X access was Re: Debian upgrade

[Chris Brannon]

> I was hoping the guys at X.org would take an idea from 
> speech-dispatcher and crack open another channel for audible screen 
> output to a synthesizer/screen reader, bypassing the need to decypher 
> Gnome, KDE, or whatever other desktop manager was in use.

I really like that idea, but I don't believe it is very workable.
Here is the reason.  As always, someone with more knowledge is welcome
to correct me.

The X-window system only offers low-level abstractions.  It concerns
itself with the rendering of bitmapped images on graphical devices.
That information isn't very useful when rendering objects via speech or
braille.  Suppose that a program wants to present a dialog box to the user.
At the X level, that dialog box isn't a dialog box.  Instead, it is a
sequence of operations for controlling the display.
Could you appreciate a painting if I gave you a pixel-by-pixel description
of it?  I think not.
Desktop environments like Gnome give us a higher level of abstraction, and
Orca doesn't have to deal with those raw X events.

-- Chris