On Fri, Oct 12, 2001 at 11:27:30AM +0100, Tim Pennick wrote: > > Hi All, > > I must say I found the press release about GNOME equally confusing and > uninformative. I've worked on Sun kit for several years, and its great as > long a you stick to the command line interface, or curses based screen > applications. However, I don't think Sun can claim that much in the way of > accessibility for Java as yet. While I agree with you to a point, I *only* agree with you to a point. I haven't seen any practical applications of Sun's Java accessibility hooks either, and I sure hope that changes. However, I don't think you can blame sun for people not using the tools available. At least they've included the tools in the latest release--that's a step in the right direction. This stuff doesn't move fast enough for me either, but then, I'm jus' a user and can't do much more than wait, and (ocasionally) piss and moan about it. Still, progress is progress, even if it's slow progress. > I know there has been some work in this area, > but the nearest I've ever come to using it, was to install the Java access > classes on my PC for interfacing with JFW. This has improved my access to any > aplications by exactly nothing as far as I can tell, so I'm hoping that the > GNOME (which most people I've ever heard pronounce as nome) project, will be a > bit more apparent in its benefits. Well, most people you know pronounce it incorrectly. It really is ga-nome...just like ga-nu. The fact that most people misuse English doesn't make English misuse correct, either. Be that as it may. ... I really think this has a great chance of success, *especially* since gnome is free software. If the access is built right into the framework, right into the tools, there to be used without any effort on application developers' part, they're not gonna go out of their way to *not* incorporate accessible controls into their programs. The only hitch, of course, is going to be finding some bright soul(s) to actually write the access software to take advantage of the stuff, and while I'm a little worried about that, I'm not as worried about that as I would be, say, with no moves towards making building of access easier. Anyway, I think I've heard rumblings about Sun also working out a screen reader, but I haven't seen any code of course. It does make sense though...you know, Peter Korn (SP?) was the guy at the head of Berkeley Systems before Alva bought it...you know, the OutSpoken people. No matter what you think of OutSpoken, it was revolutionary for the Mac. I just hope they do the right thing (TM) and GPL any work they do in this area. I believe, and have for some time, that free software is the future for *everyone*--or, at least, more open software, which necessarily includes free software as a substantial subset, and this can only be good for us. > Presumably, it will have no effect on > end-user accessibility unless somebody writes a screenreader which capitalises > on the accessibility features built in to the GNOME environment. > > Hope I'm not being too negative about this, as I'd certainly like it to > succeed. However, I'm wondering if its a feature of Unix/Linux that there is > a large proportion of people without sight problems who don't care much for > the GUI approach, and if this explains why a lot of applications which are > entirely non GUI are still maintained. If this is the case, maybe its not > worth putting lots of development into GUI access for the blind on Unix > flavoured operating systems. See, but that's the thing. The beauty of Linux in particular, and free software in general, is that we have choices. Granted, as blind folks, our choices are more limited. But I personally think that development into access to X can only be a good thing. There are so many tools that aren't available to us in any fashion--just as an example, office productivity software that's easy to use. Sure, we could learn latex and typeset all of our work, but I think that a lot of folks (sighted folks, blind folks, whatever) are either intimidated by that prospect or just plain don't have the time or motivation to do that. If there's anything that's holding back Linux from more acceptance in the broader blind community, and to a lesser extent perhaps, the community-at-large, it's the lack of easy-to-use productivity software and good OCR. Oh, and how about a Web browser that supports javascript? Lynx doesn't. Course, I use lynx all the time and love it. I usee Linux myself for about 99% of my computer needs. I'd love to make that 100%, but I won't be able to, at least, until we either have access to the GUI (so we can use things like abiword or openoffice or that resource hog StarOffice or WordPerfect), or some intelligent soul(s) see the need for console-based equivalents. Hasn't happened yet, and I frankly see more hope for the X access. -- Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV | From the pines down to the projects, Email: davros@ycardz.com | Life pushes up through the cracks. Phone: (972) 276-6360 | And it's only going forward, ICQ: 36621210 | And it's never going back.--Small Potatoes