Re: [orca-list] Subscribing to the Vinux support list [was Re: VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT]
If you're using a Gmail address then you won't see your own posts to a Google Groups mailing list. On 07/28/2013 08:43 AM, Jean-Philippe MENGUAL wrote: Hi, On vendredi 26 juil. 2013 à 13:22:47 (-0500), Christopher Chaltain wrote: If you're trying to subscribe to the Vinux support list, try sending a blank email message to vinux-support+subscr...@googlegroups.com Thanks, it works. However, all the messages I send now to vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com don't arrive. Not error but not feedback (I don't receive my own messages and answers). I subscribe a free.fr address. •egards, On 07/26/2013 08:08 AM, Jean-Philippe MENGUAL wrote: Hi, Ok, but I cannot subscribe on vinux-list. The only access point I find is a javascript interface and I've not a suitable browser. So how can I subscribe? Anyway, as you say, personally, I've my current am]iers about Vinux and I'll test next week. Regards, On vendredi 26 juil. 2013 à 13:23:50 (+1000), Rob Whyte wrote: Hi, I think this thread can be closed now. It has generated a lot of back and fourth and I think we all get the point. If parties involved would like to continue off lists that would be preferable. Kind regards Rob Whyte On 24/07/13 07:31, Christopher Chaltain wrote: I do not work for Canonical, and my statements on this or any list have never been anything other than my own opinions. I don't know any more, and never have, about the plans for Unity accessibility than anyone else following the Ubuntu blueprints, subscribing to the Ubuntu accessibility mailing list, logging into the Ubuntu accessibility IRC channel and attending the accessibility related sessions at UDS. This is how I know the decision to focus accessibility resources on the LTS releases was a very open and transparent decision. It was also not an easy decision to make. I don't personally know at the moment what the plans are now for the accessibility of Unity and Ubuntu 14.04, but I assume they haven't changed and this is still the goal. I don't think I'm quick to defend Ubuntu or Unity when anyone speaks out against it, since there isn't enough time in the world for one person to do this. I do try to point out though when someone misstates something or says something that can lead to an incorrect inference. I don't just do this for Ubuntu but other OS's, screen readers, applications and products where I have some knowledge and experience. The fact of the matter is that you stated the decision to focus accessibility resources on 14.04 was to sooth our ruffled feathers. Of course, you have the right to your opinion, and you can be as snarky as you want (although I don't know what this has to do with what country your from) but as I read this, it implies that the developers made this statement to get blind users off their back. I can assure you, since I was in the room when this was discussed and this decision was made, that this was not the case. The fact of the matter, is that it was considered to be the best way to leverage the precious accessibility resources working on Ubuntu, and it was just as simple as that. There were no ulterior motives, and there was no discussion whatsoever on spin or damage control. I understand you think this may be hair splitting, but I think it's important that people reading your message understand that the accessibility developers working on Unity aren't doing anything but being completely honest and open with the blind Ubuntu/Unity users. I am quick to defend those developers who are working so hard, many of them giving from their own spare time, to bring us more accessible solutions. BTW, we weren't told this was the way it was going to be. The proposal was laid out at a session at UDS to be discussed. Anyone could have attended that session, either in person or via IRC or telephone, and participated in the discussion. Since resources are so limited, I'm not sure what other conclusion could have been made though. BTW, given previous emails from you, I assumed this wasn't intended to be inflammatory, but I thought the above inference could be made which is why I replied as I did. If I'm the only one who made such an inference then that's great. On 07/23/2013 03:41 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Placated? No, we weren't placated. We were told that's how it was going to be and we could suck it up til 14.04. I heard you work for Cannonical which makes sense since you are extremely quick to defend Ubuntu any time anyone speaks against it. If this is the case, would you very kindly answer the million dollar question which was the entire point of my prior message: Will 14.04 be accessible now that it's going to be qt-based or not? If not, when do you anticipate an accessible port of Unity? Oh, and just so you know, my message wasn't trying to be inflammatory. I *was* being a bit snarky but, I happen to live in a free country where such things are allowed. I was far more concerned with whether or not I should project trying to come back to
Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Hi, Ok, but I cannot subscribe on vinux-list. The only access point I find is a javascript interface and I've not a suitable browser. So how can I subscribe? Anyway, as you say, personally, I've my current am]iers about Vinux and I'll test next week. Regards, On vendredi 26 juil. 2013 à 13:23:50 (+1000), Rob Whyte wrote: Hi, I think this thread can be closed now. It has generated a lot of back and fourth and I think we all get the point. If parties involved would like to continue off lists that would be preferable. Kind regards Rob Whyte On 24/07/13 07:31, Christopher Chaltain wrote: I do not work for Canonical, and my statements on this or any list have never been anything other than my own opinions. I don't know any more, and never have, about the plans for Unity accessibility than anyone else following the Ubuntu blueprints, subscribing to the Ubuntu accessibility mailing list, logging into the Ubuntu accessibility IRC channel and attending the accessibility related sessions at UDS. This is how I know the decision to focus accessibility resources on the LTS releases was a very open and transparent decision. It was also not an easy decision to make. I don't personally know at the moment what the plans are now for the accessibility of Unity and Ubuntu 14.04, but I assume they haven't changed and this is still the goal. I don't think I'm quick to defend Ubuntu or Unity when anyone speaks out against it, since there isn't enough time in the world for one person to do this. I do try to point out though when someone misstates something or says something that can lead to an incorrect inference. I don't just do this for Ubuntu but other OS's, screen readers, applications and products where I have some knowledge and experience. The fact of the matter is that you stated the decision to focus accessibility resources on 14.04 was to sooth our ruffled feathers. Of course, you have the right to your opinion, and you can be as snarky as you want (although I don't know what this has to do with what country your from) but as I read this, it implies that the developers made this statement to get blind users off their back. I can assure you, since I was in the room when this was discussed and this decision was made, that this was not the case. The fact of the matter, is that it was considered to be the best way to leverage the precious accessibility resources working on Ubuntu, and it was just as simple as that. There were no ulterior motives, and there was no discussion whatsoever on spin or damage control. I understand you think this may be hair splitting, but I think it's important that people reading your message understand that the accessibility developers working on Unity aren't doing anything but being completely honest and open with the blind Ubuntu/Unity users. I am quick to defend those developers who are working so hard, many of them giving from their own spare time, to bring us more accessible solutions. BTW, we weren't told this was the way it was going to be. The proposal was laid out at a session at UDS to be discussed. Anyone could have attended that session, either in person or via IRC or telephone, and participated in the discussion. Since resources are so limited, I'm not sure what other conclusion could have been made though. BTW, given previous emails from you, I assumed this wasn't intended to be inflammatory, but I thought the above inference could be made which is why I replied as I did. If I'm the only one who made such an inference then that's great. On 07/23/2013 03:41 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Placated? No, we weren't placated. We were told that's how it was going to be and we could suck it up til 14.04. I heard you work for Cannonical which makes sense since you are extremely quick to defend Ubuntu any time anyone speaks against it. If this is the case, would you very kindly answer the million dollar question which was the entire point of my prior message: Will 14.04 be accessible now that it's going to be qt-based or not? If not, when do you anticipate an accessible port of Unity? Oh, and just so you know, my message wasn't trying to be inflammatory. I *was* being a bit snarky but, I happen to live in a free country where such things are allowed. I was far more concerned with whether or not I should project trying to come back to Ubuntu in April of next year or not. You see, I happen to be that very odd thing called a fan. I follow them on Twitter, I like them on facebook, I read about them online and I have even hauled off and told my friends about them as a nice way to learn about Linux. So quit hair splitting and answer the question if you can, please. Thank you. Alex M -Original Message- From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-boun...@gnome.org] On Behalf Of Christopher Chaltain Sent:
Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Hi, Ok, but I cannot subscribe on vinux-list. The only access point I find is a javascript interface and I've not a suitable browser. So how can I subscribe? Anyway, as you say, personally, I've my current am]iers about Vinux and I'll test next week. Regards, On vendredi 26 juil. 2013 à 13:23:50 (+1000), Rob Whyte wrote: Hi, I think this thread can be closed now. It has generated a lot of back and fourth and I think we all get the point. If parties involved would like to continue off lists that would be preferable. Kind regards Rob Whyte On 24/07/13 07:31, Christopher Chaltain wrote: I do not work for Canonical, and my statements on this or any list have never been anything other than my own opinions. I don't know any more, and never have, about the plans for Unity accessibility than anyone else following the Ubuntu blueprints, subscribing to the Ubuntu accessibility mailing list, logging into the Ubuntu accessibility IRC channel and attending the accessibility related sessions at UDS. This is how I know the decision to focus accessibility resources on the LTS releases was a very open and transparent decision. It was also not an easy decision to make. I don't personally know at the moment what the plans are now for the accessibility of Unity and Ubuntu 14.04, but I assume they haven't changed and this is still the goal. I don't think I'm quick to defend Ubuntu or Unity when anyone speaks out against it, since there isn't enough time in the world for one person to do this. I do try to point out though when someone misstates something or says something that can lead to an incorrect inference. I don't just do this for Ubuntu but other OS's, screen readers, applications and products where I have some knowledge and experience. The fact of the matter is that you stated the decision to focus accessibility resources on 14.04 was to sooth our ruffled feathers. Of course, you have the right to your opinion, and you can be as snarky as you want (although I don't know what this has to do with what country your from) but as I read this, it implies that the developers made this statement to get blind users off their back. I can assure you, since I was in the room when this was discussed and this decision was made, that this was not the case. The fact of the matter, is that it was considered to be the best way to leverage the precious accessibility resources working on Ubuntu, and it was just as simple as that. There were no ulterior motives, and there was no discussion whatsoever on spin or damage control. I understand you think this may be hair splitting, but I think it's important that people reading your message understand that the accessibility developers working on Unity aren't doing anything but being completely honest and open with the blind Ubuntu/Unity users. I am quick to defend those developers who are working so hard, many of them giving from their own spare time, to bring us more accessible solutions. BTW, we weren't told this was the way it was going to be. The proposal was laid out at a session at UDS to be discussed. Anyone could have attended that session, either in person or via IRC or telephone, and participated in the discussion. Since resources are so limited, I'm not sure what other conclusion could have been made though. BTW, given previous emails from you, I assumed this wasn't intended to be inflammatory, but I thought the above inference could be made which is why I replied as I did. If I'm the only one who made such an inference then that's great. On 07/23/2013 03:41 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Placated? No, we weren't placated. We were told that's how it was going to be and we could suck it up til 14.04. I heard you work for Cannonical which makes sense since you are extremely quick to defend Ubuntu any time anyone speaks against it. If this is the case, would you very kindly answer the million dollar question which was the entire point of my prior message: Will 14.04 be accessible now that it's going to be qt-based or not? If not, when do you anticipate an accessible port of Unity? Oh, and just so you know, my message wasn't trying to be inflammatory. I *was* being a bit snarky but, I happen to live in a free country where such things are allowed. I was far more concerned with whether or not I should project trying to come back to Ubuntu in April of next year or not. You see, I happen to be that very odd thing called a fan. I follow them on Twitter, I like them on facebook, I read about them online and I have even hauled off and told my friends about them as a nice way to learn about Linux. So quit hair splitting and answer the question if you can, please. Thank you. Alex M -Original Message- From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-boun...@gnome.org] On Behalf Of Christopher Chaltain Sent:
Re: [orca-list] Subscribing to the Vinux support list [was Re: VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT]
Hi, On vendredi 26 juil. 2013 à 13:22:47 (-0500), Christopher Chaltain wrote: If you're trying to subscribe to the Vinux support list, try sending a blank email message to vinux-support+subscr...@googlegroups.com Thanks, it works. However, all the messages I send now to vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com don't arrive. Not error but not feedback (I don't receive my own messages and answers). I subscribe a free.fr address. egards, On 07/26/2013 08:08 AM, Jean-Philippe MENGUAL wrote: Hi, Ok, but I cannot subscribe on vinux-list. The only access point I find is a javascript interface and I've not a suitable browser. So how can I subscribe? Anyway, as you say, personally, I've my current am]iers about Vinux and I'll test next week. Regards, On vendredi 26 juil. 2013 à 13:23:50 (+1000), Rob Whyte wrote: Hi, I think this thread can be closed now. It has generated a lot of back and fourth and I think we all get the point. If parties involved would like to continue off lists that would be preferable. Kind regards Rob Whyte On 24/07/13 07:31, Christopher Chaltain wrote: I do not work for Canonical, and my statements on this or any list have never been anything other than my own opinions. I don't know any more, and never have, about the plans for Unity accessibility than anyone else following the Ubuntu blueprints, subscribing to the Ubuntu accessibility mailing list, logging into the Ubuntu accessibility IRC channel and attending the accessibility related sessions at UDS. This is how I know the decision to focus accessibility resources on the LTS releases was a very open and transparent decision. It was also not an easy decision to make. I don't personally know at the moment what the plans are now for the accessibility of Unity and Ubuntu 14.04, but I assume they haven't changed and this is still the goal. I don't think I'm quick to defend Ubuntu or Unity when anyone speaks out against it, since there isn't enough time in the world for one person to do this. I do try to point out though when someone misstates something or says something that can lead to an incorrect inference. I don't just do this for Ubuntu but other OS's, screen readers, applications and products where I have some knowledge and experience. The fact of the matter is that you stated the decision to focus accessibility resources on 14.04 was to sooth our ruffled feathers. Of course, you have the right to your opinion, and you can be as snarky as you want (although I don't know what this has to do with what country your from) but as I read this, it implies that the developers made this statement to get blind users off their back. I can assure you, since I was in the room when this was discussed and this decision was made, that this was not the case. The fact of the matter, is that it was considered to be the best way to leverage the precious accessibility resources working on Ubuntu, and it was just as simple as that. There were no ulterior motives, and there was no discussion whatsoever on spin or damage control. I understand you think this may be hair splitting, but I think it's important that people reading your message understand that the accessibility developers working on Unity aren't doing anything but being completely honest and open with the blind Ubuntu/Unity users. I am quick to defend those developers who are working so hard, many of them giving from their own spare time, to bring us more accessible solutions. BTW, we weren't told this was the way it was going to be. The proposal was laid out at a session at UDS to be discussed. Anyone could have attended that session, either in person or via IRC or telephone, and participated in the discussion. Since resources are so limited, I'm not sure what other conclusion could have been made though. BTW, given previous emails from you, I assumed this wasn't intended to be inflammatory, but I thought the above inference could be made which is why I replied as I did. If I'm the only one who made such an inference then that's great. On 07/23/2013 03:41 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Placated? No, we weren't placated. We were told that's how it was going to be and we could suck it up til 14.04. I heard you work for Cannonical which makes sense since you are extremely quick to defend Ubuntu any time anyone speaks against it. If this is the case, would you very kindly answer the million dollar question which was the entire point of my prior message: Will 14.04 be accessible now that it's going to be qt-based or not? If not, when do you anticipate an accessible port of Unity? Oh, and just so you know, my message wasn't trying to be inflammatory. I *was* being a bit snarky but, I happen to live in a free country where such things are allowed. I was far more concerned with whether or not I should project trying to come back to Ubuntu in April of next year or not. You see, I happen to be that
Subscribing to the Vinux support list [was Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT]
If you're trying to subscribe to the Vinux support list, try sending a blank email message to vinux-support+subscr...@googlegroups.com On 07/26/2013 08:08 AM, Jean-Philippe MENGUAL wrote: Hi, Ok, but I cannot subscribe on vinux-list. The only access point I find is a javascript interface and I've not a suitable browser. So how can I subscribe? Anyway, as you say, personally, I've my current am]iers about Vinux and I'll test next week. Regards, On vendredi 26 juil. 2013 à 13:23:50 (+1000), Rob Whyte wrote: Hi, I think this thread can be closed now. It has generated a lot of back and fourth and I think we all get the point. If parties involved would like to continue off lists that would be preferable. Kind regards Rob Whyte On 24/07/13 07:31, Christopher Chaltain wrote: I do not work for Canonical, and my statements on this or any list have never been anything other than my own opinions. I don't know any more, and never have, about the plans for Unity accessibility than anyone else following the Ubuntu blueprints, subscribing to the Ubuntu accessibility mailing list, logging into the Ubuntu accessibility IRC channel and attending the accessibility related sessions at UDS. This is how I know the decision to focus accessibility resources on the LTS releases was a very open and transparent decision. It was also not an easy decision to make. I don't personally know at the moment what the plans are now for the accessibility of Unity and Ubuntu 14.04, but I assume they haven't changed and this is still the goal. I don't think I'm quick to defend Ubuntu or Unity when anyone speaks out against it, since there isn't enough time in the world for one person to do this. I do try to point out though when someone misstates something or says something that can lead to an incorrect inference. I don't just do this for Ubuntu but other OS's, screen readers, applications and products where I have some knowledge and experience. The fact of the matter is that you stated the decision to focus accessibility resources on 14.04 was to sooth our ruffled feathers. Of course, you have the right to your opinion, and you can be as snarky as you want (although I don't know what this has to do with what country your from) but as I read this, it implies that the developers made this statement to get blind users off their back. I can assure you, since I was in the room when this was discussed and this decision was made, that this was not the case. The fact of the matter, is that it was considered to be the best way to leverage the precious accessibility resources working on Ubuntu, and it was just as simple as that. There were no ulterior motives, and there was no discussion whatsoever on spin or damage control. I understand you think this may be hair splitting, but I think it's important that people reading your message understand that the accessibility developers working on Unity aren't doing anything but being completely honest and open with the blind Ubuntu/Unity users. I am quick to defend those developers who are working so hard, many of them giving from their own spare time, to bring us more accessible solutions. BTW, we weren't told this was the way it was going to be. The proposal was laid out at a session at UDS to be discussed. Anyone could have attended that session, either in person or via IRC or telephone, and participated in the discussion. Since resources are so limited, I'm not sure what other conclusion could have been made though. BTW, given previous emails from you, I assumed this wasn't intended to be inflammatory, but I thought the above inference could be made which is why I replied as I did. If I'm the only one who made such an inference then that's great. On 07/23/2013 03:41 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Placated? No, we weren't placated. We were told that's how it was going to be and we could suck it up til 14.04. I heard you work for Cannonical which makes sense since you are extremely quick to defend Ubuntu any time anyone speaks against it. If this is the case, would you very kindly answer the million dollar question which was the entire point of my prior message: Will 14.04 be accessible now that it's going to be qt-based or not? If not, when do you anticipate an accessible port of Unity? Oh, and just so you know, my message wasn't trying to be inflammatory. I *was* being a bit snarky but, I happen to live in a free country where such things are allowed. I was far more concerned with whether or not I should project trying to come back to Ubuntu in April of next year or not. You see, I happen to be that very odd thing called a fan. I follow them on Twitter, I like them on facebook, I read about them online and I have even hauled off and told my friends about them as a nice way to learn about Linux. So quit hair splitting and answer the question if you can, please. Thank you. Alex M -Original Message- From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-boun...@gnome.org] On Behalf Of
Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Hi, I think this thread can be closed now. It has generated a lot of back and fourth and I think we all get the point. If parties involved would like to continue off lists that would be preferable. Kind regards Rob Whyte On 24/07/13 07:31, Christopher Chaltain wrote: I do not work for Canonical, and my statements on this or any list have never been anything other than my own opinions. I don't know any more, and never have, about the plans for Unity accessibility than anyone else following the Ubuntu blueprints, subscribing to the Ubuntu accessibility mailing list, logging into the Ubuntu accessibility IRC channel and attending the accessibility related sessions at UDS. This is how I know the decision to focus accessibility resources on the LTS releases was a very open and transparent decision. It was also not an easy decision to make. I don't personally know at the moment what the plans are now for the accessibility of Unity and Ubuntu 14.04, but I assume they haven't changed and this is still the goal. I don't think I'm quick to defend Ubuntu or Unity when anyone speaks out against it, since there isn't enough time in the world for one person to do this. I do try to point out though when someone misstates something or says something that can lead to an incorrect inference. I don't just do this for Ubuntu but other OS's, screen readers, applications and products where I have some knowledge and experience. The fact of the matter is that you stated the decision to focus accessibility resources on 14.04 was to sooth our ruffled feathers. Of course, you have the right to your opinion, and you can be as snarky as you want (although I don't know what this has to do with what country your from) but as I read this, it implies that the developers made this statement to get blind users off their back. I can assure you, since I was in the room when this was discussed and this decision was made, that this was not the case. The fact of the matter, is that it was considered to be the best way to leverage the precious accessibility resources working on Ubuntu, and it was just as simple as that. There were no ulterior motives, and there was no discussion whatsoever on spin or damage control. I understand you think this may be hair splitting, but I think it's important that people reading your message understand that the accessibility developers working on Unity aren't doing anything but being completely honest and open with the blind Ubuntu/Unity users. I am quick to defend those developers who are working so hard, many of them giving from their own spare time, to bring us more accessible solutions. BTW, we weren't told this was the way it was going to be. The proposal was laid out at a session at UDS to be discussed. Anyone could have attended that session, either in person or via IRC or telephone, and participated in the discussion. Since resources are so limited, I'm not sure what other conclusion could have been made though. BTW, given previous emails from you, I assumed this wasn't intended to be inflammatory, but I thought the above inference could be made which is why I replied as I did. If I'm the only one who made such an inference then that's great. On 07/23/2013 03:41 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Placated? No, we weren't placated. We were told that's how it was going to be and we could suck it up til 14.04. I heard you work for Cannonical which makes sense since you are extremely quick to defend Ubuntu any time anyone speaks against it. If this is the case, would you very kindly answer the million dollar question which was the entire point of my prior message: Will 14.04 be accessible now that it's going to be qt-based or not? If not, when do you anticipate an accessible port of Unity? Oh, and just so you know, my message wasn't trying to be inflammatory. I *was* being a bit snarky but, I happen to live in a free country where such things are allowed. I was far more concerned with whether or not I should project trying to come back to Ubuntu in April of next year or not. You see, I happen to be that very odd thing called a fan. I follow them on Twitter, I like them on facebook, I read about them online and I have even hauled off and told my friends about them as a nice way to learn about Linux. So quit hair splitting and answer the question if you can, please. Thank you. Alex M -Original Message- From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-boun...@gnome.org] On Behalf Of Christopher Chaltain Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 2:58 PM To: Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List Cc: vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT Unity 2D was pulled from Ubuntu 12.10 and not Ubuntu 12.04. The plan to focus accessibility efforts in Ubuntu on the LTS releases was meant to provide the best accessibility solution with the resources available. This was a
Re: [orca-list] [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
This essentially means we must try things pretty early on and start reporting bugs agressively. happy hacking. Krishnakant. On 07/24/2013 06:37 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Wonderful news! I certainly feel better for it. Thanks for all your hard work on qt-at-spi. Alex M From: Frederik Gladhorn [mailto:frede...@gladhorn.de] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 3:21 AM To: kde-accessibil...@kde.org Cc: Alex Midence; orca-l...@gnome.org; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List Subject: Re: [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT Hello, On Tuesday 23. July 2013 13.23.47 Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu's Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they'll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it's wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: Qt 5 contains all the accessibility code that was used for Qt 4, including the plugin qt-at-spi which will then no longer be needed. Many things have also been improved since we learned from finally making Qt 4 accessible. All in all this means that the Qt 5 based Unity should be able to reach the level of the old Unity and hopefully exceed it. Of course that's still up to the Unity developers and probably a fix here or there in Qt, but generally I would expect things to look good. Greetings Frederik http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: [orca-list] [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
yeah, I had tryed as well and had the same problem. I think there could be some more things to test and if they are not fundamentally broke, then we are in for a happy surprise. I would be interested to see how Firefox works under this infra structure and how libre office works as well. Personally, I use Eclipse so that's another thing to watch out. happy hacking. Krishnakant. On 07/24/2013 07:17 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Very true. The thing that I want to test is editable text areas in QT. That was the biggest problem I saw last year when I was trying out KDE. If you were in Kate or Kmail and there was some text you wanted to put in either because you were editing a file or filling out a form of some kind, Orca couldn't read it back to you. If it was a field you were filling in, you could tab away and backtab back to it and Orca would speak its contents but, individual character by character or word by word navigation was not possible at the time. I hope that's gotten better since then. I haven't looked at it since May or June of last year, I think. It is a very important piece of the puzzle. Alex M From: Krishnakant Mane [mailto:krm...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 8:42 AM To: Alex Midence Cc: 'Frederik Gladhorn'; kde-accessibil...@kde.org; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT This essentially means we must try things pretty early on and start reporting bugs agressively. happy hacking. Krishnakant. On 07/24/2013 06:37 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Wonderful news! I certainly feel better for it. Thanks for all your hard work on qt-at-spi. Alex M From: Frederik Gladhorn [mailto:frede...@gladhorn.de] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 3:21 AM To: kde-accessibil...@kde.org Cc: Alex Midence; orca-l...@gnome.org; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List Subject: Re: [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT Hello, On Tuesday 23. July 2013 13.23.47 Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu's Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they'll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it's wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: Qt 5 contains all the accessibility code that was used for Qt 4, including the plugin qt-at-spi which will then no longer be needed. Many things have also been improved since we learned from finally making Qt 4 accessible. All in all this means that the Qt 5 based Unity should be able to reach the level of the old Unity and hopefully exceed it. Of course that's still up to the Unity developers and probably a fix here or there in Qt, but generally I would expect things to look good. Greetings Frederik http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
I agree it's unfortunate that Luke is the only one working on Unity accessibility, but there is a big difference between Canonical and Apple or Google. Apple is the wealthiest company in the world. Google is also a large company and is also quite profitable. Apple and Google are already well established players in the mobile space. Neither the iPhone nor Android were accessible when they were first released. Canonical is a tiny company, less than 600 employees, and is still not profitable after being around for about eight years or so. It's still trying to break into the mobile market. I'm not defending Canonical here. I too wish that they would invest more in accessibility development. I'm just pointing out that circumstances right now between Canonical and Apple/Google are quite a bit different. I think Canonical focus right now is to just get a viable product out into the market place. I'm sure that once that happens and it becomes successful, they'll invest more in accessibility, just as Apple and Google have. In some ways, this is analogous to Microsoft and Windows Phone. MS's priority right now is to become relevant in the mobile space. Once that happens then I think accessibility will move up higher on their priority queue. On 07/24/2013 08:41 AM, Alex Midence wrote: Hi, Luke, Just to be clear, I don't think and have never thought you were part of the problem. What I do think is that it sucks that you are the only one having to do all this work. They really should hire you some help. There is only so much one person can do and a11y is a big job. Apple has a full on team working on Voiceover. Google has Dr. Raman and his assistant and probably others I don't know about working on Android accessibility. If canonical is going to expand into all these other markets, I don't see why they can't hire you a couple of assistants to help distribute the workload. However, those decisions are beyond our control. Speaking for myself, I am personally very appreciative of all the work you have put in. Best regards, Alex M -Original Message- From: Luke Yelavich [mailto:them...@ubuntu.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 11:05 PM To: Alex Midence Cc: Christopher Chaltain; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 01:33:34PM EST, Alex Midence wrote: Also, for the record, I fully recognize and appreciate all the hard work of the developers of the Ubuntu community who freely give of their time to make things accessible. However, it was disappointing to finally have gotten a very accessible port of Unity in 12.04 only to be told that we were back to poor a11y in other versions of the distro for at the very least 2 full years. For the record, I was disappointed as well. I expressed my desire for Unity to stick with using Qt at the time, given the accessibility advantages it brought for one, and the fact that it would have made maintaining unity easier as the nux GUI toolkit wouldn't also need to be maintained, and Qt is well established etc. I am the only developer working for Canonical who spends at least some of the time working on accessibility issues. I say some of the time, because I do have other duties, in fact the primary reason why I was hired was not to work exclusively on accessibility, although the powers that be are ok with me doing so. Having said that, my big focus for the next 10-12 months will almost exclusively be getting Qt5, Mir, and Unity as accessible an environment as one person can possibly manage. Qt5 helps somewhat, but the specific parts of Qt that are being used for the new Unity still have some rough spots when it comes to accessibility, and there is also the changing graphics stack and everythign that goes with it to deal with. Given these changes, and given I am the only person who is likely going to be working on all of this, I cannot really promise anything, given the work that is required, and given the time and resources, or possibly lack there of, available to do so. I do really appreciate that you all want regularly updated, accessible distro releases that have the latest accessibility crack, but please keep in mind just how many of us in the wider *nix accessibility community there are, and also keep in mind how many of us are involved with some form of active development in the area, and if you want to dig deeper, think about the number of us working on GUI desktop accessibility of some kind. I try to take the approach of under promising, and at least delivering, and if I can over deliver, than thats great. In the meantime, there is the Ubuntu GNOME remix, with GNOME shell, wich does work quite well these days. I'll do my best to try and fix any issues people may notice with that release, given the accessibility tools and infrastructure are shared with GNOME and Unity. Thanks, and
Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
I agree accessibility should be baked in from the beginning. It's cheaper than bolting it on later, opens up more revenue streams, provides positive PR and so on. It's the law here in the US, and just the right thing to do. I wasn't speaking from my own opinion, but just echoing where I think these companies are coming from and why I think their making the investments they are. I can't think of a single smart phone company that introduced an accessible smart phone with they're first offering and that includes Apple, Google, Microsoft and Nokia. I don't like it, but I don't think many companies place accessibility very high on their priority lists as compared to getting a new product into the market place and getting it to a point where it's competitive and profitable. I've heard that Apple had to develop it's own screen reader when Berkley Systems went out of business and no other 3rd party screen reader would develop a screen reader for the Mac. Apple was in danger of losing government contracts because MS had an accessible story while Apple did not. I don't know this first hand, but I would say I have it from reliable sources. Of course, Apple has gone far beyond this in making all of it's products accessible out of the box. I'm not aware of any company losing a government contract because they didn't have an accessible smart phone story, but I suspect this is possible as smart phones become more and more a ubiquitous part of the business world. This is why I suspect MS will address accessibility on their Windows Phone platform at some point. I think they need to get the Windows Phone platform to a point where government agencies start considering asking their employees to use a Windows Phone. Right now, I suspect Windows Phone doesn't have the apps or the market penetration for businesses or government agencies to even consider it as an option. I've heard good things about the Windows Phone platform though, and I do know it's becoming a viable third option behind Apple and Android. The real point of my email though was to be careful making analogies between Canonical and Apple/Google. If we assume Canonical has 500 employees with one person working on accessibility (I know I'm being optimistic.) then how does this compare to Apple and it's ratio of total employees to those working on accessibility? Also, don't forget that Apple's first smart phone was not accessible. It wasn't until this was successful in the market place and competing with Nokia and Blackberry before they added accessibility. Ditto for Google. On 07/24/2013 11:57 AM, Al Sten-Clanton wrote: It strikes me that, from the perspective you're describing, a viable product apparently does not include accessibility as a matter of course. (I'm not saying that's your own view, but only that this is the view you describe--all too well and concisely.) Until our access needs are deemed equal to the access needs of those who use the standard monitor and other tools, the attitude in the business will be wrong. Tell me if I'm mistaken, but I think I heard recently that Apple's recent foray into accessibility resulted from a law suit. (I say recent foray because there was a period during the 1980s when it provided some speech output at least.) Does anybody know for sure whether this is right or wrong? Al On 07/23/2013 11:38 PM, Christopher J Chaltain wrote: I agree it's unfortunate that Luke is the only one working on Unity accessibility, but there is a big difference between Canonical and Apple or Google. Apple is the wealthiest company in the world. Google is also a large company and is also quite profitable. Apple and Google are already well established players in the mobile space. Neither the iPhone nor Android were accessible when they were first released. Canonical is a tiny company, less than 600 employees, and is still not profitable after being around for about eight years or so. It's still trying to break into the mobile market. I'm not defending Canonical here. I too wish that they would invest more in accessibility development. I'm just pointing out that circumstances right now between Canonical and Apple/Google are quite a bit different. I think Canonical focus right now is to just get a viable product out into the market place. I'm sure that once that happens and it becomes successful, they'll invest more in accessibility, just as Apple and Google have. In some ways, this is analogous to Microsoft and Windows Phone. MS's priority right now is to become relevant in the mobile space. Once that happens then I think accessibility will move up higher on their priority queue. On 07/24/2013 08:41 AM, Alex Midence wrote: Hi, Luke, Just to be clear, I don't think and have never thought you were part of the problem. What I do think is that it sucks that you are the only one having to do all this work. They really should hire you some help. There is only so much one person can do and a11y is a
Re: [orca-list] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
I haven't done this myself, but since the Desktop is just a folder in your home directory, you can place symbolic links to applications you want to start into that folder. I did this just now with a link to /usr/lib/thunderbird/thunderbird.sh. On 07/24/2013 11:07 AM, Jean-Philippe MENGUAL wrote: Hi, On mardi 23 juil. 2013 à 15:38:37 (-0500), Christopher Chaltain wrote: In Unity, you can use the alt+f10 key to bring up the global menus, arrow left to get to the devices pull down and then down arrow to shutdown. Excellent! Thanks! it works fine. But given there's a desktop, is it possible to create launchers on the desktop? I tried via Application key but I get nothing. I tried shift-F10, all crashed. Is there a solution or isn't ft designed for this? Thanks for your answer. Regards, Note that Vinux 4.0 is based on Ubuntu 12.04 which runs Unity 2D by default. Your statement, Vinux in 13.4 is confusing. On 07/23/2013 03:22 PM, Jean-Philippe MENGUAL wrote: Hi, For the unity iN Vinux 13.4, how do you do to shut down the computer? I found with gnome, but not with Unity. Moreover, on gnome-shell, is there some doc about accessibility and using it with the keyboard with news (Start key, Tab key, etc.)? Thanks Regards, On mardi 23 juil. 2013 à 14:58:01 (-0500), Christopher Chaltain wrote: Unity 2D was pulled from Ubuntu 12.10 and not Ubuntu 12.04. The plan to focus accessibility efforts in Ubuntu on the LTS releases was meant to provide the best accessibility solution with the resources available. This was a transparent decision made with the best information at the time. Obviously, desktop plans have changed since then. This was not a statement or move just to placate blind Ubuntu users as your message implies. On 07/23/2013 01:23 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu?s Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they?ll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it?s wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
I think the issue here is the total mindset and also the fact that many so called smart business men don't realize the business they can generate out of accessibility. Firstly, there are those who don't *still* beleive that a totaly blind person like me can actually use a Phone, let alone a computer. And I am refering to highly qualified engineers or business personals. Secondly, how many would go one step ahead and say let's add a million more probable custommers by making the device accessible? That's why accessibility takes a back seet. happy hacking. Krishnakant. On 07/24/2013 10:51 PM, Christopher Chaltain wrote: I agree accessibility should be baked in from the beginning. It's cheaper than bolting it on later, opens up more revenue streams, provides positive PR and so on. It's the law here in the US, and just the right thing to do. I wasn't speaking from my own opinion, but just echoing where I think these companies are coming from and why I think their making the investments they are. I can't think of a single smart phone company that introduced an accessible smart phone with they're first offering and that includes Apple, Google, Microsoft and Nokia. I don't like it, but I don't think many companies place accessibility very high on their priority lists as compared to getting a new product into the market place and getting it to a point where it's competitive and profitable. I've heard that Apple had to develop it's own screen reader when Berkley Systems went out of business and no other 3rd party screen reader would develop a screen reader for the Mac. Apple was in danger of losing government contracts because MS had an accessible story while Apple did not. I don't know this first hand, but I would say I have it from reliable sources. Of course, Apple has gone far beyond this in making all of it's products accessible out of the box. I'm not aware of any company losing a government contract because they didn't have an accessible smart phone story, but I suspect this is possible as smart phones become more and more a ubiquitous part of the business world. This is why I suspect MS will address accessibility on their Windows Phone platform at some point. I think they need to get the Windows Phone platform to a point where government agencies start considering asking their employees to use a Windows Phone. Right now, I suspect Windows Phone doesn't have the apps or the market penetration for businesses or government agencies to even consider it as an option. I've heard good things about the Windows Phone platform though, and I do know it's becoming a viable third option behind Apple and Android. The real point of my email though was to be careful making analogies between Canonical and Apple/Google. If we assume Canonical has 500 employees with one person working on accessibility (I know I'm being optimistic.) then how does this compare to Apple and it's ratio of total employees to those working on accessibility? Also, don't forget that Apple's first smart phone was not accessible. It wasn't until this was successful in the market place and competing with Nokia and Blackberry before they added accessibility. Ditto for Google. On 07/24/2013 11:57 AM, Al Sten-Clanton wrote: It strikes me that, from the perspective you're describing, a viable product apparently does not include accessibility as a matter of course. (I'm not saying that's your own view, but only that this is the view you describe--all too well and concisely.) Until our access needs are deemed equal to the access needs of those who use the standard monitor and other tools, the attitude in the business will be wrong. Tell me if I'm mistaken, but I think I heard recently that Apple's recent foray into accessibility resulted from a law suit. (I say recent foray because there was a period during the 1980s when it provided some speech output at least.) Does anybody know for sure whether this is right or wrong? Al On 07/23/2013 11:38 PM, Christopher J Chaltain wrote: I agree it's unfortunate that Luke is the only one working on Unity accessibility, but there is a big difference between Canonical and Apple or Google. Apple is the wealthiest company in the world. Google is also a large company and is also quite profitable. Apple and Google are already well established players in the mobile space. Neither the iPhone nor Android were accessible when they were first released. Canonical is a tiny company, less than 600 employees, and is still not profitable after being around for about eight years or so. It's still trying to break into the mobile market. I'm not defending Canonical here. I too wish that they would invest more in accessibility development. I'm just pointing out that circumstances right now between Canonical and Apple/Google are quite a bit different. I think Canonical focus right now is to just get a viable product out into the market place. I'm sure that once that happens
Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
I know you didn't say this, but Mark Shuttleworth and Jane Silver are aware that totally blind people can use computers and smart phones. I think you're right in that it's hard for any one to quantify their return on investment into accessibility, even a smart business man or woman. I'm not even sure you could say that Apple has sold a million iPhones they wouldn't have sold otherwise because of VoiceOver and accessibility. Also, selling a million more smart phones has to be prioritized behind selling that first smart phone. Getting a new smart phone with a new operating system into the arena is incredibly hard. Not only is there all of the development that needs to go on (think of all of those apps you take for granted on your current smart phone and realize none of those apps exist yet under Unity) but there's also the fact that you need to get manufacturers and carriers on board and build an ecosystem around a new player in the mobile space. I'm not saying Canonical shouldn't be investing more in accessibility, in fact, I think they should be. I'd like to see them pushing accessibility more in their marketing, be the first smart phone to be accessible right out of the gate and hammer home the fact that ubuntu (the philosophy and operating system) includes blind people. I think this would pay off for Canonical down the road. Whatever anyone thinks of Canonical and Mark Shuttleworth, he is an incredibly successful, bright and driven person, and he has to accomplish an awful lot with limited resources if Ubuntu Touch is going to be successful. Accessibility is only one challenge on his radar. On 07/24/2013 12:29 PM, Krishnakant Mane wrote: I think the issue here is the total mindset and also the fact that many so called smart business men don't realize the business they can generate out of accessibility. Firstly, there are those who don't *still* beleive that a totaly blind person like me can actually use a Phone, let alone a computer. And I am refering to highly qualified engineers or business personals. Secondly, how many would go one step ahead and say let's add a million more probable custommers by making the device accessible? That's why accessibility takes a back seet. happy hacking. Krishnakant. On 07/24/2013 10:51 PM, Christopher Chaltain wrote: I agree accessibility should be baked in from the beginning. It's cheaper than bolting it on later, opens up more revenue streams, provides positive PR and so on. It's the law here in the US, and just the right thing to do. I wasn't speaking from my own opinion, but just echoing where I think these companies are coming from and why I think their making the investments they are. I can't think of a single smart phone company that introduced an accessible smart phone with they're first offering and that includes Apple, Google, Microsoft and Nokia. I don't like it, but I don't think many companies place accessibility very high on their priority lists as compared to getting a new product into the market place and getting it to a point where it's competitive and profitable. I've heard that Apple had to develop it's own screen reader when Berkley Systems went out of business and no other 3rd party screen reader would develop a screen reader for the Mac. Apple was in danger of losing government contracts because MS had an accessible story while Apple did not. I don't know this first hand, but I would say I have it from reliable sources. Of course, Apple has gone far beyond this in making all of it's products accessible out of the box. I'm not aware of any company losing a government contract because they didn't have an accessible smart phone story, but I suspect this is possible as smart phones become more and more a ubiquitous part of the business world. This is why I suspect MS will address accessibility on their Windows Phone platform at some point. I think they need to get the Windows Phone platform to a point where government agencies start considering asking their employees to use a Windows Phone. Right now, I suspect Windows Phone doesn't have the apps or the market penetration for businesses or government agencies to even consider it as an option. I've heard good things about the Windows Phone platform though, and I do know it's becoming a viable third option behind Apple and Android. The real point of my email though was to be careful making analogies between Canonical and Apple/Google. If we assume Canonical has 500 employees with one person working on accessibility (I know I'm being optimistic.) then how does this compare to Apple and it's ratio of total employees to those working on accessibility? Also, don't forget that Apple's first smart phone was not accessible. It wasn't until this was successful in the market place and competing with Nokia and Blackberry before they added accessibility. Ditto for Google. On 07/24/2013 11:57 AM, Al Sten-Clanton wrote: It strikes me that, from the perspective you're describing, a
Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
I agree. You also see this on all of the GPS apps which provide turn by turn spoken directions. True accessibility, for a blind user though, does need to go a bit beyond just what needs to be done for eyes free use. On 07/24/2013 03:24 PM, Alex Midence wrote: The way accessibility was approached by Google is pretty smart. Eyes-free they call it implying that someone who can see might choose to operate their smartphone without using their vision. This is so they can keep their eyes on the road, for instance. Thus, it became something valuable to include in their operating system as a feature that could benefit the entire user population and not just one specific sector of it. I thought it was rather clever and I must say I like the inclusive mindset. Apple has done something similar with Siri. Alex M -Original Message- From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-boun...@gnome.org] On Behalf Of Christopher Chaltain Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 3:17 PM To: vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com Cc: 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT I know you didn't say this, but Mark Shuttleworth and Jane Silver are aware that totally blind people can use computers and smart phones. I think you're right in that it's hard for any one to quantify their return on investment into accessibility, even a smart business man or woman. I'm not even sure you could say that Apple has sold a million iPhones they wouldn't have sold otherwise because of VoiceOver and accessibility. Also, selling a million more smart phones has to be prioritized behind selling that first smart phone. Getting a new smart phone with a new operating system into the arena is incredibly hard. Not only is there all of the development that needs to go on (think of all of those apps you take for granted on your current smart phone and realize none of those apps exist yet under Unity) but there's also the fact that you need to get manufacturers and carriers on board and build an ecosystem around a new player in the mobile space. I'm not saying Canonical shouldn't be investing more in accessibility, in fact, I think they should be. I'd like to see them pushing accessibility more in their marketing, be the first smart phone to be accessible right out of the gate and hammer home the fact that ubuntu (the philosophy and operating system) includes blind people. I think this would pay off for Canonical down the road. Whatever anyone thinks of Canonical and Mark Shuttleworth, he is an incredibly successful, bright and driven person, and he has to accomplish an awful lot with limited resources if Ubuntu Touch is going to be successful. Accessibility is only one challenge on his radar. On 07/24/2013 12:29 PM, Krishnakant Mane wrote: I think the issue here is the total mindset and also the fact that many so called smart business men don't realize the business they can generate out of accessibility. Firstly, there are those who don't *still* beleive that a totaly blind person like me can actually use a Phone, let alone a computer. And I am refering to highly qualified engineers or business personals. Secondly, how many would go one step ahead and say let's add a million more probable custommers by making the device accessible? That's why accessibility takes a back seet. happy hacking. Krishnakant. On 07/24/2013 10:51 PM, Christopher Chaltain wrote: I agree accessibility should be baked in from the beginning. It's cheaper than bolting it on later, opens up more revenue streams, provides positive PR and so on. It's the law here in the US, and just the right thing to do. I wasn't speaking from my own opinion, but just echoing where I think these companies are coming from and why I think their making the investments they are. I can't think of a single smart phone company that introduced an accessible smart phone with they're first offering and that includes Apple, Google, Microsoft and Nokia. I don't like it, but I don't think many companies place accessibility very high on their priority lists as compared to getting a new product into the market place and getting it to a point where it's competitive and profitable. I've heard that Apple had to develop it's own screen reader when Berkley Systems went out of business and no other 3rd party screen reader would develop a screen reader for the Mac. Apple was in danger of losing government contracts because MS had an accessible story while Apple did not. I don't know this first hand, but I would say I have it from reliable sources. Of course, Apple has gone far beyond this in making all of it's products accessible out of the box. I'm not aware of any company losing a government contract because they didn't have an accessible smart phone story, but I suspect this is possible as smart phones become more and more a ubiquitous part of the business world. This is why I suspect MS will address accessibility on their
Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
I hadn't heard that Apple was actually sued. My understanding was that back when Windows had an accessible option through 3rd party screen readers and Apple had no screen reader at all that Apple was losing out to Microsoft, or at least had the potential to lose such deals, when selling systems to government agencies and educational facilities. My understanding was that Microsoft was never sued over accessibility but that the screen reader companies did work with Microsoft to convince Microsoft not to come out with their own screen reader. It was felt that if Microsoft developed their own screen reader, then 3rd party screen readers would fall by the way side, and in the long run, this would not be advantageous to the blind. I do have some limited first hand knowledge of what happened here. Obviously Apple's model does a lot to disprove this concern, but I personally still have an issue with a company controlling the OS, application suite and screen reader. It's fine when you're an all MS or an all Apple shop, but what if you want to use Firefox on Windows or MS Office on the Mac. On 07/24/2013 03:30 PM, Alex Midence wrote: I hadn't heard that one. I don't know how someone would have had a case against Apple since there was a largely accessible alternative in the form of Windows or Windows Mobile. All through my years growing up, Apple and inaccessible were more or less synonymous. I remember how pleasantly surprised I was to learn that Apple had done such a fine job with Voiceover. I heard that the ones that got sued were Microsoft for beefing up Narrator and that it was a screen reader company that did it on the grounds of them pulling an internet explorer vs netscape type thing but with screen readers this time. I don't know if either of these is true though, so, don't quote me. Alex M -Original Message- From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-boun...@gnome.org] On Behalf Of Al Sten-Clanton Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 11:57 AM To: Christopher J Chaltain Cc: vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT It strikes me that, from the perspective you're describing, a viable product apparently does not include accessibility as a matter of course. (I'm not saying that's your own view, but only that this is the view you describe--all too well and concisely.) Until our access needs are deemed equal to the access needs of those who use the standard monitor and other tools, the attitude in the business will be wrong. Tell me if I'm mistaken, but I think I heard recently that Apple's recent foray into accessibility resulted from a law suit. (I say recent foray because there was a period during the 1980s when it provided some speech output at least.) Does anybody know for sure whether this is right or wrong? Al On 07/23/2013 11:38 PM, Christopher J Chaltain wrote: I agree it's unfortunate that Luke is the only one working on Unity accessibility, but there is a big difference between Canonical and Apple or Google. Apple is the wealthiest company in the world. Google is also a large company and is also quite profitable. Apple and Google are already well established players in the mobile space. Neither the iPhone nor Android were accessible when they were first released. Canonical is a tiny company, less than 600 employees, and is still not profitable after being around for about eight years or so. It's still trying to break into the mobile market. I'm not defending Canonical here. I too wish that they would invest more in accessibility development. I'm just pointing out that circumstances right now between Canonical and Apple/Google are quite a bit different. I think Canonical focus right now is to just get a viable product out into the market place. I'm sure that once that happens and it becomes successful, they'll invest more in accessibility, just as Apple and Google have. In some ways, this is analogous to Microsoft and Windows Phone. MS's priority right now is to become relevant in the mobile space. Once that happens then I think accessibility will move up higher on their priority queue. On 07/24/2013 08:41 AM, Alex Midence wrote: Hi, Luke, Just to be clear, I don't think and have never thought you were part of the problem. What I do think is that it sucks that you are the only one having to do all this work. They really should hire you some help. There is only so much one person can do and a11y is a big job. Apple has a full on team working on Voiceover. Google has Dr. Raman and his assistant and probably others I don't know about working on Android accessibility. If canonical is going to expand into all these other markets, I don't see why they can't hire you a couple of assistants to help distribute the workload. However, those decisions are beyond our control. Speaking for myself, I am personally very appreciative of all the work
Re: [orca-list] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Hi, On mardi 23 juil. 2013 à 15:38:37 (-0500), Christopher Chaltain wrote: In Unity, you can use the alt+f10 key to bring up the global menus, arrow left to get to the devices pull down and then down arrow to shutdown. Excellent! Thanks! it works fine. But given there's a desktop, is it possible to create launchers on the desktop? I tried via Application key but I get nothing. I tried shift-F10, all crashed. Is there a solution or isn't ft designed for this? Thanks for your answer. Regards, Note that Vinux 4.0 is based on Ubuntu 12.04 which runs Unity 2D by default. Your statement, Vinux in 13.4 is confusing. On 07/23/2013 03:22 PM, Jean-Philippe MENGUAL wrote: Hi, For the unity iN Vinux 13.4, how do you do to shut down the computer? I found with gnome, but not with Unity. Moreover, on gnome-shell, is there some doc about accessibility and using it with the keyboard with news (Start key, Tab key, etc.)? Thanks Regards, On mardi 23 juil. 2013 à 14:58:01 (-0500), Christopher Chaltain wrote: Unity 2D was pulled from Ubuntu 12.10 and not Ubuntu 12.04. The plan to focus accessibility efforts in Ubuntu on the LTS releases was meant to provide the best accessibility solution with the resources available. This was a transparent decision made with the best information at the time. Obviously, desktop plans have changed since then. This was not a statement or move just to placate blind Ubuntu users as your message implies. On 07/23/2013 01:23 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu?s Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they?ll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it?s wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
RE: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
I hadn't heard that one. I don't know how someone would have had a case against Apple since there was a largely accessible alternative in the form of Windows or Windows Mobile. All through my years growing up, Apple and inaccessible were more or less synonymous. I remember how pleasantly surprised I was to learn that Apple had done such a fine job with Voiceover. I heard that the ones that got sued were Microsoft for beefing up Narrator and that it was a screen reader company that did it on the grounds of them pulling an internet explorer vs netscape type thing but with screen readers this time. I don't know if either of these is true though, so, don't quote me. Alex M -Original Message- From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-boun...@gnome.org] On Behalf Of Al Sten-Clanton Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 11:57 AM To: Christopher J Chaltain Cc: vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT It strikes me that, from the perspective you're describing, a viable product apparently does not include accessibility as a matter of course. (I'm not saying that's your own view, but only that this is the view you describe--all too well and concisely.) Until our access needs are deemed equal to the access needs of those who use the standard monitor and other tools, the attitude in the business will be wrong. Tell me if I'm mistaken, but I think I heard recently that Apple's recent foray into accessibility resulted from a law suit. (I say recent foray because there was a period during the 1980s when it provided some speech output at least.) Does anybody know for sure whether this is right or wrong? Al On 07/23/2013 11:38 PM, Christopher J Chaltain wrote: I agree it's unfortunate that Luke is the only one working on Unity accessibility, but there is a big difference between Canonical and Apple or Google. Apple is the wealthiest company in the world. Google is also a large company and is also quite profitable. Apple and Google are already well established players in the mobile space. Neither the iPhone nor Android were accessible when they were first released. Canonical is a tiny company, less than 600 employees, and is still not profitable after being around for about eight years or so. It's still trying to break into the mobile market. I'm not defending Canonical here. I too wish that they would invest more in accessibility development. I'm just pointing out that circumstances right now between Canonical and Apple/Google are quite a bit different. I think Canonical focus right now is to just get a viable product out into the market place. I'm sure that once that happens and it becomes successful, they'll invest more in accessibility, just as Apple and Google have. In some ways, this is analogous to Microsoft and Windows Phone. MS's priority right now is to become relevant in the mobile space. Once that happens then I think accessibility will move up higher on their priority queue. On 07/24/2013 08:41 AM, Alex Midence wrote: Hi, Luke, Just to be clear, I don't think and have never thought you were part of the problem. What I do think is that it sucks that you are the only one having to do all this work. They really should hire you some help. There is only so much one person can do and a11y is a big job. Apple has a full on team working on Voiceover. Google has Dr. Raman and his assistant and probably others I don't know about working on Android accessibility. If canonical is going to expand into all these other markets, I don't see why they can't hire you a couple of assistants to help distribute the workload. However, those decisions are beyond our control. Speaking for myself, I am personally very appreciative of all the work you have put in. Best regards, Alex M -Original Message- From: Luke Yelavich [mailto:them...@ubuntu.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 11:05 PM To: Alex Midence Cc: Christopher Chaltain; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 01:33:34PM EST, Alex Midence wrote: Also, for the record, I fully recognize and appreciate all the hard work of the developers of the Ubuntu community who freely give of their time to make things accessible. However, it was disappointing to finally have gotten a very accessible port of Unity in 12.04 only to be told that we were back to poor a11y in other versions of the distro for at the very least 2 full years. For the record, I was disappointed as well. I expressed my desire for Unity to stick with using Qt at the time, given the accessibility advantages it brought for one, and the fact that it would have made maintaining unity easier as the nux GUI toolkit wouldn't also
RE: [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Wonderful news! I certainly feel better for it. Thanks for all your hard work on qt-at-spi. Alex M From: Frederik Gladhorn [mailto:frede...@gladhorn.de] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 3:21 AM To: kde-accessibil...@kde.org Cc: Alex Midence; orca-l...@gnome.org; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List Subject: Re: [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT Hello, On Tuesday 23. July 2013 13.23.47 Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu's Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they'll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it's wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: Qt 5 contains all the accessibility code that was used for Qt 4, including the plugin qt-at-spi which will then no longer be needed. Many things have also been improved since we learned from finally making Qt 4 accessible. All in all this means that the Qt 5 based Unity should be able to reach the level of the old Unity and hopefully exceed it. Of course that's still up to the Unity developers and probably a fix here or there in Qt, but generally I would expect things to look good. Greetings Frederik http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
It strikes me that, from the perspective you're describing, a viable product apparently does not include accessibility as a matter of course. (I'm not saying that's your own view, but only that this is the view you describe--all too well and concisely.) Until our access needs are deemed equal to the access needs of those who use the standard monitor and other tools, the attitude in the business will be wrong. Tell me if I'm mistaken, but I think I heard recently that Apple's recent foray into accessibility resulted from a law suit. (I say recent foray because there was a period during the 1980s when it provided some speech output at least.) Does anybody know for sure whether this is right or wrong? Al On 07/23/2013 11:38 PM, Christopher J Chaltain wrote: I agree it's unfortunate that Luke is the only one working on Unity accessibility, but there is a big difference between Canonical and Apple or Google. Apple is the wealthiest company in the world. Google is also a large company and is also quite profitable. Apple and Google are already well established players in the mobile space. Neither the iPhone nor Android were accessible when they were first released. Canonical is a tiny company, less than 600 employees, and is still not profitable after being around for about eight years or so. It's still trying to break into the mobile market. I'm not defending Canonical here. I too wish that they would invest more in accessibility development. I'm just pointing out that circumstances right now between Canonical and Apple/Google are quite a bit different. I think Canonical focus right now is to just get a viable product out into the market place. I'm sure that once that happens and it becomes successful, they'll invest more in accessibility, just as Apple and Google have. In some ways, this is analogous to Microsoft and Windows Phone. MS's priority right now is to become relevant in the mobile space. Once that happens then I think accessibility will move up higher on their priority queue. On 07/24/2013 08:41 AM, Alex Midence wrote: Hi, Luke, Just to be clear, I don't think and have never thought you were part of the problem. What I do think is that it sucks that you are the only one having to do all this work. They really should hire you some help. There is only so much one person can do and a11y is a big job. Apple has a full on team working on Voiceover. Google has Dr. Raman and his assistant and probably others I don't know about working on Android accessibility. If canonical is going to expand into all these other markets, I don't see why they can't hire you a couple of assistants to help distribute the workload. However, those decisions are beyond our control. Speaking for myself, I am personally very appreciative of all the work you have put in. Best regards, Alex M -Original Message- From: Luke Yelavich [mailto:them...@ubuntu.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 11:05 PM To: Alex Midence Cc: Christopher Chaltain; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 01:33:34PM EST, Alex Midence wrote: Also, for the record, I fully recognize and appreciate all the hard work of the developers of the Ubuntu community who freely give of their time to make things accessible. However, it was disappointing to finally have gotten a very accessible port of Unity in 12.04 only to be told that we were back to poor a11y in other versions of the distro for at the very least 2 full years. For the record, I was disappointed as well. I expressed my desire for Unity to stick with using Qt at the time, given the accessibility advantages it brought for one, and the fact that it would have made maintaining unity easier as the nux GUI toolkit wouldn't also need to be maintained, and Qt is well established etc. I am the only developer working for Canonical who spends at least some of the time working on accessibility issues. I say some of the time, because I do have other duties, in fact the primary reason why I was hired was not to work exclusively on accessibility, although the powers that be are ok with me doing so. Having said that, my big focus for the next 10-12 months will almost exclusively be getting Qt5, Mir, and Unity as accessible an environment as one person can possibly manage. Qt5 helps somewhat, but the specific parts of Qt that are being used for the new Unity still have some rough spots when it comes to accessibility, and there is also the changing graphics stack and everythign that goes with it to deal with. Given these changes, and given I am the only person who is likely going to be working on all of this, I cannot really promise anything, given the work that is required, and given the time and resources, or possibly lack there of, available to do so. I do really appreciate that you all want regularly updated, accessible
RE: [orca-list] [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
I'll create a virtual machine and begin testing before the month is up. Do I need to have something like Fedora Rawhide or Ubuntu 13.10 to test in an environment that will give you valuable data? Alex M -Original Message- From: Frederik Gladhorn [mailto:frede...@gladhorn.de] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 10:35 AM To: kde-accessibil...@kde.org; 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Cc: Alex Midence; 'Krishnakant Mane' Subject: Re: [orca-list] [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT Onsdag 24. juli 2013 08.47.34 skrev Alex Midence: Very true. The thing that I want to test is editable text areas in QT. That was the biggest problem I saw last year when I was trying out KDE. If you were in Kate or Kmail and there was some text you wanted to put in either because you were editing a file or filling out a form of some kind, Orca couldn't read it back to you. If it was a field you were filling in, you could tab away and backtab back to it and Orca would speak its contents but, individual character by character or word by word navigation was not possible at the time. I hope that's gotten better since then. I haven't looked at it since May or June of last year, I think. It is a very important piece of the puzzle. For Kate it would be great if I could get bug reports with an easy description on https://bugs.kde.org . Another interesting thing to try would be Qt Creator - which is probably quite complex to test, but for me the editor pretty much works with Orca. Or as a simpler test the text editor example that is shipped with Qt 5 (examples/widgets/richtext/textedit). In general using one of the many examples shipped with Qt makes it easier for me to reproduce bugs, feel free to file Qt accessibility bugs on https://bugreports.qt-project.org and make sure to choose Gui: Accessibility as component. Generally the text interfaces should be much better in Qt 5 compared to Qt 4, but need some testing. KMail is using WebKit and is not expected to work all that great (even though Jose made it work much better than before). Greetings Frederik Alex M From: Krishnakant Mane [mailto:krm...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 8:42 AM To: Alex Midence Cc: 'Frederik Gladhorn'; kde-accessibil...@kde.org; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT This essentially means we must try things pretty early on and start reporting bugs agressively. happy hacking. Krishnakant. On 07/24/2013 06:37 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Wonderful news! I certainly feel better for it. Thanks for all your hard work on qt-at-spi. Alex M From: Frederik Gladhorn [mailto:frede...@gladhorn.de] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 3:21 AM To: kde-accessibil...@kde.org Cc: Alex Midence; orca-l...@gnome.org; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List Subject: Re: [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT Hello, On Tuesday 23. July 2013 13.23.47 Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu's Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they'll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it's wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: Qt 5 contains all the accessibility code that was used for Qt 4, including the plugin qt-at-spi which will then no longer be needed. Many things have also been improved since we learned from finally making Qt 4 accessible. All in all this means that the Qt 5 based Unity should be able to reach the level of the old Unity and hopefully exceed it. Of course that's still up to the Unity developers and probably a fix here or there in Qt, but generally I would expect things to look good. Greetings Frederik http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at
Re: [orca-list] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Hi, On mardi 23 juil. 2013 à 15:38:37 (-0500), Christopher Chaltain wrote: In Unity, you can use the alt+f10 key to bring up the global menus, arrow left to get to the devices pull down and then down arrow to shutdown. Excellent! Thanks! it works fine. But given there's a desktop, is it possible to create launchers on the desktop? I tried via Application key but I get nothing. I tried shift-F10, all crashed. Is there a solution or isn't ft designed for this? Thanks for your answer. Regards, Note that Vinux 4.0 is based on Ubuntu 12.04 which runs Unity 2D by default. Your statement, Vinux in 13.4 is confusing. On 07/23/2013 03:22 PM, Jean-Philippe MENGUAL wrote: Hi, For the unity iN Vinux 13.4, how do you do to shut down the computer? I found with gnome, but not with Unity. Moreover, on gnome-shell, is there some doc about accessibility and using it with the keyboard with news (Start key, Tab key, etc.)? Thanks Regards, On mardi 23 juil. 2013 à 14:58:01 (-0500), Christopher Chaltain wrote: Unity 2D was pulled from Ubuntu 12.10 and not Ubuntu 12.04. The plan to focus accessibility efforts in Ubuntu on the LTS releases was meant to provide the best accessibility solution with the resources available. This was a transparent decision made with the best information at the time. Obviously, desktop plans have changed since then. This was not a statement or move just to placate blind Ubuntu users as your message implies. On 07/23/2013 01:23 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu?s Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they?ll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it?s wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
RE: [orca-list] [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Very true. The thing that I want to test is editable text areas in QT. That was the biggest problem I saw last year when I was trying out KDE. If you were in Kate or Kmail and there was some text you wanted to put in either because you were editing a file or filling out a form of some kind, Orca couldn't read it back to you. If it was a field you were filling in, you could tab away and backtab back to it and Orca would speak its contents but, individual character by character or word by word navigation was not possible at the time. I hope that's gotten better since then. I haven't looked at it since May or June of last year, I think. It is a very important piece of the puzzle. Alex M From: Krishnakant Mane [mailto:krm...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 8:42 AM To: Alex Midence Cc: 'Frederik Gladhorn'; kde-accessibil...@kde.org; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT This essentially means we must try things pretty early on and start reporting bugs agressively. happy hacking. Krishnakant. On 07/24/2013 06:37 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Wonderful news! I certainly feel better for it. Thanks for all your hard work on qt-at-spi. Alex M From: Frederik Gladhorn [mailto:frede...@gladhorn.de] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 3:21 AM To: kde-accessibil...@kde.org Cc: Alex Midence; orca-l...@gnome.org; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List Subject: Re: [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT Hello, On Tuesday 23. July 2013 13.23.47 Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu's Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they'll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it's wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: Qt 5 contains all the accessibility code that was used for Qt 4, including the plugin qt-at-spi which will then no longer be needed. Many things have also been improved since we learned from finally making Qt 4 accessible. All in all this means that the Qt 5 based Unity should be able to reach the level of the old Unity and hopefully exceed it. Of course that's still up to the Unity developers and probably a fix here or there in Qt, but generally I would expect things to look good. Greetings Frederik http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [orca-list] [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Onsdag 24. juli 2013 08.47.34 skrev Alex Midence: Very true. The thing that I want to test is editable text areas in QT. That was the biggest problem I saw last year when I was trying out KDE. If you were in Kate or Kmail and there was some text you wanted to put in either because you were editing a file or filling out a form of some kind, Orca couldn't read it back to you. If it was a field you were filling in, you could tab away and backtab back to it and Orca would speak its contents but, individual character by character or word by word navigation was not possible at the time. I hope that's gotten better since then. I haven't looked at it since May or June of last year, I think. It is a very important piece of the puzzle. For Kate it would be great if I could get bug reports with an easy description on https://bugs.kde.org . Another interesting thing to try would be Qt Creator - which is probably quite complex to test, but for me the editor pretty much works with Orca. Or as a simpler test the text editor example that is shipped with Qt 5 (examples/widgets/richtext/textedit). In general using one of the many examples shipped with Qt makes it easier for me to reproduce bugs, feel free to file Qt accessibility bugs on https://bugreports.qt-project.org and make sure to choose Gui: Accessibility as component. Generally the text interfaces should be much better in Qt 5 compared to Qt 4, but need some testing. KMail is using WebKit and is not expected to work all that great (even though Jose made it work much better than before). Greetings Frederik Alex M From: Krishnakant Mane [mailto:krm...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 8:42 AM To: Alex Midence Cc: 'Frederik Gladhorn'; kde-accessibil...@kde.org; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT This essentially means we must try things pretty early on and start reporting bugs agressively. happy hacking. Krishnakant. On 07/24/2013 06:37 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Wonderful news! I certainly feel better for it. Thanks for all your hard work on qt-at-spi. Alex M From: Frederik Gladhorn [mailto:frede...@gladhorn.de] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 3:21 AM To: kde-accessibil...@kde.org Cc: Alex Midence; orca-l...@gnome.org; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List Subject: Re: [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT Hello, On Tuesday 23. July 2013 13.23.47 Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu's Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they'll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it's wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: Qt 5 contains all the accessibility code that was used for Qt 4, including the plugin qt-at-spi which will then no longer be needed. Many things have also been improved since we learned from finally making Qt 4 accessible. All in all this means that the Qt 5 based Unity should be able to reach the level of the old Unity and hopefully exceed it. Of course that's still up to the Unity developers and probably a fix here or there in Qt, but generally I would expect things to look good. Greetings Frederik http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
RE: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
The way accessibility was approached by Google is pretty smart. Eyes-free they call it implying that someone who can see might choose to operate their smartphone without using their vision. This is so they can keep their eyes on the road, for instance. Thus, it became something valuable to include in their operating system as a feature that could benefit the entire user population and not just one specific sector of it. I thought it was rather clever and I must say I like the inclusive mindset. Apple has done something similar with Siri. Alex M -Original Message- From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-boun...@gnome.org] On Behalf Of Christopher Chaltain Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 3:17 PM To: vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com Cc: 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT I know you didn't say this, but Mark Shuttleworth and Jane Silver are aware that totally blind people can use computers and smart phones. I think you're right in that it's hard for any one to quantify their return on investment into accessibility, even a smart business man or woman. I'm not even sure you could say that Apple has sold a million iPhones they wouldn't have sold otherwise because of VoiceOver and accessibility. Also, selling a million more smart phones has to be prioritized behind selling that first smart phone. Getting a new smart phone with a new operating system into the arena is incredibly hard. Not only is there all of the development that needs to go on (think of all of those apps you take for granted on your current smart phone and realize none of those apps exist yet under Unity) but there's also the fact that you need to get manufacturers and carriers on board and build an ecosystem around a new player in the mobile space. I'm not saying Canonical shouldn't be investing more in accessibility, in fact, I think they should be. I'd like to see them pushing accessibility more in their marketing, be the first smart phone to be accessible right out of the gate and hammer home the fact that ubuntu (the philosophy and operating system) includes blind people. I think this would pay off for Canonical down the road. Whatever anyone thinks of Canonical and Mark Shuttleworth, he is an incredibly successful, bright and driven person, and he has to accomplish an awful lot with limited resources if Ubuntu Touch is going to be successful. Accessibility is only one challenge on his radar. On 07/24/2013 12:29 PM, Krishnakant Mane wrote: I think the issue here is the total mindset and also the fact that many so called smart business men don't realize the business they can generate out of accessibility. Firstly, there are those who don't *still* beleive that a totaly blind person like me can actually use a Phone, let alone a computer. And I am refering to highly qualified engineers or business personals. Secondly, how many would go one step ahead and say let's add a million more probable custommers by making the device accessible? That's why accessibility takes a back seet. happy hacking. Krishnakant. On 07/24/2013 10:51 PM, Christopher Chaltain wrote: I agree accessibility should be baked in from the beginning. It's cheaper than bolting it on later, opens up more revenue streams, provides positive PR and so on. It's the law here in the US, and just the right thing to do. I wasn't speaking from my own opinion, but just echoing where I think these companies are coming from and why I think their making the investments they are. I can't think of a single smart phone company that introduced an accessible smart phone with they're first offering and that includes Apple, Google, Microsoft and Nokia. I don't like it, but I don't think many companies place accessibility very high on their priority lists as compared to getting a new product into the market place and getting it to a point where it's competitive and profitable. I've heard that Apple had to develop it's own screen reader when Berkley Systems went out of business and no other 3rd party screen reader would develop a screen reader for the Mac. Apple was in danger of losing government contracts because MS had an accessible story while Apple did not. I don't know this first hand, but I would say I have it from reliable sources. Of course, Apple has gone far beyond this in making all of it's products accessible out of the box. I'm not aware of any company losing a government contract because they didn't have an accessible smart phone story, but I suspect this is possible as smart phones become more and more a ubiquitous part of the business world. This is why I suspect MS will address accessibility on their Windows Phone platform at some point. I think they need to get the Windows Phone platform to a point where government agencies start considering asking their employees to use a Windows Phone. Right now,
Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Hi, Thanks Luke for this very interesting mail. I'm aware of accessibility issues in the modern free software world, and I try everyday to go on belfeving more success, even if I'm disappointed by recent GUI. But I go on trying to understand. You say that GNOME shell works fine today. I feel that changes are so important that I need to deep that better. Does some doc exist about new shortcuts, new approach in accessibility? Otherwise, I'll try to write it myself. Thanks again and I hope, someday, I'll be able to help you via my organization. Regards, JP On mercredi 24 juil. 2013 à 14:04:47 (+1000), Luke Yelavich wrote: On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 01:33:34PM EST, Alex Midence wrote: Also, for the record, I fully recognize and appreciate all the hard work of the developers of the Ubuntu community who freely give of their time to make things accessible. However, it was disappointing to finally have gotten a very accessible port of Unity in 12.04 only to be told that we were back to poor a11y in other versions of the distro for at the very least 2 full years. For the record, I was disappointed as well. I expressed my desire for Unity to stick with using Qt at the time, given the accessibility advantages it brought for one, and the fact that it would have made maintaining unity easier as the nux GUI toolkit wouldn't also need to be maintained, and Qt is well established etc. I am the only developer working for Canonical who spends at least some of the time working on accessibility issues. I say some of the time, because I do have other duties, in fact the primary reason why I was hired was not to work exclusively on accessibility, although the powers that be are ok with me doing so. Having said that, my big focus for the next 10-12 months will almost exclusively be getting Qt5, Mir, and Unity as accessible an environment as one person can possibly manage. Qt5 helps somewhat, but the specific parts of Qt that are being used for the new Unity still have some rough spots when it comes to accessibility, and there is also the changing graphics stack and everythign that goes with it to deal with. Given these changes, and given I am the only person who is likely going to be working on all of this, I cannot really promise anything, given the work that is required, and given the time and resources, or possibly lack there of, available to do so. I do really appreciate that you all want regularly updated, accessible distro releases that have the latest accessibility crack, but please keep in mind just how many of us in the wider *nix accessibility community there are, and also keep in mind how many of us are involved with some form of active development in the area, and if you want to dig deeper, think about the number of us working on GUI desktop accessibility of some kind. I try to take the approach of under promising, and at least delivering, and if I can over deliver, than thats great. In the meantime, there is the Ubuntu GNOME remix, with GNOME shell, wich does work quite well these days. I'll do my best to try and fix any issues people may notice with that release, given the accessibility tools and infrastructure are shared with GNOME and Unity. Thanks, and I really appreciate your understanding, and support. Luke ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
RE: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Hi, Luke, Just to be clear, I don't think and have never thought you were part of the problem. What I do think is that it sucks that you are the only one having to do all this work. They really should hire you some help. There is only so much one person can do and a11y is a big job. Apple has a full on team working on Voiceover. Google has Dr. Raman and his assistant and probably others I don't know about working on Android accessibility. If canonical is going to expand into all these other markets, I don't see why they can't hire you a couple of assistants to help distribute the workload. However, those decisions are beyond our control. Speaking for myself, I am personally very appreciative of all the work you have put in. Best regards, Alex M -Original Message- From: Luke Yelavich [mailto:them...@ubuntu.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 11:05 PM To: Alex Midence Cc: Christopher Chaltain; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 01:33:34PM EST, Alex Midence wrote: Also, for the record, I fully recognize and appreciate all the hard work of the developers of the Ubuntu community who freely give of their time to make things accessible. However, it was disappointing to finally have gotten a very accessible port of Unity in 12.04 only to be told that we were back to poor a11y in other versions of the distro for at the very least 2 full years. For the record, I was disappointed as well. I expressed my desire for Unity to stick with using Qt at the time, given the accessibility advantages it brought for one, and the fact that it would have made maintaining unity easier as the nux GUI toolkit wouldn't also need to be maintained, and Qt is well established etc. I am the only developer working for Canonical who spends at least some of the time working on accessibility issues. I say some of the time, because I do have other duties, in fact the primary reason why I was hired was not to work exclusively on accessibility, although the powers that be are ok with me doing so. Having said that, my big focus for the next 10-12 months will almost exclusively be getting Qt5, Mir, and Unity as accessible an environment as one person can possibly manage. Qt5 helps somewhat, but the specific parts of Qt that are being used for the new Unity still have some rough spots when it comes to accessibility, and there is also the changing graphics stack and everythign that goes with it to deal with. Given these changes, and given I am the only person who is likely going to be working on all of this, I cannot really promise anything, given the work that is required, and given the time and resources, or possibly lack there of, available to do so. I do really appreciate that you all want regularly updated, accessible distro releases that have the latest accessibility crack, but please keep in mind just how many of us in the wider *nix accessibility community there are, and also keep in mind how many of us are involved with some form of active development in the area, and if you want to dig deeper, think about the number of us working on GUI desktop accessibility of some kind. I try to take the approach of under promising, and at least delivering, and if I can over deliver, than thats great. In the meantime, there is the Ubuntu GNOME remix, with GNOME shell, wich does work quite well these days. I'll do my best to try and fix any issues people may notice with that release, given the accessibility tools and infrastructure are shared with GNOME and Unity. Thanks, and I really appreciate your understanding, and support. Luke -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Hello, On Tuesday 23. July 2013 13.23.47 Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu's Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they'll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it's wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: Qt 5 contains all the accessibility code that was used for Qt 4, including the plugin qt- at-spi which will then no longer be needed. Many things have also been improved since we learned from finally making Qt 4 accessible. All in all this means that the Qt 5 based Unity should be able to reach the level of the old Unity and hopefully exceed it. Of course that's still up to the Unity developers and probably a fix here or there in Qt, but generally I would expect things to look good. Greetings Frederik http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [orca-list] [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Onsdag 24. juli 2013 12.08.32 skrev Alex Midence: I'll create a virtual machine and begin testing before the month is up. Do I need to have something like Fedora Rawhide or Ubuntu 13.10 to test in an environment that will give you valuable data? No, any reasonalbly recent linux distro should work just fine. I'd go with something not too old so that at-spi-2 works. You can qet Qt 5 installers here: http://download.qt-project.org/official_releases but they will not be accessible. I guess there are more and more distribution packages showing up these days, so hopefully that provides a convenient way to test. Alternatively you can build from source which is somewhat time consuming. Cheers, Frederik Alex M -Original Message- From: Frederik Gladhorn [mailto:frede...@gladhorn.de] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 10:35 AM To: kde-accessibil...@kde.org; 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Cc: Alex Midence; 'Krishnakant Mane' Subject: Re: [orca-list] [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT Onsdag 24. juli 2013 08.47.34 skrev Alex Midence: Very true. The thing that I want to test is editable text areas in QT. That was the biggest problem I saw last year when I was trying out KDE. If you were in Kate or Kmail and there was some text you wanted to put in either because you were editing a file or filling out a form of some kind, Orca couldn't read it back to you. If it was a field you were filling in, you could tab away and backtab back to it and Orca would speak its contents but, individual character by character or word by word navigation was not possible at the time. I hope that's gotten better since then. I haven't looked at it since May or June of last year, I think. It is a very important piece of the puzzle. For Kate it would be great if I could get bug reports with an easy description on https://bugs.kde.org . Another interesting thing to try would be Qt Creator - which is probably quite complex to test, but for me the editor pretty much works with Orca. Or as a simpler test the text editor example that is shipped with Qt 5 (examples/widgets/richtext/textedit). In general using one of the many examples shipped with Qt makes it easier for me to reproduce bugs, feel free to file Qt accessibility bugs on https://bugreports.qt-project.org and make sure to choose Gui: Accessibility as component. Generally the text interfaces should be much better in Qt 5 compared to Qt 4, but need some testing. KMail is using WebKit and is not expected to work all that great (even though Jose made it work much better than before). Greetings Frederik Alex M From: Krishnakant Mane [mailto:krm...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 8:42 AM To: Alex Midence Cc: 'Frederik Gladhorn'; kde-accessibil...@kde.org; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; 'Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List'; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT This essentially means we must try things pretty early on and start reporting bugs agressively. happy hacking. Krishnakant. On 07/24/2013 06:37 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Wonderful news! I certainly feel better for it. Thanks for all your hard work on qt-at-spi. Alex M From: Frederik Gladhorn [mailto:frede...@gladhorn.de] Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 3:21 AM To: kde-accessibil...@kde.org Cc: Alex Midence; orca-l...@gnome.org; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List Subject: Re: [Kde-accessibility] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT Hello, On Tuesday 23. July 2013 13.23.47 Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu's Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they'll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it's wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: Qt 5 contains all the accessibility code that was used for Qt 4, including the plugin qt-at-spi which will then no longer be needed. Many things have also been improved since we learned from finally making Qt 4 accessible. All in all this means that the Qt 5 based Unity should be able to reach the level
Re: [orca-list] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
From what has been said about QT accessibility off late, it could infact be a blessing in disguise. I think the people working on that front would have a better and real answer though. And we can go ahead with gnome shell if things bother us too much. happy hacking. Krishnakant. On 07/23/2013 11:53 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu's Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they'll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it's wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [orca-list] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Unity 2D was pulled from Ubuntu 12.10 and not Ubuntu 12.04. The plan to focus accessibility efforts in Ubuntu on the LTS releases was meant to provide the best accessibility solution with the resources available. This was a transparent decision made with the best information at the time. Obviously, desktop plans have changed since then. This was not a statement or move just to placate blind Ubuntu users as your message implies. On 07/23/2013 01:23 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu’s Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they’ll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it’s wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [orca-list] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
In Unity, you can use the alt+f10 key to bring up the global menus, arrow left to get to the devices pull down and then down arrow to shutdown. Note that Vinux 4.0 is based on Ubuntu 12.04 which runs Unity 2D by default. Your statement, Vinux in 13.4 is confusing. On 07/23/2013 03:22 PM, Jean-Philippe MENGUAL wrote: Hi, For the unity iN Vinux 13.4, how do you do to shut down the computer? I found with gnome, but not with Unity. Moreover, on gnome-shell, is there some doc about accessibility and using it with the keyboard with news (Start key, Tab key, etc.)? Thanks Regards, On mardi 23 juil. 2013 à 14:58:01 (-0500), Christopher Chaltain wrote: Unity 2D was pulled from Ubuntu 12.10 and not Ubuntu 12.04. The plan to focus accessibility efforts in Ubuntu on the LTS releases was meant to provide the best accessibility solution with the resources available. This was a transparent decision made with the best information at the time. Obviously, desktop plans have changed since then. This was not a statement or move just to placate blind Ubuntu users as your message implies. On 07/23/2013 01:23 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu?s Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they?ll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it?s wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
RE: [orca-list] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
From: Krishnakant Mane [mailto:krm...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 1:27 PM To: Alex Midence Cc: orca-l...@gnome.org; vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List; kde-accessibil...@kde.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT From what has been said about QT accessibility off late, it could infact be a blessing in disguise. I think the people working on that front would have a better and real answer though. snip Really hope you are right, Krishnakant. I have heard very good things about the accessibility in QT5. Let's hope it's that blessing in disguise you spoke of. Regards, Alex M -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu's Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they'll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it's wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
RE: [orca-list] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Placated? No, we weren't placated. We were told that's how it was going to be and we could suck it up til 14.04. I heard you work for Cannonical which makes sense since you are extremely quick to defend Ubuntu any time anyone speaks against it. If this is the case, would you very kindly answer the million dollar question which was the entire point of my prior message: Will 14.04 be accessible now that it's going to be qt-based or not? If not, when do you anticipate an accessible port of Unity? Oh, and just so you know, my message wasn't trying to be inflammatory. I *was* being a bit snarky but, I happen to live in a free country where such things are allowed. I was far more concerned with whether or not I should project trying to come back to Ubuntu in April of next year or not. You see, I happen to be that very odd thing called a fan. I follow them on Twitter, I like them on facebook, I read about them online and I have even hauled off and told my friends about them as a nice way to learn about Linux. So quit hair splitting and answer the question if you can, please. Thank you. Alex M -Original Message- From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-boun...@gnome.org] On Behalf Of Christopher Chaltain Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 2:58 PM To: Ubuntu Accessibility Mailing List Cc: vinux-supp...@googlegroups.com; orca-l...@gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT Unity 2D was pulled from Ubuntu 12.10 and not Ubuntu 12.04. The plan to focus accessibility efforts in Ubuntu on the LTS releases was meant to provide the best accessibility solution with the resources available. This was a transparent decision made with the best information at the time. Obviously, desktop plans have changed since then. This was not a statement or move just to placate blind Ubuntu users as your message implies. On 07/23/2013 01:23 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu's Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they'll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it's wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [orca-list] Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
Hi, For the unity iN Vinux 13.4, how do you do to shut down the computer? I found with gnome, but not with Unity. Moreover, on gnome-shell, is there some doc about accessibility and using it with the keyboard with news (Start key, Tab key, etc.)? Thanks Regards, On mardi 23 juil. 2013 à 14:58:01 (-0500), Christopher Chaltain wrote: Unity 2D was pulled from Ubuntu 12.10 and not Ubuntu 12.04. The plan to focus accessibility efforts in Ubuntu on the LTS releases was meant to provide the best accessibility solution with the resources available. This was a transparent decision made with the best information at the time. Obviously, desktop plans have changed since then. This was not a statement or move just to placate blind Ubuntu users as your message implies. On 07/23/2013 01:23 PM, Alex Midence wrote: Hi, all, It looks like Ubuntu?s Unity desktop will be switching to QT/QML in the near future. It looks like they?ll be using QT5. Does anyone know the current state of accessibility for qt5 or QML? We were all disappointed to find out that Unity 2d was discontinued in Ubuntu 12.04 and it is believed that Ubuntu 14.04 would continue it?s wonderfully accessible legacy. This was supposed to soothe our ruffled feathers when 12.10 and 13.04 came out with Unity 3d only which was not as accessible. Well, now, I am curious to know if the timetable for that level of accessibility in a Ubuntu desktop will need to be pushed back even more in light of this development. Please see link below: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/unity-next-project-announced Regards, Alex M ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail ___ orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [orca-list] VINUX-SUPPORT: RE: Ubuntu Unity Desktop to go to Mir and QT
On 7/23/2013 4:31 PM, Christopher Chaltain wrote: I do not work for Canonical, and my statements on this or any list have never been anything other than my own opinions. I don't know any more, and never have, about the plans for Unity accessibility than anyone else Bummer. I was really hoping you would know. Sorry to jump down your throat there. I really should not have sent that message. I reread my message and see how you construed what you did from it. Also, for the record, I fully recognize and appreciate all the hard work of the developers of the Ubuntu community who freely give of their time to make things accessible. However, it was disappointing to finally have gotten a very accessible port of Unity in 12.04 only to be told that we were back to poor a11y in other versions of the distro for at the very least 2 full years. This was at a time when Vinux, Ubuntu and Debian were the only distributions that could easily be installed without requiring advanced Linux skills. In fact, Vinux 4 wasn't even out yet so, really, you just had Squeeze and Precise as fully released and stable distributions that fit my description. Pax, Alex M -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
