[Kde-accessibility] kde-accessibility Digest, Vol 67, Issue 4

[Mark Doffman]

Hi Jeremy,

I have been working on a bridge from QAccessible to the D-Bus version of
AT-SPI. If we manage to move Gnome over to D-Bus AT-SPI then it may be
possible for Gnome and KDE to share an accessibility architecture using
this bridge. The current focus of my work is making Qt applications
testable through programs such as Dogtail and LDTP, more work will
certainly be required to make KDE accessible using a screen reader such
as Orca.

The code can currently be found at:

git://doffman.com/qspiaccessiblebridge

Its under heavy development.

I'd really like to get people together at the desktop summit to talk
about a shared accessibility architecture.

Willie Walker has already suggested an Accessibility meeting on the
gnome-desktop-devel lists, unfortunately without much reaction. I'll be
at the Desktop Summit, willing to meet anyone from KDE to talk about
shared a11y. Perhaps we should have a KDE & Gnome a11y get-together.

> Hello,
> 
> I've recently become aware of some shortcomings in KDE-accessibility project 
> (or possibly only percieved shortcomings).  I'm very curious as to the state 
> of Qt/KDE with regard to their ability to work with screen reader programs 
> such as Orca.  Note that I'm not blind, have not used Orca as of yet, but as a 
> KDE developer I'm worried that we are not quite as supportive of accessibility 
> as we should be and/or used to be. Gunnar posted some specs for how to use ATK 
> and/or AT-SPI to the kde accessibility website, but that was years ago.[1] Qt 
> also supposedly has accessibility support in Qt 4 [2] but without going to AT-
> SPI I've no clue what good it does, i.e. what interfaces it provides and how 
> screen readers such as Orca can use it.

There was a AT-SPI like D-Bus interface created for Qt a few years ago.
It is not the same as the D-Bus interface Gnome are looking to integrate
into 3.0. (It is similar)

This interface does not work with Orca or any of the gnome a11y tools.

> 
> From what little research I have done it appears that there is work going on 
> to make an AT-SPI to DBus bridge, which is not yet completed from what I 
> gather.  Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, my aim is to start a 
> discussion and get some things started or at the very least understand some 
> more about this.

Yes its underway, but ATM its specifically for the purposes of desktop
testing, not accessibility. More work will be required to ensure it
functions with AT's such as Orca.

> 
> I also noticed that on the Orca site, and all gnome accessibility sites I have 
> found Qt/KDE is mentioned as not providing the accessible interface necessary 
> for screen readers to work with our apps.   I'd like to know if this is true, 
> and also how to remedy this.  I'll be installing/trying Orca soon to get a 
> feel for how it works, and what it does exactly, etc. and so I'll be able to 
> test it with KDE/Qt apps.

KDE provides the QAccessible interface, which is probably not
sufficient. QAccessible2 is included in the codebase, but is probably
classed as 'Beta' as it has not been placed in the documentation and
regular changes are being made to it.

The QAccessible -> AT-SPI D-Bus bridge I am working on targets QAccessible2.

ATM there is no way to test Qt apps with Orca, you could attempt it
using my bridge and the D-Bus version AT-SPI. Information on D-Bus
AT-SPI can be found at:

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Accessibility/ATK/AT-SPI/AT-SPI_on_D-Bus

Infact, any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Mark