GNOME Accessibility Update

[Ryan Mann]

Will this gnopernicus screen reader be able to read applications such as 
Mozilla or Open Office? or will an application have to be written 
specifically for the Gnome desktp? 
On Sun, 5 May 2002, Janina 
Sajka wrote:

> I thought folks on this list would appreciate the following
> progress report on GNOME accessibility:
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Bill Haneman <bill.haneman at Sun.COM>
> 
> As Marc indicated things are pretty busy here.  The GNOME architecture
> and initial implementations of the APIs are nearly complete, we are
> working in several areas.
> 
> GNOME 2 is nearing community 2.0(.0) release.  We are hoping to get the
> kinks ironed out with regard to keyboard navigation and theme support. 
> We are working on some GTK+ themes for low vision including
> high-contrast and large-size icons (which have been done tigert and
> jimmac in the GNOME community).
> 
> ATK support for the base GTK+ library is substantially complete and we
> expect to have reasonable support for the core GNOME 2 desktop.  Apps
> like gedit, gcalc, gnome-terminal, etc and the GNOME 2 panel are
> substantially accessible, though many bugs remain.
> 
> Currently I am integrating the Java Accessibility API into the at-spi
> services, so that Java applications using the Java Foundation Classes
> will be accessible in the GNOME environment.
> 
> Work is well underway in the open assistive technology projects as well,
> 'gok' the virtual keyboard suite, and the 'gnopernicus' screen reader. 
> Our test tools for at-spi are also continuing to develop.
> 
> We have a wish list; in addition to getting close to being able to
> integrate contributions of speech and braille drivers, we need:
> 
> * a "virtual DDX" for XFree86 (that is, a way to create a virtual
> display framebuffer within a regular X Server instance), for
> magnification;
> 
> * assistance in improving the performance of our basic screen
> magnification service;
> 
> * a volunteer to port an upcoming new X extension for keysnooping to
> XFree86;
> 
> * someone willing to tackle the issues of accessibility for an open PDF
> viewer;
> 
> * people to port applications, test accessibility, and log bugs.
> 
> best regards,
> 
> Bill
> 
> > Best,
> > 
> > --JP
> > 
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