Why we want gui [Was: speakup is nice]

[Janina Sajka]

Terry D. Cudney writes:
>    Why do we want access to the gui? Only because the majority of the computer users in the world are sighted and they like to point-and-click. If  we had a java/javascript-enabled browser that worked in the cli with speakup, I don't think we'd be looking at orca or other gui access schemes at all. 
> 

Actually, what we want is object access. To the sighted this is
delivered graphically. To us it's delivered as textual data provided by
those same objects when applications are built with toolkits that
support accessibility.

It would be possible, theoretically speaking, to construct object
oriented applications whose controls were exclusively textual. But this
is not going to happen. Ncurses will never become gtk2.

As an example of what I'm talking about, I suspect you'll find the Gnome
Volume Manager more accessible with Orca than alsamixer with Speakup.
Please note I said alsamixer, and not amixer.

Of course, you're correct to say that sighted people prefer gui. And why
shouldn't they? Why should they be limited to 8 colors and mono-spaced
fonts, as in WordPerfect 5.1, when they (and we) can have all that plus
16 million colors for them, to say nothing of all kinds of embedded
media objects in Open Office? That would be as silly as expecting us,
mostly with great hearing, to agree to go on with dampened sonic input.

If you've got it, flaunt it, I say. Just remember to do unto others as
you'd have them do unto you. Accessibility isn't about asking others to
do with less, after all.

Janina