[Support] Ubuntu-Mate Accessibility Review (1st draft)

[Josh K]

mate 14.04 works just fine for me.

follow me on twitter @joshknnd1982

On 4/8/2015 6:26 PM, Hank Smith, and Seeing-eye dog Iona wrote:
> I think I will stay away from mate
> sounds like it needs some serious work
>
>
> On 4/8/2015 3:20 PM, Dave Hunt wrote:
>> This is a brief account of my experience with Ubuntu-Mate 15.04 Beta 
>> 2. If I were unfamiliar with Mate, and its accessibility quirks, I'd 
>> have had a lot of trouble; things are not really intuitive. Review 
>> below...
>>
>>
>> HTH,
>>
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>>
>> When the live system booted, I got the sound of bongos. At this 
>> point, I used 'ctrl+s' to toggle speech on.  The introductory 
>> dialogue, with "install Ubuntu" and "Try Ubuntu" options is fully 
>> accessible; I tabbed to "try", and hit the space key.  My system went 
>> into a desktop; I only knew it was ready by the long absence of drive 
>> activity; an introductory sound would be helpful, here. When I 
>> figured that enough time had passed, I used 'alt+super+s' keys to 
>> toggle the speech on; this is a nice feature, and familiar to those 
>> using GNOME 3.  Orca came on, as expected, but nothing was focused.  
>> I just happened to try 'ctrl+alt+d' and found that the desktop gets 
>> focus.  From here, I could set my screen reader preferences in the 
>> expected way. Once I had Orca set up, I started exploring the menu 
>> system, by entering with 'alt+f1' keys.  I found the expected 
>> three-column menu set on the top panel.  I exited the menus and tried 
>> getting to the top panel, with 'alt+ctrl+tab' and 'alt+ctrl+esc' 
>> keys, but could only get to the bottom panel.  Even with focus on the 
>> bottom, I found no way to reach the top, where my wifi options are 
>> likely shown.  I went back into the menus, and found Preferences. In 
>> the 'look and feel' section, I found a new item called Mate Tweak, 
>> which I started, with hopes of messing with the interface. I found 
>> panels options, including Ubuntu Mate, Ubuntu Mate with Mate Menu, 
>> and an interesting one--  Redmond. Once I chose this option and left 
>> the tweak tool, I found I had a single-panel layout, with a single 
>> column of menus, similar to the layout you'd find on Trisquel 7. I 
>> had to use 'ctrl+alt+escape' to get to the panels, though, even after 
>> binding 'ctrl+alt+tab' for switching between desktop and panels. 
>> Anyway, once I got to the new bottom panel, I could connect to my 
>> wifi as expected.   Having unlocked this monumental achievement, I 
>> launched a web browser, just to check connectivity. Since all seemed 
>> well, I closed the browser, and hit the 'install' button on the desktop.
>>
>> The installer is a typical session of Ubiquity, about which many of 
>> us have written before; it hasn't changed much, in terms of 
>> accessibility, since 14.04; I will mention, however, I had to toggle 
>> Orca a few times, when switching from one page to the next.
>>
>> When I started my new system, I found that the login greeter did not 
>> come up talking, as it would in Trisquel. The 'f4' keystroke got Orca 
>> talking on the dialogue, but attempts to explore it caused the 
>> greeter to crash, thereby preventing logins.  I gave the 'reboot' 
>> command from another console, and waited. This time, the greeter came 
>> up talking, and I just entered my password.  A talking Mate session, 
>> set up almost according to a previously-made configuration, came up.  
>> In the new session, "alt+ctrl+tab' does not work as it should, though 
>> it is shown as bound in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialogue.  I set the 
>> Redmond panel layout, as mentioned above, and did a few post-install 
>> things. The system is now running.
>>
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>
>
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