An Accessible Adobe Reader for Linux

[Laura Eaves]

Hi Janina --
I tried sending this once before but it bounced due to message size...
But as for gnome:
That is interesting about the query capabilities of the gnome interface --
but I disagree that implementing a full ncurses, text-only representation
based on these queries is necessary, as that would just require a lot of
useless code to do screen layout of text when graphical screen layout has
already been done by gnome, right? Actually, some users don't know this, but
with MSAA, the in MS Internet Explorer for example, the screen reader
queries the browser for the relevant text and label info for speech and
braille purposes, but lets the browser continue to display whatever pictures
and even animation happen to be on the page.  Of course, there are still
some things that aren't accessible, such as some messaging apps and also
text that continually updates that drives screen readers crazy, but the
effect is that a sighted person can come to a browser session and see and
describe a picture at the same time the blind person is hearing the alt text
spoken by the screen reader.
I know that as long as visual effects are possible, new and innovative
applications will come out that will trash a screen reader, and screen
readers will have to play catchup for accessibility, but it is still nice to
know that you don't have to construct your own text screen in order to
access a gui -- all you need is information hooks to get useful data.
If I ever get this machine up and running -- and I don't even have the pc or
the hardware synth yet -- I will probably look more into such things.
Meanwhile, enjoy!
Take care.
--le

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina at rednote.net>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 7:15 PM
Subject: Re: An Accessible Adobe Reader for Linux


Laura, you're correct that the console interface is character based.

And, I also want to say that we're not ignoring Gnome. It just doesn't
do anything very useful yet.

On the other hand, since you're a programmer, let me comment that the
opportunity is there to make alternative interfaces for gnome apps,
given the object architecture that support accessibility. In other
words, it isn't necessarrily the gui which can provide access to a gnome
app. It is possible to querry all available objects on the gnome
desktop, or for a particular app, and obtain data, including text
labels, data values, etc. So, it is reasonable to consider that one
might, for instance, create an ncurses interface to gui applications. No
one has built such an interface to my knowledge, but the opportunity is
there. And there is a tool that exposes this data, though it does it
graphically and it is not itself accessible by design--in order to avoid
infinite regression. The tool is called at-poke.

I would love to see some apps from the gnome desktop made accessible
this way, while we wait for the gnome screen reader to become really
usable, because there is intrinsically no reason to paint the gui for
the user who can't appreciate it. In fact, it could be considered a
waste of resources so to do.