Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Laws and standards

SWT is indeed more accessible.   I think the only parts of Libre
Office that are in Java are those tied to the database.  Most of the
code is in c and c++, I heard.  Btw, QT is somewhat supported.  I
wouldn't call it stellar but it's not impossible to navigate witha
jaws cursor.  (Mouse simulator)  Idle, for instance, is in QT.  I dn't
see them rewriting the code to use swt classes though.  Besides, I
think this creates issues in Gnome since swt is less accessible there
than swing.

alex M

On 12/7/10, Octavian Rasnita <orasnita@gmail.com> wrote:
> From: "Christophe Strobbe" <christophe.strobbe@esat.kuleuven.be>
> > Hi Alex,
> >
> > At 02:25 7/12/2010, Alex Midence wrote:
> > > Well, my thinking is and always will be that Libre Office is better
> > > off making itself accessible no matter what screen reader is used.
> >
> >
> > That is why LibreOffice (like OpenOffice.org) needs to support
> > accessibility APIs, keyboard access, desktop themes, etcetera. For a
> > screen reader to work with an application, the application needs to
> > implement the accessibility API (for example the Java Accessibility
> > API, which is not tied to a specific operating system), and the
> > screen reader needs to support that API. As far as I know, screen
> > readers on Windows have generally weak support for the Java Accessibility
> > API.
>
>
> True, although the screen readers for Windows have a weak support for SWING
> API. The support for SWT is much better.
>
> But the screen readers for Windows have a non-existent support for other
> GUIs like Tk, GTK, QT...
>
>
> > (Note: Java accessibility on Windows requires the Java Access Bridge.
> > Oracle is working on a new version of this bridge that will be part
> > of the Java Runtime Environment instead of a separate download.)
>
> This will be great, but hopefully the screen readers manufacturers will also
> offer a better support for SWING.
>
> JAWS for Windows offer some support for Java Access Bridge as it is now, but
> only in a virtual buffer, so the apps are seen like web pages.
>
> SWING is slower than SWT anyway, and that weak support offered by JAWS makes
> the apps much less responsive, but what's the most important for blind
> programmers is that it is very hard if impossible to make the design of the
> GUI, because in the SWING apps, JAWS doesn't offer that "JAWS cursor" for
> allowing us to "see" the position of each window control on the screen.
>
> I heard that Window Eyes started to offer a better support for SWING than
> JAWS but I haven't tested it.
>
> By the way, what interface is LibreOffice using? I've tested OpenOffice and
> it was pretty accessible although I don't remember if I had Java Access
> Bridge installed. Does it use something else than SWING?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Octavian
>
>
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