KDE/ QT/ Plasma accessibility contributions

Thu Oct 11 15:53:45 BST 2018

Hi Chrys and everyone,

I cut out parts of the mail to focus on what I think is relevant and try to 
answer inline below.

On onsdag 10. oktober 2018 23.27.38 CEST chrys at linux-a11y.org wrote:
> For me the major issues i see in QT/Plasma:
> 1. bad keyboard navigation (ho to focus panel, embedded widgets, tray
> whatever)

This is something where the Plasma folks have been very helpful, I think once 
we talk to them now, they will be even more receptive to make improvements 
since this comes from users and not just me :)
I think we need to write this up a bit more and then write to the plasma 
mailing list as a first step.

> 2. a lot of missing a11y names, labels roles

These should be easy to fix nowadays, maybe we can try to explain how on the 
mailing list. If you have one concrete example, then let's try to do it.

> 3. a11y Performance can be very bad here sometimes

That will be harder to fix, but it's something I can look into, I think this 
requires filing issues on bugs.kde.org to track, with steps how to reproduce 
things. Some things may also be easiest to fix in Orca, let's see.

> 4. it also crashes a lot with screenreader enabled ( for sure orca deas not
> hanle everything here gracefully, orcas  QT scrips are not as good tested
> as its GTK script)

These I'm interested in, especially if you somehow manage to generate 
backtraces, so that the issues can be fixed in Qt and or KDE.

> 5. my nasty ezoom issues lol
> 
> I already read some stuff and found the widgets are mostly (all?) weitten
> in qml.
> i understood that quite good because no black magic here :).
> Some useful links to me i want to share because they may help others too:
> http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qml-qtquick-accessible.html
> http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qml-qtquick-keynavigation.html
> https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Plasma5/QML2/GettingStarted
> 
> I currently play with that.

Awesome! Please let me know when things are unclear, I can update the docs.

> > I think there are some tasks on phabricator which KDE uses for planning.
> > 
> > https://phabricator.kde.org/ is the general website, also used for code
> > review.
> > 
> > There is a project for Plasma Accessibility:
> > https://phabricator.kde.org/project/view/249/
> 
> Yea i already found that and see some stuff like  missing a11y labels or
> keyboard nav here and there. So fits with my observations.
> 
> But i see no way to register at this website to comment, create todos or
> send patches? How is the wotkflow here?

You need a general KDE account that works for everything.
https://identity.kde.org/index.php?r=registration/index
is where you should be able to sign up.

The same credentials should work for phabricator:
https://phabricator.kde.org/auth/start/?next=%2F

I hope all of that is accessible!

> > I think the first thing would be to go through the list and see what is
> > current, which tasks need fixing and then of course add all the things
> 
> that
> 
> > don't work.
> 
> Yea. will do that. I wanted to take a look in kickers favorite/
> bookmark keyboard nav first. Sounds not so complex as i m a beginner
> in QT/ QML / Plasma world.
> 
> > Ideally we also manage to blog about this to get some more attention :)
> 
> Thats an realy cool idea! Is there already something like a KDE  a11y
> blogging section or category ?

Not that I know of. It's pretty easy to get a blog registered for 
planet.kde.org, I think many people would be happy about some progress 
reports.

> It should indeed find more publicity in fact most huge issues for
> blind guys are a oneliner by an good dev :/. So much issues can be
> wiped out when devs know how to care about that. With the nice side
> effect that automated testing works as well :). Even users need to
> know that the situation improves. Thats why many impaired people dont
> use or even try KDE. Because in there brain is still „nothing works
> there for me“ and this is just wrong i think. A lot of great work
> already happend at this sector already.

Yes, we just need a bit more mind-share and pointing out the issues, people 
are very willing to help but often just a bit clueless. Let's assume good 
faith, I haven't met anyone in KDE who was opposed to making things more 
accessible.

Cheers,
Frederik

> 
> Cheers, greez from germany
> 
> Chrys
> 
> Zitat von Frederik Gladhorn <gladhorn at kde.org>:
> > Hi Chrys,
> > 
> > I'll answer your mail inline, below.
> > 
> > On torsdag 23. august 2018 10.16.15 CEST chrys at linux-a11y.org wrote:
> >> Howdy list,
> >> 
> >> My name is chrys. I m a visual impaired guy from germany. I m new to
> >> this list.
> >> Since Gnome gets more and more crippled i decide to change to KDE/
> 
> Plasma.
> 
> >> And it was one of best decisions I did. Plasma is awsome and i wont
> >> miss it now (lol).
> >> I use KWins zoom plugin.
> > 
> > Great to hear that the zooming works :)
> > 
> >> My girlfrind is blind. She currently switched to Mate for the same
> >> reason like me. Mate is pretty accessible. But there are a lot of
> >> stuff missing what we would suspect from an modern desktop (search in
> >> menu and those stuff).
> >> Plasma has all that. So i decide to try plasma using Orca.
> >> My results: Its very slow, unstable and often hard to navigate. But it
> >> worked at all! thats more that i was suspecting. What tells me that
> >> the plasma shell already exposes the needed information to the at-spi
> >> (cool).
> >> Impressed by that results, I want start fixing up stuff for KDE/
> >> Plasma/ QT a11y to make work for her (and ohters) one day.
> >> So i read
> >> https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved#Accessibility
> >> and
> >> https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Accessibility
> >> what brings me to the point to say hello here in the list :).
> > 
> > Wow, amazing! That means our efforts did pay off. This is really exciting
> 
> to
> 
> > read. I hope we can quickly improve things.
> > 
> >> Sadly information is very rare in a11y stuff (not only for KDE). Thats
> >> why i want to find others who maybe already have knowledge to Mentor
> >> me or wants to work together with me to raise the motivation and fun
> >> 
> >> :). on my way to get touched with that.
> >> 
> >> So:
> >> 1. Is there someone out there who wants to join my effort?
> > 
> > Yes, I've been trying to get things working for a long while, but I
> 
> cannot do
> 
> > this alone (neither time nor energy wise).
> > 
> >> 2. Is there someone out there who can Mentor me a bit for my first
> 
> steps?
> 
> > I'm happy to do that, sorry for the late reaction, I was generally busy
> > lately.
> > 
> >> 3. Is there an effort what already exists what i can maybe join?
> > 
> > I think there are some tasks on phabricator which KDE uses for planning.
> > 
> > https://phabricator.kde.org/ is the general website, also used for code
> > review.
> > 
> > There is a project for Plasma Accessibility:
> > https://phabricator.kde.org/project/view/249/
> > 
> > I think the first thing would be to go through the list and see what is
> > current, which tasks need fixing and then of course add all the things
> 
> that
> 
> > don't work.
> > 
> > Ideally we also manage to blog about this to get some more attention :)
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Frederik
> > 
> >> cheers chrys