Unity with Orca-- it's almost fully accessible!

[Charlie Kravetz]

On Tue, 24 May 2011 12:34:49 -0400
Dave Hunt <ka1cey at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi, all!
> 
> I decided to change the desktop, on this trusty netbook, to Unity from 
> Classic Gnome, having remembered decent accessibility when I played with 
> it at a Ubuntu Beta Bug Jam at a Canonical office.
> 
> In my previous message, you'll recall, I mentioned trouble accessing the 
> indicator applet, where one chooses network connection, checks battery, 
> restarts, etc.  I'm happy to report that these menus are easy to find 
> and read when using Unity.  I like how they are attached to the menu 
> strip for the focused application.  Using that filter string to get 
> quickly to a subset of the items found in Preferences, is very nice, 
> too, so long as one knows what she/he is looking for.  For instance, I 
> typed "login screen" into the filter, and found myself right on the 
> "unlock" button.  The shortcuts, 'super+0' through 'super+9' are very 
> quick and convenient; What a great idea!
> 
> Now, here are the things that still need some work, perhaps the team is 
> already aware of these?  Context menus for launcher buttons do not 
> speak.  The speaking of Unity menu names, as one scrubs with left or 
> right arrow is inconsistent.  All Unity menu items (wifi options, 
> volume/mute, etc, are spoken as "checkbox unchecked"; I happen to know 
> what is a checkbox, and what is not, but, this should be fixed.  The 
> new-style "places" options do not speak.  Partial results in the 'run' 
> dialogue do not speak.  Finally, when switching applications with 
> 'alt+tab" or 'alt+shift+tab' keys, Orca will not speak while the 
> modifier key(s) held down.  When keys released, Orca, first, speaks the 
> name of the application that had focus, then the name of the 
> newly-focused application.  This requires that user memorize the order 
> of applications in the stack, an unnecessary distraction.
> 
> I hope the above will help Ubuntu's design, development, and QA 
> efforts.  Please advise on whether or how I can expand on any of these.
> 
> 
> Thanks for listening,
> 
> 
> Dave  Hunt
> (I'm totally blind, BTW)
> 

Thank you for the update. We are hoping to address many of these issues
in Oneiric. We did run out of time trying to resolve many of these in
Natty, but will be working them as soon as possible in Oneiric. Please
do continue these tests, as they keep us informed of the progress being
made. They also help us ensure we are not missing these things, because
we don't always remember everything. 

-- 
Charlie Kravetz 
Linux Registered User Number 425914          [http://counter.li.org/]
Never let anyone steal your DREAM.           [http://keepingdreams.com]