Hi Janina -- I tried sending this once before but it bounced due to message size... But as for gnome: That is interesting about the query capabilities of the gnome interface -- but I disagree that implementing a full ncurses, text-only representation based on these queries is necessary, as that would just require a lot of useless code to do screen layout of text when graphical screen layout has already been done by gnome, right? Actually, some users don't know this, but with MSAA, the in MS Internet Explorer for example, the screen reader queries the browser for the relevant text and label info for speech and braille purposes, but lets the browser continue to display whatever pictures and even animation happen to be on the page. Of course, there are still some things that aren't accessible, such as some messaging apps and also text that continually updates that drives screen readers crazy, but the effect is that a sighted person can come to a browser session and see and describe a picture at the same time the blind person is hearing the alt text spoken by the screen reader. I know that as long as visual effects are possible, new and innovative applications will come out that will trash a screen reader, and screen readers will have to play catchup for accessibility, but it is still nice to know that you don't have to construct your own text screen in order to access a gui -- all you need is information hooks to get useful data. If I ever get this machine up and running -- and I don't even have the pc or the hardware synth yet -- I will probably look more into such things. Meanwhile, enjoy! Take care. --le ----- Original Message ----- From: "Janina Sajka" <janina@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 7:15 PM Subject: Re: An Accessible Adobe Reader for Linux Laura, you're correct that the console interface is character based. And, I also want to say that we're not ignoring Gnome. It just doesn't do anything very useful yet. On the other hand, since you're a programmer, let me comment that the opportunity is there to make alternative interfaces for gnome apps, given the object architecture that support accessibility. In other words, it isn't necessarrily the gui which can provide access to a gnome app. It is possible to querry all available objects on the gnome desktop, or for a particular app, and obtain data, including text labels, data values, etc. So, it is reasonable to consider that one might, for instance, create an ncurses interface to gui applications. No one has built such an interface to my knowledge, but the opportunity is there. And there is a tool that exposes this data, though it does it graphically and it is not itself accessible by design--in order to avoid infinite regression. The tool is called at-poke. I would love to see some apps from the gnome desktop made accessible this way, while we wait for the gnome screen reader to become really usable, because there is intrinsically no reason to paint the gui for the user who can't appreciate it. In fact, it could be considered a waste of resources so to do.
