-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hello all, especially those on this list from innotek. You may recall that my first post to this list mentioned that I access windows using a screen reader called window-eyes, and that the virtualbox gui interface is inaccessible to blind users. For reference, this thread can be found at:
http://vbox.innotek.de/pipermail/vbox-users/2007-July/001803.html I've gotten around to contacting gw-micro, the makers of window-eyes, regarding this issue, and I sent them the following message. "From: Gregory Nowak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: wineyes support for virtualbox Hello. I recently began using a virtual machine emulator called virtualbox: http://www.virtualbox.org While I'm able to manage virtual machines inside of virtualbox using the vboxmanage command-line interface, I am not able to do so in the gui interface, as described below in a portion of my post to the virtualbox users mailing list. "Could innotek please consider either implementing the gui interface to virtualbox as standard windows controls, or exposing components of the current gui through Microsoft Active Accessibility, so as to make the gui usable by people such as myself, who access windows using a screen reader? The screen reader I personally use is called window-eyes <http://www.gwmicro.com/Window-Eyes>.> I've been able to make the current gui slightly usable with window-eyes, by tricking it into thinking the gui custom control is really an mdi window, but this approach still leaves much to be desired, especially since the whole gui uses the same class and window style for all controls, thus making it impossible for the end-user to try to trick window-eyes into distinguishing the individual controls in the gui interface. Gw-Micro has some tips for developers wishing to make their products usable with screen readers at <http://www.gwmicro.com/Developers/>, and they are willing to help companies make their products accessible." Actually, I did make a mistake in the above when posting to the virtualbox users list, in saying that I reclassed the custom control as an mdi window. In fact, I actually reclassed the custom control as a multidocument window. While it is eventually possible to create and manage virtual machines in the gui interface, provided the custom control has been reclassed as a multidocument window, and provided that one uses the mouse keys almost exclusively, the process is tedious at best. Below is the response I got on this issue from innotek. "From: Klaus Espenlaub <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: VirtualBox end user list <[email protected]>" - --- snip --- "If converting to standard windows control is the only way to get it to work with such screen readers, then it's probably nothing that will happen in the short to medium term. The VirtualBox GUI is based on the Qt library (version 3) for portability reasons. The very same GUI source code is used for Windows, Linux, MacOS X and soon other OSes like Solaris and OS/2. It is too much effort to implement a native GUI on each of those platforms. If it's possible to make Qt3 work better with screen readers, then our GUI developers may find some time to implement the necessary changes eventually - but they need information on that." Would it be possible for GW Micro to work with Innotek on this issue, or to contribute necessary fixes to the gui code, so that it would play nice with window-eyes, since that part of virtualbox at least, is open source? Thank you. Regards, Greg Nowak" Here is the response I got from gw-micro to my message. "Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:54:55 -0400 From: "Raul Gallegos (GW Micro Tech Support)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Gregory Nowak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> CC: Aaron Smith' <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Michael D. Lawler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: wineyes support for virtualbox Hello Greg. It's been a long time. The problem is Qt3, as mentioned. The chances of Qt3 developers to implement MSAA is next to nil, because they're platform independent. Once they have to "hack" for Windows, they loose platform independence, and they're not willing to do that. At least, that's what we've been told before by these types of cross platform, open source establishments in the past. If you can get us a contact a Qt3, however, we'd be happy to discuss it with them. - -- Raul" It seems to me then, that Klaus from innotek, and Raul from gw-micro have tentatively extended olive branches. Is there a qt3 developer from innotek, who would be willing to contact gw-micro to discuss the issue, or whose contact info I may pass on to gw-micro? Thanks. Greg - -- web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc skype: gregn1 (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first) - -- Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGxQ257s9z/XlyUyARAmY9AJ4uxo3PCvvNMYEZQVU4l/CDM5Bm7ACfdMfd V068lOF+u23XzCDOZk350SQ= =YjmY -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ vbox-users mailing list [email protected] http://vbox.innotek.de/mailman/listinfo/vbox-users
