too worried about what I or are other people think. The goal here is to get Ubuntu more accessible in all of it's releases and on all of the platforms where it's supported. If that means using honey then that's what should be done, if it means using vinegar then that's the way to go. I prefer honey myself, but I know there's a need for vinegar too. If you're not comfortable being diplomatic, political or tactful, but you want to fight for more accessibility in Ubuntu then do what you're comfortable with. At my previous employer, I got into quite a few debates with another blind person. I thought he was a bit hysterical at times and made outlandish claims. We debated quite a bit on our internal mailing list. I was surprised though when I found out how much he was appreciated by those working on accessibility within the company. I thought my more balanced and reasonable approach would have been more appreciated, but I found out that in the accessibility community you need the radicals, those calling out to man the barricades and the squeaky wheels. For my part, I hope you take up the fight, and I hope you don't take the fact that I'm a different person with a different approach as a reason not to take up the fight yourself. On 01/06/2013 08:21 PM, Nolan Darilek wrote: Great ideas and thoughts here, folks. To put my words in context, I've used Linux since Slackware '96 which, as its name implies, was released in 1996. I started using GNOME accessibility in the Gnopernicus days, and at the moment it is my full-time operating system of choice. However, my experience under Windows and NVDA is making me sit up and take notice. Firefox works very well. Similarly, I can run Chrome and, gods forbid, IE reasonably well. I have a level of choice that I don't seem to under Linux, and there are other areas in which Windows is excelling for me. I'm not saying that it's the best choice, or the right choice for everyone. I'm just starting to give it a serious look, because the latest state of having to reboot multiple times per day under Ubuntu because accessibility is behaving oddly is starting to get to me. I hope that this discussion leads to someone taking up this cause. I did some soul-searching over the last two days, and am not the one to take this up--if all this talk of diplomacy and catching more flies with honey is what people want, that is. Having pushed and advocated and developed for Android for the past few years, I'm burned out on the access fight, and no longer have much diplomacy left in me. Best of luck. On 01/05/2013 06:12 PM, Kyle wrote: The spam system is completely automated and Akismet has been known to mark quite a large number of false positives, so having a comment of any kind marked by Akismet as spam is not at all uncommon. Having said this, I'm not sure where the perception comes in that non-free operating systems provide a better accessibility experience, or how that perception will help further our cause. I have been using GNOME+Orca+free GNU/Linux operating systems exclusively since 2009, and I can't say that my experience with accessibility has been even close to unfavorable, and it has improved quite rapidly just over the past year, since I now have a level of access to qt applications that I never even dreamed possible just 2 years ago, and that level of qt accessibility far surpasses the level of qt accessibility on Apple computers and devices, not to mention the fact that Firefox can't be made to work with VoiceOver on a Mac, which is a state I find extremely sad, albeit typical, from a company who continually receives the highest praise for its lackluster accessibility performance. On the Microsoft side, accessibility is also taking backsteps, as Windows 8 is a nightmare, and is in
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Thanks, Chris. To be clear, my feelings about wanting to step back aren't due to your thoughts, or to those of any on this list. I'm sorry if my writing makes it appear otherwise, and I appreciate that you shared what you did. I develop apps for Android. At the moment my big hobby project is accessible GPS navigation based on OpenStreetMap, and with a level of spoken detail similar to what would be found on pricier GPS solutions. I'd like to keep building this out, with the very long-term goal of using it in sailboat navigation. Android is a cool platform, but I just grew tired of battling the JVM, Android's extensive customization of same, and all the assorted limitations thereof. I've also encountered unscientific and anecdotal evidence that native code generally runs faster and eats less battery than does the JVM. I'd really hoped to port these apps to Ubuntu, to leave Android behind, and to develop on what I feel to be a superior platform. Never mind if the audience is smaller; I do this for the love of it. So it hurts deep down that this doesn't look possible, and that there's no clear and apparent way to encourage Canonical to step up its efforts. Unity isn't trivial, and I never meant to imply that it was. But it's shiny, in the way that putting a nice paint job on a not-as-well-maintained car is shiny. And I don't see Canonical caring all that much about access, which is one of those areas in which the car isn't kept up. Canonical puts so much effort into encouraging developers and users to its platform. It hurts that the disabled community seems like an afterthought. I remember being here with Android in '09. I'm just not sure that I'm ready to be here again so soon. On 01/06/2013 09:52 PM, Christopher Chaltain wrote: Whether you advocate for greater accessibility in Ubuntu or not is a decision only you can make. I would not interpret the responses of two or three people though to be all this talk of diplomacy and catching more flies with honey is what people want. First, two or three people is not all of this talk or what people want, it's just the opinions of two or three people on a relatively low traffic list. Don't blow it out of proportion. For my part, the only point I made was that I don't consider Unity or Ubuntu Phone to be trivial or flashy. I think these were hard efforts involving quite a few people in an effort to make Ubuntu more popular, running on more devices and in the hands of more people. I know people have criticized Unity for being dumbed down, but I don't know what that means, and I'm not sure why it's a bad thing to make Ubuntu more popular and get it used by more people. Obviously, if you want to use the argument that Canonical is spending resources on bright new shiny things instead of accessibility then that will strike a chord with some Ubuntu and Unity critics, but I'm not sure it'll sway the decision makers at Canonical. I also wouldn't be too worried about what I or are other people think. The goal here is to get Ubuntu more accessible in all of it's releases and on all of the platforms where it's supported. If that means using honey then that's what should be done, if it means using vinegar then that's the way to go. I prefer honey myself, but I know there's a need for vinegar too. If you're not comfortable being diplomatic, political or tactful, but you want to fight for more accessibility in Ubuntu then do what you're comfortable with. At my previous employer, I got into quite a few debates with another blind person. I thought he was a bit hysterical at times and made outlandish claims. We debated quite a bit on our internal mailing list. I was surprised though when I found out how much he was appreciated by those working on accessibility within the company. I thought my more balanced and reasonable approach would have been more appreciated, but I found out that in the accessibility community you need the radicals, those calling out to man the barricades and the squeaky wheels. For my part, I hope you take up the fight, and I hope you don't take the fact that I'm a different person with a different approach as a reason not to take up the fight yourself. On 01/06/2013 08:21 PM, Nolan Darilek wrote: Great ideas and thoughts here, folks. To put my words in context, I've used Linux since Slackware '96 which, as its name implies, was released in 1996. I started using GNOME accessibility in the Gnopernicus days, and at the moment it is my full-time operating system of choice. However, my experience under Windows and NVDA is making me sit up and take notice. Firefox works very well. Similarly, I can run Chrome and, gods forbid, IE reasonably well. I have a level of choice that I don't seem to under Linux, and there are other areas in which Windows is excelling for me. I'm not saying that it's the best choice, or the right choice for everyone. I'm just starting to give it a serious look,
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Hello Nolan, The first article you have linked to has pings and comments disabled. Maybe it is why your comment was rejected. I have looked up a secretary email at the contact page of marks blog and send my comment there in case it will be looked into. Jonos article sounds verry exciting but really I have not been able to find a relevant info regarding accessibility on this developing platform so I am afraid no one cares yet. I have added my comment into the Jonos article as well. BTW I am on Arch linux with Gnome 3.6.2 and I also have that issue with comment section. It appears to be bouncing to the top of iframe all the time while using arrow keys. Thanks for the good initiative Greetings Peter On 05.01.2013 05:50, Nolan Darilek wrote: So if you wish to see Ubuntu accessibility improved, here are some blog posts you might wish to comment on. Here is Mark Shuttleworth's post on goals for 2013, not wishing to leave anyone behind, and striving to be relevant to the types of computing everyone wants to do. It's silly for a company like Canonical to state that they don't wish to leave anyone behind in 2013 when the next guaranteed accessible release will be in 2014. Similarly, it's silly for Canonical to want to be relevant to all types of computing, while telling blind users and others that we cannot have the latest At-SPI or ATK releases for our browsers. I am a developer. I need the latest accessibility infrastructure so I can develop accessible websites, and I struggle to do so as my browser fails to render some sites accessibly. When I used Ubuntu 11.04, I found that I had less access in Firefox than I do under 12.10, possibly because I wasn't using the latest AT-SPI. I'm finding that Windows 7 is more relevant to my needs as a blind web developer than is Ubuntu because Firefox under NVDA is more accessible than is Firefox under Ubuntu: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1221/comment-page-1#comment-400356 Unfortunately, I wrote a nice and diplomatic comment only to have Akismet decide that my sentiments were spam. I returned to the post a few days later to find a message to that effect, and now there is no record of my comment at all. It's sad when you expend so much effort on being diplomatic and respectful only for some automated system to decide that your sentiments are spam and that they should be removed. Here is Jono's announcement of Ubuntu for Phones: http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/01/02/announcing-ubuntu-for-phones/ My comment there appears to still be around, but I find that under Ubuntu 12.10 I cannot arrow down the list of comments. Focus appears to bounce to the top. That isn't Canonical's fault I'm certain, but one would hope that a distribution that is changing so much about how we use our computers could afford to hire enough of an accessibility team to work on these types of issues. If people want to work on this then I'm happy to help. Quite honestly, I'm burning out on accessibility. I've used and have developed for Android since 1.6, when the accessibility situation there was barely tolerable, and even today I'm trying so hard to contribute to the Android accessibility ecosystem and am being snubbed by Google. I don't know what it is about accessibility and open source culture that makes it so hard for people to contribute. My girlfriend has CP, and she too wishes she could use Ubuntu but doesn't because of accessibility issues. I'm almost to the point of replacing my Ubuntu system with Windows just because I'm tired of battling with these access issues. I have a lot of respect for Canonical's small access team, but if Canonical just wishes to stick its head in the sand again and again, to throw a bunch of resources at shiny things while ignoring the disabled, then it will quickly become apparent that Linux for Human Beings *really* means Linux for Completely Able-bodied Human Beings. I understand that other distributions may not be accessible either, but that is no excuse for Canonical, Redhat, etc. to simply stand aside and let Linux become less accessibly relevant than Windows. It's sad that I enjoy using my VirtualBox Windows 7 install more than I do Ubuntu for many tasks, and is sad when accessibility developers ask me why I don't just abandon Linux for the far more accessible Windows., On 01/04/2013 09:06 PM, Robert Cole wrote: Hello, Burt. Your e-mail was accidentally sent to me, but not to the list. I am forwarding your message to the list. I hope that this is alright. Kind regards. Take care. On 01/04/2013 07:00 PM, B. Henry wrote: Well, I certainly am behind, and if the opportunity presents itself alongside of those who would like to see an effort made to make all Ubuntu releases as accessible as is reasonably possible. The big word is of course reasonably. I am someone who wants things to work for me and those with similar and other limitations when it's practical. Personally
Campaign for Ubuntu Accessibility [was Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone]
Below, you mention that Canonical is throwing resources at shiny things. I'm not sure if you're referring to Ubuntu for the phone as a shiny thing or not, but if you are or that's what you're implying then I'd suggest refraining from that in your push to get more resources committed to Ubuntu's accessibility. Shiny things in this context refer to frivolous waste of times, and I don't think Canonical trying to get Ubuntu into the phone space is a shiny thing in this sense. Remember, Canonical is a privately owned company that is still trying to become profitable. Having Ubuntu run on more and more platforms, phones, TV's, tablets, netbooks, laptops, desktops, servers, clouds and so on is part of the strategy to create enough revenue streams for Canonical to become profitable. Note that I don't know that Canonical is actively working to have Ubuntu run on all of those platforms or not; I'm just basing this assumption on public comments from Canonical. I think you make a lot of good points below, and I think this is a laudable effort, I just don't think you serve your goals by implying that something as significant as having Ubuntu run on smart phones is somehow frivolous or trivial. Note I also changed the subject line since this discussion seems to be much broader than just the Ubuntu Phone OS announcement. On 01/04/2013 10:50 PM, Nolan Darilek wrote: Here is Jono's announcement of Ubuntu for Phones: http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/01/02/announcing-ubuntu-for-phones/ My comment there appears to still be around, but I find that under Ubuntu 12.10 I cannot arrow down the list of comments. Focus appears to bounce to the top. That isn't Canonical's fault I'm certain, but one would hope that a distribution that is changing so much about how we use our computers could afford to hire enough of an accessibility team to work on these types of issues. If people want to work on this then I'm happy to help. Quite honestly, I'm burning out on accessibility. I've used and have developed for Android since 1.6, when the accessibility situation there was barely tolerable, and even today I'm trying so hard to contribute to the Android accessibility ecosystem and am being snubbed by Google. I don't know what it is about accessibility and open source culture that makes it so hard for people to contribute. My girlfriend has CP, and she too wishes she could use Ubuntu but doesn't because of accessibility issues. I'm almost to the point of replacing my Ubuntu system with Windows just because I'm tired of battling with these access issues. I have a lot of respect for Canonical's small access team, but if Canonical just wishes to stick its head in the sand again and again, to throw a bunch of resources at shiny things while ignoring the disabled, then it will quickly become apparent that Linux for Human Beings *really* means Linux for Completely Able-bodied Human Beings. I understand that other distributions may not be accessible either, but that is no excuse for Canonical, Redhat, etc. to simply stand aside and let Linux become less accessibly relevant than Windows. It's sad that I enjoy using my VirtualBox Windows 7 install more than I do Ubuntu for many tasks, and is sad when accessibility developers ask me why I don't just abandon Linux for the far more accessible Windows., -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Campaign for Ubuntu Accessibility [was Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone]
All valid points, and while I agree in spirit, I'm not sure that I have the patience or tact to worry about things like PR or perception. Are they necessary? Perhaps, but my hope is that we don't have to keep fighting these same fights from square one each time a new platform emerges. After nearly 3.5 years I feel like I can finally back off of Android a bit; we have decent web accessibility and the ability to do text review, and things are steadily improving. I've been asking myself for the past few days if I'm ready to start this fight from scratch again, and if sentiment is that I can't call out Canonical for being shiny in its pursuit of Unity and other pretty tech while having an accessibility team of 1-2, then the answer likely is no. I don't have it in me to do a few more years of time only to have the next shiny hotness surface in 2016 and be just as inaccessible. So yeah, maybe I'm the silly one for emailing this list and saying that I'm not the right person for this. But whether or not I take up the cause, it is one that needs to be taken up. Ubuntu and Linux have succeeded all the more because for-profit companies like Canonical and Redhat advance the state of the art. For them to do so and not prioritize accessibility is irresponsible stewardship at best, and it saddens me to look to non-free operating systems because those *have* to be more accessible to keep government or educational contracts. I'd hope that free software in general, and a company that builds Linux for human beings in particular, would strive to improve accessibility without having the threat of contract compliance hanging over their heads. On 01/05/2013 07:13 AM, Christopher Chaltain wrote: Below, you mention that Canonical is throwing resources at shiny things. I'm not sure if you're referring to Ubuntu for the phone as a shiny thing or not, but if you are or that's what you're implying then I'd suggest refraining from that in your push to get more resources committed to Ubuntu's accessibility. Shiny things in this context refer to frivolous waste of times, and I don't think Canonical trying to get Ubuntu into the phone space is a shiny thing in this sense. Remember, Canonical is a privately owned company that is still trying to become profitable. Having Ubuntu run on more and more platforms, phones, TV's, tablets, netbooks, laptops, desktops, servers, clouds and so on is part of the strategy to create enough revenue streams for Canonical to become profitable. Note that I don't know that Canonical is actively working to have Ubuntu run on all of those platforms or not; I'm just basing this assumption on public comments from Canonical. I think you make a lot of good points below, and I think this is a laudable effort, I just don't think you serve your goals by implying that something as significant as having Ubuntu run on smart phones is somehow frivolous or trivial. Note I also changed the subject line since this discussion seems to be much broader than just the Ubuntu Phone OS announcement. On 01/04/2013 10:50 PM, Nolan Darilek wrote: Here is Jono's announcement of Ubuntu for Phones: http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/01/02/announcing-ubuntu-for-phones/ My comment there appears to still be around, but I find that under Ubuntu 12.10 I cannot arrow down the list of comments. Focus appears to bounce to the top. That isn't Canonical's fault I'm certain, but one would hope that a distribution that is changing so much about how we use our computers could afford to hire enough of an accessibility team to work on these types of issues. If people want to work on this then I'm happy to help. Quite honestly, I'm burning out on accessibility. I've used and have developed for Android since 1.6, when the accessibility situation there was barely tolerable, and even today I'm trying so hard to contribute to the Android accessibility ecosystem and am being snubbed by Google. I don't know what it is about accessibility and open source culture that makes it so hard for people to contribute. My girlfriend has CP, and she too wishes she could use Ubuntu but doesn't because of accessibility issues. I'm almost to the point of replacing my Ubuntu system with Windows just because I'm tired of battling with these access issues. I have a lot of respect for Canonical's small access team, but if Canonical just wishes to stick its head in the sand again and again, to throw a bunch of resources at shiny things while ignoring the disabled, then it will quickly become apparent that Linux for Human Beings *really* means Linux for Completely Able-bodied Human Beings. I understand that other distributions may not be accessible either, but that is no excuse for Canonical, Redhat, etc. to simply stand aside and let Linux become less accessibly relevant than Windows. It's sad that I enjoy using my VirtualBox Windows 7 install more than I do Ubuntu for many tasks, and is sad when accessibility developers ask me
Re: Campaign for Ubuntu Accessibility [was Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone]
Don't interpret my single post as representing the sentiment of this list or the blindness community as a hole. I think to be successful, you'll have to worry about PR and perception though, and my only advice is that you'll have more success if you don't trivialize the work or significance of Unity and Ubuntu Phone. That's just my opinion and advice, and it's up to you whether you take it or not. On 01/05/2013 08:07 AM, Nolan Darilek wrote: All valid points, and while I agree in spirit, I'm not sure that I have the patience or tact to worry about things like PR or perception. Are they necessary? Perhaps, but my hope is that we don't have to keep fighting these same fights from square one each time a new platform emerges. After nearly 3.5 years I feel like I can finally back off of Android a bit; we have decent web accessibility and the ability to do text review, and things are steadily improving. I've been asking myself for the past few days if I'm ready to start this fight from scratch again, and if sentiment is that I can't call out Canonical for being shiny in its pursuit of Unity and other pretty tech while having an accessibility team of 1-2, then the answer likely is no. I don't have it in me to do a few more years of time only to have the next shiny hotness surface in 2016 and be just as inaccessible. So yeah, maybe I'm the silly one for emailing this list and saying that I'm not the right person for this. But whether or not I take up the cause, it is one that needs to be taken up. Ubuntu and Linux have succeeded all the more because for-profit companies like Canonical and Redhat advance the state of the art. For them to do so and not prioritize accessibility is irresponsible stewardship at best, and it saddens me to look to non-free operating systems because those *have* to be more accessible to keep government or educational contracts. I'd hope that free software in general, and a company that builds Linux for human beings in particular, would strive to improve accessibility without having the threat of contract compliance hanging over their heads. On 01/05/2013 07:13 AM, Christopher Chaltain wrote: Below, you mention that Canonical is throwing resources at shiny things. I'm not sure if you're referring to Ubuntu for the phone as a shiny thing or not, but if you are or that's what you're implying then I'd suggest refraining from that in your push to get more resources committed to Ubuntu's accessibility. Shiny things in this context refer to frivolous waste of times, and I don't think Canonical trying to get Ubuntu into the phone space is a shiny thing in this sense. Remember, Canonical is a privately owned company that is still trying to become profitable. Having Ubuntu run on more and more platforms, phones, TV's, tablets, netbooks, laptops, desktops, servers, clouds and so on is part of the strategy to create enough revenue streams for Canonical to become profitable. Note that I don't know that Canonical is actively working to have Ubuntu run on all of those platforms or not; I'm just basing this assumption on public comments from Canonical. I think you make a lot of good points below, and I think this is a laudable effort, I just don't think you serve your goals by implying that something as significant as having Ubuntu run on smart phones is somehow frivolous or trivial. Note I also changed the subject line since this discussion seems to be much broader than just the Ubuntu Phone OS announcement. On 01/04/2013 10:50 PM, Nolan Darilek wrote: Here is Jono's announcement of Ubuntu for Phones: http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/01/02/announcing-ubuntu-for-phones/ My comment there appears to still be around, but I find that under Ubuntu 12.10 I cannot arrow down the list of comments. Focus appears to bounce to the top. That isn't Canonical's fault I'm certain, but one would hope that a distribution that is changing so much about how we use our computers could afford to hire enough of an accessibility team to work on these types of issues. If people want to work on this then I'm happy to help. Quite honestly, I'm burning out on accessibility. I've used and have developed for Android since 1.6, when the accessibility situation there was barely tolerable, and even today I'm trying so hard to contribute to the Android accessibility ecosystem and am being snubbed by Google. I don't know what it is about accessibility and open source culture that makes it so hard for people to contribute. My girlfriend has CP, and she too wishes she could use Ubuntu but doesn't because of accessibility issues. I'm almost to the point of replacing my Ubuntu system with Windows just because I'm tired of battling with these access issues. I have a lot of respect for Canonical's small access team, but if Canonical just wishes to stick its head in the sand again and again, to throw a bunch of resources at shiny things while ignoring the disabled, then it will quickly become apparent that Linux for Human
Re: Campaign for Ubuntu Accessibility [was Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone]
Very good point. I am not sure that shiny things reffed mobile Ubuntu, and my first thought was not this; but even if a spiffier more polished graphical experience was what was being talked about your take is still valid. There are probably some less than ideal moves being made at Canonical, but at least if and until someone in a position of power says that the choice was or is being made to prioritize some bell or whistle over accessibility it is both counter productive and unnecesarily antagonistic to include the shiny things bit in an otherwise good and important message. Regards, -- B.H. On Sat, Jan 05, 2013 at 07:13:04AM -0600, Christopher Chaltain wrote: Below, you mention that Canonical is throwing resources at shiny things. I'm not sure if you're referring to Ubuntu for the phone as a shiny thing or not, but if you are or that's what you're implying then I'd suggest refraining from that in your push to get more resources committed to Ubuntu's accessibility. Shiny things in this context refer to frivolous waste of times, and I don't think Canonical trying to get Ubuntu into the phone space is a shiny thing in this sense. Remember, Canonical is a privately owned company that is still trying to become profitable. Having Ubuntu run on more and more platforms, phones, TV's, tablets, netbooks, laptops, desktops, servers, clouds and so on is part of the strategy to create enough revenue streams for Canonical to become profitable. Note that I don't know that Canonical is actively working to have Ubuntu run on all of those platforms or not; I'm just basing this assumption on public comments from Canonical. I think you make a lot of good points below, and I think this is a laudable effort, I just don't think you serve your goals by implying that something as significant as having Ubuntu run on smart phones is somehow frivolous or trivial. Note I also changed the subject line since this discussion seems to be much broader than just the Ubuntu Phone OS announcement. On 01/04/2013 10:50 PM, Nolan Darilek wrote: Here is Jono's announcement of Ubuntu for Phones: http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/01/02/announcing-ubuntu-for-phones/ My comment there appears to still be around, but I find that under Ubuntu 12.10 I cannot arrow down the list of comments. Focus appears to bounce to the top. That isn't Canonical's fault I'm certain, but one would hope that a distribution that is changing so much about how we use our computers could afford to hire enough of an accessibility team to work on these types of issues. If people want to work on this then I'm happy to help. Quite honestly, I'm burning out on accessibility. I've used and have developed for Android since 1.6, when the accessibility situation there was barely tolerable, and even today I'm trying so hard to contribute to the Android accessibility ecosystem and am being snubbed by Google. I don't know what it is about accessibility and open source culture that makes it so hard for people to contribute. My girlfriend has CP, and she too wishes she could use Ubuntu but doesn't because of accessibility issues. I'm almost to the point of replacing my Ubuntu system with Windows just because I'm tired of battling with these access issues. I have a lot of respect for Canonical's small access team, but if Canonical just wishes to stick its head in the sand again and again, to throw a bunch of resources at shiny things while ignoring the disabled, then it will quickly become apparent that Linux for Human Beings *really* means Linux for Completely Able-bodied Human Beings. I understand that other distributions may not be accessible either, but that is no excuse for Canonical, Redhat, etc. to simply stand aside and let Linux become less accessibly relevant than Windows. It's sad that I enjoy using my VirtualBox Windows 7 install more than I do Ubuntu for many tasks, and is sad when accessibility developers ask me why I don't just abandon Linux for the far more accessible Windows., -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Terrible! I am appauled reading that your msg was marked spam. Sadly, your friends and you are in the majority of blind computer users in deciding that Windows meets their needs better than current Linux realeases due to the lack of major progress of accessibility.i There is no doubt that as far as web-browsing goes NVDA/firefox gives a muuch better experience on most web-pages than does any browser with Linux screenreading options. I'd go as far as to say that NVDA/firefox is the gold standard for accessible web-browsing. There's also no doubt that web-browsers are if not the most important programs on most computers they are one of the most used and most indespensible pieces of software for the majority of users. This is close to as true for blind users as it is for the population in general, and I think that I'm not alone when I say that it is very hard to continue to be pasient waiting on an acceptable level of web-browser accessibility. The ball is not in Ubuntu's court in general here, but as is said below at the very least it is important to fast track the inclusion of latest accessibility software in to Ubuntu. I think I'm correct in saying that it's a scramble to get the LTS releases minimally accessible when first deamed ready for production use. When major accessibility bugs are still not fixed when the LTS comes out of beta this says to me that Canical needs to dedicate more resources to making Ubuntu usable by blind users. I'd like to see mid-term Ubuntu releases have a similar level of accessibility to that now acheived with the LTSs, and resolvable accessibility issues dealt with issues treated as critical for all long-term-support Ubuntu releases. Especially with a mobile Ubuntu option top line accessibility seems like it could even make good business sense. Apple has captured a much larger share of the blind-mobile-user market than they'd have if other platforms offered similar levels of out of the box accessibility. (I hope that latest android has acheived comparible accessibility to ios, but do not have devices to compare to know if this is the case or not.) Anyway, it'll be an uphill battle for Ubuntu to catch up in mobile space, so why not try and do so everywhere possible, including with blind folk? I'll be looking at the Shuttleworth blog post for sure, and if enough of us speak up who knows! I hope others find the minutes required to comment as well, and if we are consistently treated as spammers then we certainly need to take this to as broad an audience as is possible. I really hope that this was an odd exception and that our voices will be heard by the Ubuntu community at large, and especially by the powers that be at Canonical. -- Burt Henry On Fri, Jan 04, 2013 at 10:50:33PM -0600, Nolan Darilek wrote: a So if you wish to see Ubuntu accessibility improved, here area some blog posts you might wish to comment on. Here is Mark Shuttleworth's post on goals for 2013, not wishing to leave anyone behind, and striving to be relevant to the types of computing everyone wants to do. It's silly for a company like Canonical to state that they don't wish to leave anyone behind in 2013 when the next guaranteed accessible release will be in 2014. Similarly, it's silly for Canonical to want to be relevant to all types of computing, while telling blind users and others that we cannot have the latest At-SPI or ATK releases for our browsers. I am a developer. I need the latest accessibility infrastructure so I can develop accessible websites, and I struggle to do so as my browser fails to render some sites accessibly. When I used Ubuntu 11.04, I found that I had less access in Firefox than I do under 12.10, possibly because I wasn't using the latest AT-SPI. I'm finding that Windows 7 is more relevant to my needs as a blind web developer than is Ubuntu because Firefox under NVDA is more accessible than is Firefox under Ubuntu: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1221/comment-page-1#comment-400356 Unfortunately, I wrote a nice and diplomatic comment only to have Akismet decide that my sentiments were spam. I returned to the post a few days later to find a message to that effect, and now there is no record of my comment at all. It's sad when you expend so much effort on being diplomatic and respectful only for some automated system to decide that your sentiments are spam and that they should be removed. Here is Jono's announcement of Ubuntu for Phones: http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/01/02/announcing-ubuntu-for-phones/ My comment there appears to still be around, but I find that under Ubuntu 12.10 I cannot arrow down the list of comments. Focus appears to bounce to the top. That isn't Canonical's fault I'm certain, but one would hope that a distribution that is changing so much about how we use our computers could afford to hire enough of an accessibility team to
Re: Campaign for Ubuntu Accessibility [was Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone]
Well, for better or worse, out of sight, out of mind, seems to be standard human behavior. Hopefully a firm but gentle reminder about accessibility will be enough to get an honest reaction from Canonical, but there's always the chance of yet another fight on any given day; and a garanty of more fights ahead in general. -- B.H. I did think it was on a Ubuntu blog that I saw folks writing about the need to have accessibility baked in from the get go, not added on as a patch to otherwise more or less mature software. Maybe it was just some posts on this list that I'm remembering. Anyway, no matter who you are dealing withyou do need to get in to the habit of being diplomatic unless you know the person very well if you want positive results. Catching more flies with honey than vinegar and all that you know... And yes, Canonical wouldn't get a mainstream tech writer's attention by having a distro that is rated the most accessible Linux ever nearly as fast as they will by having a unity that not only works, but looks good. Getting the toe in the door of the computer novice who's tired of Windows and doesn't hve the money for a mac isn't very likely if things don't look very good, and while there's money to be made from blind users there will likely be less of them than the fed up with Windows crowd. So, as Christopher was saying, not innovating and trying to get in to mobile space so that more resources can be thrown at accessibility just isn't an option. The same goes re unity. Maybe gnome will get it's head out of the sand, but from most of what I've read sticking with stock gnome as the Ubuntu desktop has become a non-starter. Even if the Gnome-team was more responsive to what the average user and or the potential new Linux user wanted Ubuntu needed a look that'd separate it from other distros to break out of the limited box it was? is? in, or at least this was core thinking. The only way to go is to do what was planned and is being done, plus dedicate more towards accessibility. The only way to do so effectively I think is to have accessibility given the same importance as all other core functions starting from the beginning of design and planning. Considering all the major changes going on under the Ubuntu hood I'm far less concerned about not having good accessibility with the mid-term releases than I am about a mobile platform that's not accessible from day one. This is not only true for me as an end user, but also it'd be true if I were thinking of Canonical's potential profitability. I am certainly a bit concerned about the idea of accessibility being once again in the position of having to play catch-up, but don't know enough about technical details of what all is going on now and over the next year+ with Ubuntu to know exactly where to place my concern. At least by writing this you have me and probably several others interested in getting to the bottom of Ubuntu accessibility plans, and yes, making sure that Mr. Shuttleworth and crew remember that blind folks are real people/real market share. On Sat, Jan 05, 2013 at 08:07:10AM -0600, Nolan Darilek wrote: All valid points, and while I agree in spirit, I'm not sure that I have the patience or tact to worry about things like PR or perception. Are they necessary? Perhaps, but my hope is that we don't have to keep fighting these same fights from square one each time a new platform emerges. After nearly 3.5 years I feel like I can finally back off of Android a bit; we have decent web accessibility and the ability to do text review, and things are steadily improving. I've been asking myself for the past few days if I'm ready to start this fight from scratch again, and if sentiment is that I can't call out Canonical for being shiny in its pursuit of Unity and other pretty tech while having an accessibility team of 1-2, then the answer likely is no. I don't have it in me to do a few more years of time only to have the next shiny hotness surface in 2016 and be just as inaccessible. So yeah, maybe I'm the silly one for emailing this list and saying that I'm not the right person for this. But whether or not I take up the cause, it is one that needs to be taken up. Ubuntu and Linux have succeeded all the more because for-profit companies like Canonical and Redhat advance the state of the art. For them to do so and not prioritize accessibility is irresponsible stewardship at best, and it saddens me to look to non-free operating systems because those *have* to be more accessible to keep government or educational contracts. I'd hope that free software in general, and a company that builds Linux for human beings in particular, would strive to improve accessibility without having the threat of contract compliance hanging over their heads. On 01/05/2013 07:13 AM, Christopher Chaltain wrote: Below, you mention that Canonical is throwing resources at shiny things. I'm not sure if
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Yes, you can have the eloquence voices on Linux systems. There are packages built for DebianUbuntu, and I know that people have it working on other distros as well, probably from the same tarballs, but don't remember for sure. Try googling Voxin or oralux. (I may have the spelling wrong on that last one) Anyway, the same ibmtts that is used by eloquence and ibmviavoice is used by voxin. It's refferred to as ibmtts in speechdispatcher configuration files. The voices cost $5 per language. They work with both speechdispatcher and emacspeak speech servers. There's a special installation package that configures your system to be able to use the voices with emacspeak that is updated as new releases of Debian and Ubuntu come out. I have used the Spanish voices as espeak doesn't sound good at all with Spanish. I'm tired/not looking for urls nor writing very well right now, but write me off list and I can hook you up with more information if you have any trouble finding these voices. Orca, and speakup for that matter have nothing to do with Ubuntu, or at least no more is Ubuntu responsible for their development than is Microsoft responsible for NVDA, Jaws or any other windows screen-reader. I will say that Orca's only been around for about a third of the time that jaws and window-eyes have more or less. NVDA does for sure give a better experience in most cases than does Orca, but if you are willing to do a fair amount of your computing on the command line I find that you can make up for some of the shortcomings with GUI accessibility in Linux. Any conparisons are OT for this thread anyway, and really OT for this list, so I'll just leave it there except for saying that I think most of us are glad to see improvements in access for any and all platforms. I certainly want to have as many options as possible. I for one do %95 of my computing on Linux, but I wish it were more practical for me to use Linux for that other %5, and I wish I was more efficient for some tasks I do under Linux that I could sometimes do faster on a windows machine. Regards, -- B.H. On Sat, Jan 05, 2013 at 09:51:11PM +0200, Aidan Maher wrote: Wel, I am stil learning this thing, but I don't see how I can get away from windows, I mean we don't even have elliquence in linux systems, neither half of the functions jaws can offer, but very true that ubuntu is a great system and I agree with all said that it must be taken much more seriously. I just think that many people should not be blamed if they stil use windows as there are reasons for that. A balance is always helthy. On 05/01/2013, B. Henry burt1ib...@gmail.com wrote: Terrible! I am appauled reading that your msg was marked spam. Sadly, your friends and you are in the majority of blind computer users in deciding that Windows meets their needs better than current Linux realeases due to the lack of major progress of accessibility.i There is no doubt that as far as web-browsing goes NVDA/firefox gives a muuch better experience on most web-pages than does any browser with Linux screenreading options. I'd go as far as to say that NVDA/firefox is the gold standard for accessible web-browsing. There's also no doubt that web-browsers are if not the most important programs on most computers they are one of the most used and most indespensible pieces of software for the majority of users. This is close to as true for blind users as it is for the population in general, and I think that I'm not alone when I say that it is very hard to continue to be pasient waiting on an acceptable level of web-browser accessibility. The ball is not in Ubuntu's court in general here, but as is said below at the very least it is important to fast track the inclusion of latest accessibility software in to Ubuntu. I think I'm correct in saying that it's a scramble to get the LTS releases minimally accessible when first deamed ready for production use. When major accessibility bugs are still not fixed when the LTS comes out of beta this says to me that Canical needs to dedicate more resources to making Ubuntu usable by blind users. I'd like to see mid-term Ubuntu releases have a similar level of accessibility to that now acheived with the LTSs, and resolvable accessibility issues dealt with issues treated as critical for all long-term-support Ubuntu releases. Especially with a mobile Ubuntu option top line accessibility seems like it could even make good business sense. Apple has captured a much larger share of the blind-mobile-user market than they'd have if other platforms offered similar levels of out of the box accessibility. (I hope that latest android has acheived comparible accessibility to ios, but do not have devices to compare to know if this is the case or not.) Anyway, it'll be an uphill battle for Ubuntu to catch up in mobile space, so why not try and do so everywhere possible, including with
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Hello, Burt. Your e-mail was accidentally sent to me, but not to the list. I am forwarding your message to the list. I hope that this is alright. Kind regards. Take care. On 01/04/2013 07:00 PM, B. Henry wrote: Well, I certainly am behind, and if the opportunity presents itself alongside of those who would like to see an effort made to make all Ubuntu releases as accessible as is reasonably possible. The big word is of course reasonably. I am someone who wants things to work for me and those with similar and other limitations when it's practical. Personally I'm not that unhappy with using LTS releases, but enjoyed using Maverick on several machines and I'm writing to you from the version of Vinux based on Natty, so I'm certainly not one who'd never use a mid-term Ubuntu version. Perhaps if Ubuntu can gain market share and hence money from some of the changes that are being implemented then some of that money can be put back in to accessibility development. I can be patient with a short term lapse in accessibility, but do sincerely hope that this is not a strategy that is considered good enough for the long term, and I'll certainly add my voice to those who are calling for a more inclusive Ubuntu. On the other hand I can't see that out of the box accessibility is better with Fedora, or for that matter any major cutting edge/rapid release distro. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but even if I'm not there's no reason why just keeping a half a step ahead of average is good enough when it comes to accessibility. Regards, and yes special regards and thanks to Luke and others who work with what they have to give us the accessibility that they can. -- Burt Henry On 01/04/2013 01:09 AM, Robert Cole wrote: Hello, Nolan. When I first switched to Linux, I did so because I fell in love with Ubuntu. Ubuntu is what I used (exclusively) until the accessibility issues began to kick in. I am very appreciative of the hard work which the Accessibility team puts into Ubuntu, and I understand that they are very limited because fo various reasons. My frustration si most certainly not with them, but with teh company whose operating system I fell in love with back in 2006. I still remember the excitement I felt when I saw the Ubuntu philosophy for human beings. But then, as time moved on, I had to move on as well. I really enjoyed using Unity, and I absolutely loved all that Ubuntu had to offer. If it was always as accessible as it once was, I would definitely go back. I don't want to sound strange in saying this, but I am kind of homesick for my first Linux operating system. While I am enjoying my experience with Fedora, I really miss what I had come to know in Ubuntu. I am not sure how I can help. I had posted a comment on Mark Shuttleworth's blog sometime in 2012, but it seemed to go unnoticed. I forwarded this message to the AccessibleFreedom Support mailing list; I hope that this is alright. In this world's eyes, I am basically a nobody, but if I can somehow lend my voice in support of what you are standing for, I will certainly do so. I am not online as much as I used to be, but as I am able I will help you in making this call for accessibility known. Kind regards. On 01/02/2013 03:50 PM, Nolan Darilek wrote: I would like to organize some sort of advocacy effort to get Canonical to take accessibility more seriously. I understand the limitations of the current accessibility team, but if we look back at the state of computing two years ago vs. today, any reasonable person would agree that telling a certain subset of the population that they can only be assured accessible software on that schedule while others get upgrades every six months is unreasonable. I don't want Ubuntu to be another Android, an accessibility situation with which I am quite familiar. I tried posting a comment here: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1221/comment-page-1#comment-400356 because a post that claims that Canonical doesn't want to leave users behind in 2013 seems at odds with a company whose next release I will have guaranteed access to won't be out until 2014. Unfortunately, my comment got caught up in Akismet and appears to have vanished. Perhaps others who feel the same should ask Mark not to leave accessibility behind while Canonical charges ahead in so many other areas. Ubuntu Phone uses QML 5. I get that QT isn't as accessible, but it's being adopted by a bunch of companies in the mobile space, so you'd think that they'd have all contributed toward making it accessible. Perhaps it's time for Canonical to set a good example in this space and contribute more toward accessibility than it currently does. I'm going to start actively commenting on Canonical and other blogs, advocating for the expansion of the accessibility team. Thoughts on what else we can do? I'd love to do this stuff myself, but I'm already writing an Android screen reader and
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
So if you wish to see Ubuntu accessibility improved, here are some blog posts you might wish to comment on. Here is Mark Shuttleworth's post on goals for 2013, not wishing to leave anyone behind, and striving to be relevant to the types of computing everyone wants to do. It's silly for a company like Canonical to state that they don't wish to leave anyone behind in 2013 when the next guaranteed accessible release will be in 2014. Similarly, it's silly for Canonical to want to be relevant to all types of computing, while telling blind users and others that we cannot have the latest At-SPI or ATK releases for our browsers. I am a developer. I need the latest accessibility infrastructure so I can develop accessible websites, and I struggle to do so as my browser fails to render some sites accessibly. When I used Ubuntu 11.04, I found that I had less access in Firefox than I do under 12.10, possibly because I wasn't using the latest AT-SPI. I'm finding that Windows 7 is more relevant to my needs as a blind web developer than is Ubuntu because Firefox under NVDA is more accessible than is Firefox under Ubuntu: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1221/comment-page-1#comment-400356 Unfortunately, I wrote a nice and diplomatic comment only to have Akismet decide that my sentiments were spam. I returned to the post a few days later to find a message to that effect, and now there is no record of my comment at all. It's sad when you expend so much effort on being diplomatic and respectful only for some automated system to decide that your sentiments are spam and that they should be removed. Here is Jono's announcement of Ubuntu for Phones: http://www.jonobacon.org/2013/01/02/announcing-ubuntu-for-phones/ My comment there appears to still be around, but I find that under Ubuntu 12.10 I cannot arrow down the list of comments. Focus appears to bounce to the top. That isn't Canonical's fault I'm certain, but one would hope that a distribution that is changing so much about how we use our computers could afford to hire enough of an accessibility team to work on these types of issues. If people want to work on this then I'm happy to help. Quite honestly, I'm burning out on accessibility. I've used and have developed for Android since 1.6, when the accessibility situation there was barely tolerable, and even today I'm trying so hard to contribute to the Android accessibility ecosystem and am being snubbed by Google. I don't know what it is about accessibility and open source culture that makes it so hard for people to contribute. My girlfriend has CP, and she too wishes she could use Ubuntu but doesn't because of accessibility issues. I'm almost to the point of replacing my Ubuntu system with Windows just because I'm tired of battling with these access issues. I have a lot of respect for Canonical's small access team, but if Canonical just wishes to stick its head in the sand again and again, to throw a bunch of resources at shiny things while ignoring the disabled, then it will quickly become apparent that Linux for Human Beings *really* means Linux for Completely Able-bodied Human Beings. I understand that other distributions may not be accessible either, but that is no excuse for Canonical, Redhat, etc. to simply stand aside and let Linux become less accessibly relevant than Windows. It's sad that I enjoy using my VirtualBox Windows 7 install more than I do Ubuntu for many tasks, and is sad when accessibility developers ask me why I don't just abandon Linux for the far more accessible Windows., On 01/04/2013 09:06 PM, Robert Cole wrote: Hello, Burt. Your e-mail was accidentally sent to me, but not to the list. I am forwarding your message to the list. I hope that this is alright. Kind regards. Take care. On 01/04/2013 07:00 PM, B. Henry wrote: Well, I certainly am behind, and if the opportunity presents itself alongside of those who would like to see an effort made to make all Ubuntu releases as accessible as is reasonably possible. The big word is of course reasonably. I am someone who wants things to work for me and those with similar and other limitations when it's practical. Personally I'm not that unhappy with using LTS releases, but enjoyed using Maverick on several machines and I'm writing to you from the version of Vinux based on Natty, so I'm certainly not one who'd never use a mid-term Ubuntu version. Perhaps if Ubuntu can gain market share and hence money from some of the changes that are being implemented then some of that money can be put back in to accessibility development. I can be patient with a short term lapse in accessibility, but do sincerely hope that this is not a strategy that is considered good enough for the long term, and I'll certainly add my voice to those who are calling for a more inclusive Ubuntu. On the other hand I can't see that out of the box accessibility is better with Fedora, or for that matter
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
Hello, Nolan. When I first switched to Linux, I did so because I fell in love with Ubuntu. Ubuntu is what I used (exclusively) until the accessibility issues began to kick in. I am very appreciative of the hard work which the Accessibility team puts into Ubuntu, and I understand that they are very limited because fo various reasons. My frustration si most certainly not with them, but with teh company whose operating system I fell in love with back in 2006. I still remember the excitement I felt when I saw the Ubuntu philosophy for human beings. But then, as time moved on, I had to move on as well. I really enjoyed using Unity, and I absolutely loved all that Ubuntu had to offer. If it was always as accessible as it once was, I would definitely go back. I don't want to sound strange in saying this, but I am kind of homesick for my first Linux operating system. While I am enjoying my experience with Fedora, I really miss what I had come to know in Ubuntu. I am not sure how I can help. I had posted a comment on Mark Shuttleworth's blog sometime in 2012, but it seemed to go unnoticed. I forwarded this message to the AccessibleFreedom Support mailing list; I hope that this is alright. In this world's eyes, I am basically a nobody, but if I can somehow lend my voice in support of what you are standing for, I will certainly do so. I am not online as much as I used to be, but as I am able I will help you in making this call for accessibility known. Kind regards. On 01/02/2013 03:50 PM, Nolan Darilek wrote: I would like to organize some sort of advocacy effort to get Canonical to take accessibility more seriously. I understand the limitations of the current accessibility team, but if we look back at the state of computing two years ago vs. today, any reasonable person would agree that telling a certain subset of the population that they can only be assured accessible software on that schedule while others get upgrades every six months is unreasonable. I don't want Ubuntu to be another Android, an accessibility situation with which I am quite familiar. I tried posting a comment here: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1221/comment-page-1#comment-400356 because a post that claims that Canonical doesn't want to leave users behind in 2013 seems at odds with a company whose next release I will have guaranteed access to won't be out until 2014. Unfortunately, my comment got caught up in Akismet and appears to have vanished. Perhaps others who feel the same should ask Mark not to leave accessibility behind while Canonical charges ahead in so many other areas. Ubuntu Phone uses QML 5. I get that QT isn't as accessible, but it's being adopted by a bunch of companies in the mobile space, so you'd think that they'd have all contributed toward making it accessible. Perhaps it's time for Canonical to set a good example in this space and contribute more toward accessibility than it currently does. I'm going to start actively commenting on Canonical and other blogs, advocating for the expansion of the accessibility team. Thoughts on what else we can do? I'd love to do this stuff myself, but I'm already writing an Android screen reader and working on Android accessibility projects, and end users can't always be called upon to take up the slack that paying companies leave behind. -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
I would like to organize some sort of advocacy effort to get Canonical to take accessibility more seriously. I understand the limitations of the current accessibility team, but if we look back at the state of computing two years ago vs. today, any reasonable person would agree that telling a certain subset of the population that they can only be assured accessible software on that schedule while others get upgrades every six months is unreasonable. I don't want Ubuntu to be another Android, an accessibility situation with which I am quite familiar. I tried posting a comment here: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1221/comment-page-1#comment-400356 because a post that claims that Canonical doesn't want to leave users behind in 2013 seems at odds with a company whose next release I will have guaranteed access to won't be out until 2014. Unfortunately, my comment got caught up in Akismet and appears to have vanished. Perhaps others who feel the same should ask Mark not to leave accessibility behind while Canonical charges ahead in so many other areas. Ubuntu Phone uses QML 5. I get that QT isn't as accessible, but it's being adopted by a bunch of companies in the mobile space, so you'd think that they'd have all contributed toward making it accessible. Perhaps it's time for Canonical to set a good example in this space and contribute more toward accessibility than it currently does. I'm going to start actively commenting on Canonical and other blogs, advocating for the expansion of the accessibility team. Thoughts on what else we can do? I'd love to do this stuff myself, but I'm already writing an Android screen reader and working on Android accessibility projects, and end users can't always be called upon to take up the slack that paying companies leave behind. -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
