GNOME Accessibility Update

[Janina Sajka]

Both. Sun is building accessibility support into OpenOffice, and
a Sun team in Peiking is doing the same for Mozilla.

On Sun, 5 May 2002, Ryan Mann wrote:

> 
> 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
> > > 
> > > =====
> > > -
> > > Cell Phone  -  206-849-9032
> > > Time Zone   -  Pacific (-08:00 UTC)
> > > Home Page   -  http://ocularis.sourceforge.net
> > > 
> > > __________________________________________________
> > > Do You Yahoo!?
> > > Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness
> > > http://health.yahoo.com
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org