Edgy Accessibility features

[Henrik]

Luke Yelavich wrote:
>> Orca User Interface --     
>
> Agreed. I also don't like the idea of using a separate program, i.e 
> orca-setup just to get orca configured for the user. IMO that should 
> be done when orca first runs, and not in a terminal.
>   
Right, but it can still be separate binary that orca just calls the 
first time you start or each time you want to change the settings.
>  
>> General AT config UI --     
>
> Yes, and standardize back-ends for things, such as speech-dispatcher 
> rather than gnome-speech, etc.
>   
I think you are right about the SD back-end, though I was actually 
thinking of a standardized _front end_ for configuring the apps. The 
point is that the user would only have to go to one place to configure 
all the assistive technology for the whole OS. New screen readers, 
keyboards, magnifiers, SD settings, etc. would all be done there. You 
could add custom scripts to Orca or select a synth for SD to use all in 
the same place.
>  
>> XGL-based screen magnifier     
>
> Is there anything that can be played with at the moment along these 
> lines?
>   
Just the basic XGL zoom feature. I guess the easiest way to test is 
still with http://kororaa.org
>  
>> Speech dispatcher --     
>
> KDE are planning to use speech-dispatcher for their back-end. IMO Sun 
> were stupid in creating gnome-speech, although I am pretty sure they 
> did it at a time when there wasn't really anything else. There was a 
> post on one of the GNOME lists recently about having two back-end 
> systems, one chained to the other, being pointless. IMO we rip the 
> gnome-speech support out of orca, and use speech-dispatcher directly. 
> I am pretty sure SD has python bindings, and speech-dispatcher as far 
> as I have seen is a ittle easier to program for.
>   
Yes, this is exactly the sort of focus on future technology I'm thinking 
about. I wonder if someone has tried this already? This would be an 
important step forward.

On a related note, I just emailed the Festival devs to ask how Festival 
2.0 is coming along. They released a beta back in 2004 ... If it's just 
a question of tweak and polish perhaps we can get it into edgy.

>  
>> KDE --     
>
> The GNOME and KDE accessibility teams are still trying to standardize 
> the at-spi stuff, but I don't know when that is going to happen. 
Sounds like we need to nudge them a bit  ;) 
> I suggest those who are interested at least join the kde-accessibility 
> mailing list to get an idea of what is happening. You can subscribe 
> here: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-accessibility
>   
Done.
> I think there is also a FSG accsessibility mailing list, although I 
> haven't looked for it yet. I will probably look into that sometime soon.
>   
There is, but it's very low traffic AFAIR.
>     ... and help push some standards on many fronts, standards which 
> shouldn't really have to be changed for the long term. 
Yep, I think this is the right time to start pushing those standards, 
even if they may still be a bit shaky.

- Henrik