[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: KOffice screen readers
From:       Gary Cramblitt <garycramblitt () comcast ! net>
Date:       2006-05-10 22:27:41
Message-ID: 200605101827.42167.garycramblitt () comcast ! net
[Download RAW message or body]

On Wednesday 10 May 2006 04:10, Thomas Zander wrote:
> While I thought that the fear about a11y in ODF had mostly been taken
> away, there apparently are still people that are afraid of anything new.
> And I doubt that telling them MSOffice 12 will also leave them stranded
> is an answer.
>
> http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;451690859
>
> I'm wondering if you know what the Qt4 capabilities are, and how easy it
> is to add screen reader support to KOffice apps in trunk.
>
> I was wondering if we can write "Disability Policy Consortium" and various
> others a "Letter of intent" stating we are aiming to have a full solution
> for those that have a disability in the KOffice 2.x releases.
>
> Would we making a promising we can't keep?
> If not, what do you all think about this idea?

Hope you don't mind me cc'ing this to the koffice mailing list.

There are two possible approaches to getting screen reading capability for 
KOffice 2.0:

1.  Wait for the necessary bridges to be implemented for supporting the AT-SPI 
in KDE4 as a whole.  KOffice would then work with existing and future screen 
readers such as Gnopernicus and Orca.

2.  Implement a "bolt-on" screen reader similar to what I did in KOffice 1.5.  
This time, it could make use of the accessibility interface built into every 
Qt4 widget, so it would hopefully work better.

#2 doesn't really make a lot of sense because, if the KDE desktop doesn't have 
a screen reader, blind users can't start the KOffice apps without assistance.

#1 provides the best solution.  As it stands right now, however, it isn't 
happening.  AFAIK, nobody is actually working on it, and it isn't even clear 
(at least to me), exactly what needs to be done. :/

In either case, to provide effective screen reading capability, the KOffice 
applications need to expose rich content via the accessible interface.  For 
example, in KWord, in isn't enough to provide the content of the document 
window via the text() method.  The document structure and presentation 
information (layout, section  and paragraph numbering, bolding, etc) need 
also to be exposed.  The freestandards accessibility group is currently 
working on extensions to the AT-SPI for this.

Given that ATM nothing seems to be happening, I think it would be a mistake to 
promise a screen reader for KOffice 2.0.

So how can we break the current log jam and get the AT-SPI implementation 
going for KDE4?  I think this is an issue that should be spearheaded by the 
HCI committee, which is why I'm cc'ing Olaf.  There have been a few threads 
on the kdeaccessibility mailing list, but lately it seems nothing is 
happening.  I think there are several reasons for this:  1.  Lack of people 
willing to do the work.  2.  Lack of willing people who understand what needs 
to be done (which includes me).  3.  kdelibs has been too unstable (qt-dbus 
has only recently been implemented, for example).

What can KOffice devs do in the meantime?

1.  Make sure KO fully supports mouseless operation.

2.  Make sure KO fully supports theming.  Particularly monochrome and large 
font themes.

3.  When the HCI publishes their standards document (still being worked on 
AFAIK), make sure KO adheres to it.

4.  Design the internal architecture so that "document" content can be made 
available to the accessible interface.  This one is harder to define right 
now.  For starters, a model/view architecture strikes me as a good approach.  
The accessible interface can then be implemented as a "view" into the model 
(the document).  Another approach is to provide full scripting support to 
document content.  Accessibility can then be implemented via scripts.

-- 
Gary Cramblitt (aka PhantomsDad)
KDE Text-to-Speech Maintainer
http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd/index.php
_______________________________________________
koffice-devel mailing list
koffice-devel@kde.org
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/koffice-devel
[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]