[Kde-accessibility] The Status of KDE Accessibility

Sun Nov 6 15:11:19 UTC 2011

Hi Robert,

as for the qt-at-spi bridge, as far as I know, it is only being packaged by Ubuntu at the  moment.
In order to provide a good integration with Orca, you need Qt 4.8 which is not yet released yet, thus no packages for the bridge either.

Once Qt 4.8 is out of the door, I expect all major distros to pick up the accessibility plugin.

On ubuntu 11.10 the state of the bridge is good enough for Unity-Qt but not good enough for general KDE applications since they use the accessibility framework a little differently and are prone to crashing.

Cheers
Frederik

On 1. nov. 2011, at 20.16, Robert Cole wrote:

> Thanks for the reply, Jeremy.
> 
> I have a very usable KDE desktop now after some slight configuration.
> 
> I set Compiz as the default Window Manager, then edited some properties for the Enhanced Zoom Desktop and the Mouse Position Polling Compiz plugins using compizconfig-settings-manager (CCSM). I also disabled the window behavior of KDE in which hovering the mouse over an inactive window selects the window (i.e.; making it the active window). It is working wonderfully!
> 
> I see a package in my package manager called at-spi2-core, but I do not see any packages related to qt-at-spi. I do see some packages for kdeaccessibility, so it could be that qt-at-spi bridge could be included in one of these packages. When I get some more free time I will try to take a look at this.
> 
> I have never used KDE in the past, and I really wish that I would have. I really love it! It is easy to use and quite full of customization options. I am really looking forward to seeing what happens in the future between Orca and KDE.
> 
> As far as helping out with testing and things, I do not know exactly whee to start. I am currently reading a Linux textbook to learn more about the CLI-side of things (as I have mainly relied upon the GUI during my five or so years of using LInux), and I have another Linux book on the way for study purposes. I am looking forward to learning, but i also want to contribute to the community. I just honestly do not know exactly where to start.
> 
> I appreciate all of the information which you supplied, Jeremy. Thanks for the kind welcome.
> 
> I am looking forward to this new learning experience!
> 
> Take care.
> 
> On 10/31/2011 07:13 AM, Jeremy Whiting wrote:
>> Hello Robert and welcome,
>> 
>> On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 10:27 PM, Robert Cole<rkcole72984 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> Hello, everyone.
>>> 
>>> I just started working with KDE a day or two ago (for the first time) and I
>>> absolutely love it.
>>> 
>>> I am a partially blind user, and I rely on screen magnification to use my
>>> system, and I am also beginning to work with screen readers across different
>>> operating system platforms (NVDA in Windows and Orca under GNOME on my Linux
>>> Mint 11 system).
>>> I switched my window manager to Compiz under my new KDE desktop because (for
>>> some reason) the Zoom feature under KWin was quite jumpy (I am sure there
>>> could be an easy solution to this, but I do not know where and how yet as I
>>> am completely new to the KDE desktop).
>> I haven't tried the kwin zoom feature yet (I should soon though)
>> There is also the kmag application you could try if you like.  It
>> probably has more options which may or may not help, but it is an
>> application, so will take some screen space itself.
>> 
>>> I have read different articles about the possibility of KDE being made
>>> accessible to the Orca screen reader, and I have also read a small bit about
>>> KTTS.
>> KTTS (which has been renamed to Jovie a couple years ago) is what
>> makes KDE Applications able to speak, but not like a screen reader.
>> For example the Knights game uses Jovie to speak the opponent's move
>> and the desktop uses Jovie to say the time if you set it to.
>> 
>>> My main question is this: What is the status of KDE Accessibility?
>> KDE Accessibility is in a work-in-progress state.  But with a bit of
>> tinkering you can try the latest code.  I'm not that familiar with
>> Linux Mint, but how KDE Accessibility works in regards to orca is
>> this.  Applications are written with the Qt framework which allows
>> accessibility plugins.  One such plugin for the linux desktop is
>> called qt-atspi bridge.  It bridges the Qt framework to the atspi2
>> interface which orca understands.  Unfortunately it required some
>> changes to Qt itself, and many crash fixes are in the not-yet-released
>> Qt 4.8.  If Linux Mint includes prerelease packages of Qt 4.8 and the
>> qt-atspi bridge, it should be just an install to test KDE with orca
>> (and setting a few settings on your machine).
>> 
>> At any rate http://community.kde.org/Accessibility is the main source
>> to look for information regarding KDE Accessibility.  The qt-atspi
>> bridge I mentioned is found under the first link Technical Information
>> for Application Developers, along with how to enable it for testing
>> with orca, etc.
>> 
>>> I do not currently know a lot about programming, but if there is anything
>>> which I can do to help with testing, I can learn what is needed and help in
>>> that fashion. I just do not know when to begin.
>> Testing is always very welcome. Also updating wiki pages, documentation, etc.
>> 
>>> Thank you for your time in reading this, and for any responses.
>> Thanks for asking.  The more help we can get the more work we can get done :)
>> 
>> BR,
>> Jeremy Whiting
>>> Kind regards.
>>> 
>>> Take care.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> kde-accessibility mailing list
>>> kde-accessibility at kde.org
>>> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-accessibility
>>> 
> 
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