> I was hoping the guys at X.org would take an idea from > speech-dispatcher and crack open another channel for audible screen > output to a synthesizer/screen reader, bypassing the need to decypher > Gnome, KDE, or whatever other desktop manager was in use. I really like that idea, but I don't believe it is very workable. Here is the reason. As always, someone with more knowledge is welcome to correct me. The X-window system only offers low-level abstractions. It concerns itself with the rendering of bitmapped images on graphical devices. That information isn't very useful when rendering objects via speech or braille. Suppose that a program wants to present a dialog box to the user. At the X level, that dialog box isn't a dialog box. Instead, it is a sequence of operations for controlling the display. Could you appreciate a painting if I gave you a pixel-by-pixel description of it? I think not. Desktop environments like Gnome give us a higher level of abstraction, and Orca doesn't have to deal with those raw X events. -- Chris
