31 Aug
2012
31 Aug
'12
7:31 p.m.
On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 09:12:12AM -0500, Chris Caudle wrote:
Correct. Until very
recently, that did more or less restrict it to GTK,
though I have heard of recent improvements on other fronts as you
describe below.
From: "S.
Massy" <lists(a)wolfdream.ca>
Unfortunately not. This particular poster is blind and uses the Orca
screen-reader to access his computer and the GUI. Orca mostly works with
GTK-based applications
OK, thank you for clarifying.
So, what is desired is not a GTK application per se, but an application
which works correctly with the Orca screen reader software.
The Orca wiki (which has a disclaimer of being out of date) has this to say:
Orca works with applications and toolkits that support the assistive
technology service provider interface (AT-SPI)....
Applications and toolkits supporting the AT-SPI include the GNOME GTK+
toolkit, the Java platform's Swing toolkit, SWT, OpenOffice/LibreOffice,
Mozilla, and WebKitGtk.
According to the AT-SPI entry in wikipedia, support for AT-SPI is
included in:
GTK+ 2, Java/Swing, the Mozilla suite, StarOffice/OpenOffice.org and Qt 4.
That's right; thanks for taking the trouble to look into the fine details of the
thing.
So it appears that the possible solutions to the problem would be a GTK
application for starting and controlling jack (as originally requested), a
Java/Swing application to do the same, or help Rui make any changed needed
in qjackctl so that the AT-SPI support in Qt4 is utilized.
Possibly a variation on a GTK application would be something like PyGTK
which uses the GTK framework but from a language tailored to fast
development.
I'd say the latter would probably be the easiest and quickest
solution.
One problem with accessibility in GUIs under any OS will always be
that accessibility mechanisms remain of little value if developpers do
not make use of them and modify their design to work well with them. One
example is the guitarix project, which uses GTK. Originally it was
fairly accessible and became nearly completely so after I made some
requests to the devs. Unfortunately, since they redesigned the interface
to be entirely drag 'n drop friendly, it has become largely
inaccessible, even though it uses GTK and ATK. That's why I mostly stick
to CLI. :)
Thanks again for taking time to understand the situation. Although I
personally believe a textual interface will always remain the best way
to interact with computers for visually impaired people, many are no
longer used to such interfaces and expect a similar experience under
Linux as what they have grown accustomed to under Windows or Mac.
Cheers,
S.M.