[orca-list] Accessibility in Plasmas new notification system

[Peter Vágner]

Hello,

A quote from the blog...

When an application sets a “default” action, the cursor changes to a 
pointing hand to indicate that the popup itself is clickable.

This needs to be modified if the author wishes to improve the 
accessibility support.

I think we are missing robust and very accessible access to notifications.
GNOME's notifications can receive system focus, it can be controlled 
from the keyboard to an extend but it is not possible to execute actions 
associated to notifications.

Orca it-self has some notification-daemon built-in support that indexes 
notifications as soon as they are issued, however again orca can present 
these and the presentation is perfectly accessible however it's not 
possible to directly act on the notifications this way.
Another thing might be configurable is that orca indexes the 
notifications until it's restarted and does not dismiss these when the 
notification is acted on in another way. For example if I receive a new 
message in thunderbird, I switch focus into the thunderbird window, read 
the unread message and notification is removed from the notification 
area. Orca will still present it in its notification list.

Ideally we'd need to make some notification pannel accessible the way 
you Chrys are trying to do now.
However I am not sure we can find enough support upstream and perhaps 
developing accessible client for notification daemon is something that 
should be considered.

I am not very experienced in this regard but ability to bridge 
notification importance to speech-dispatcher priorities, ability to act 
on the notifications, ability to hide certain notifications, ability to 
group notifications by an app or device that has issued them, ability to 
assign sounds
would be cool features for a modern desktop.

I am not sure some of these features are currently possible right now 
but I think that would boost productivity forward for visually disabled 
users too.

I know such a view may only have emerged recently after we became 
spoiled by notification handling on mobile oses.

But remember those who don't need accessibility support may eventually 
get linux on their mobile devices in the foreseable future. We are kind 
of jealous and we'd prefer that too if it would be possible of course.


Greetings

Peter

Dňa 6. 6. 2019 o 15:22 chrys at linux-a11y.org napísal(a):
> Howdy Joanie,
>
> oh this is pritty awsome! thanks for this information.
> I will forward it to plasma-devel and kbroulik. fore sure they will 
> like your answer!
>
> mercy,
>
> cheers chrys
> Zitat von Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs at igalia.com>:
>
>> Hey Chrys.
>>
>> Regarding notifications, it should be pretty simple:
>>
>> 1. Give it ROLE_NOTIFICATION
>> 2. Be sure it emits an object:state-changed:showing event
>> 3. Be sure the displayed text is exposed via the accessible text
>>    interface, either on the notification itself or in the accessible
>>    children of the notification
>>
>> In theory, that should do it. Orca's looking for notifications that
>> announce their appearance because, like you stated, they don't get 
>> focus.
>>
>> Hope this helps. BTW, I'm not subscribed to plasma-devel, so I'm not
>> sure if my CCing them will be sufficient. If it's not, and if they need
>> what I've stated above, please forward it to them.
>>
>> Thanks again for all your work on this!
>> --joanie
>>
>> On 6/6/19 7:45 AM, chrys at linux-a11y.org wrote:
>>>
>>> Howdy Joanie,
>>>
>>> I just give an talk to kbroulik ( the creator of Plasmas new awsome
>>> notification system).
>>> see here:
>>> https://blog.broulik.de/2019/05/next-generation-plasma-notifications/
>>>
>>> He told me that accessibility is not yet implemented. But I see
>>> notifications are an very importaint part of an desktop system. Problem
>>> for make it accessible is, that it currently doesnt get the focus at 
>>> any
>>> time.
>>> Is there a best practice to implement this?
>>> how does gnome do this? how is orca awaiting for incomming
>>> notifications? do you know how we can make this happen?
>>> Sorry for bother you with so basic stuff but you are the only one 
>>> person
>>> I know what can answer those issues properly.
>>>
>>> maybe a nice side notice for you (and others). We currently work on an
>>> accessibility HIG for KDE.
>>> https://hig.kde.org/accessibility/index.html
>>> Still a WIP, but if someone wants to add some good content just 
>>> contact me.
>>> It should contain:
>>> - Keyboard navigation
>>> - Focus handling
>>> - Set A11y Lables/ Descriptions/ roles
>>> - howto test for good a11y
>>>
>>> cheers chrys
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> orca-list mailing list
>>> orca-list at gnome.org
>>> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
>>> Orca wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca
>>> Orca documentation: https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
>>> GNOME Universal Access guide:
>>> https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html
>>>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Orca wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca
> Orca documentation: https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
> GNOME Universal Access guide: 
> https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html