[Kde-accessibility] Fwd: KDE 3.1 suggestion: gtkeyboard clone

[Peter Korn]

Hi Navindra,

> Bill Haneman <bill.haneman@sun.com> wrote:
> > It presents dynamic keyboards which adapt to both user input and the
> > currently active application UI.  It also works with applications that
> > don't explicitly support the GNOME Accessibility APIs, i.e. plain X
> > applications and KDE apps.  It also supports a variety of input devices
> > and input methods, ranging from direct pointer selection to various
> > scanning and predictive algorithms.
> 
> If it works with apps that don't support an Accessibility API, than
> what's the point of an Accessibility API?  Does this mean that it
> would be fairly straightforward to port GOK to KDE?  Just a matter of
> GUI programming?
> 
> Sorry, not volunteering, nor knowledgeable, just curious about your
> remarks...

I think a little more exposition is in order.  GOK provides the functionality
of a simple on-screen keyboard with word completion - allowing a users with
disabilities to enter text via a variety of mechanisms that work for them
(single switch, eye-gaze, morse code, etc.).  Becauase this function of GOK
uses standard means for inserting keystrokes, it can insert those keystrokes
most anywhere.

But GOK does a lot more than just allowing users with physical disabilities
to enter text.  It provides more direct GUI access as well, using the GNOME
Accessibility API to determine what application is frontmost, what widget has
the focus, what menu options are available, etc., and it presents on it's
dynamic graphical on-screen keyboard options available to the user in the
(accessible) GUI.  In addition to the word completion mentioned in the
paragraph above, the maintainers of GOK are working on command completion as
well, guessing ahead as to what you might want to do with the GUI and
presenting that as an option for more direct choosing for the users.

It is this second set of rich, dynamic functionality that present will NOT
work on KDE or X apps, as those apps do not implement the accessibility API. 
At such point as that were to change, however...


Regards,

Peter Korn
Sun Accessibility team