Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Laws and standards

Yes, the programs can be made accessible that way, but it is very hard for a blind to do it without 
sighted help.
So from the perspective of the final user, an application made accessible with scripts is OK, but 
from the perspective of a blind programmer that should create the design of the GUI, or to make the 
scripts for JAWS in order to improve the accessibility... is not exactly the same.

And what is the worst thing is that even the software companies which create screen readers care 
only about the majority of users, and not about those few blind programmers that have much more 
accessibility needs.

In LibreOffice's case is all right because it is pretty accessible and it is targetted to the 
majority of users and not to developers that should manipulate the interface.

Octavian

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alex Midence" <alex.midence@gmail.com>
To: <accessibility@libreoffice.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 4:15 AM
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Laws and standards


Thing is, some apps that can only be navigated with the Jaws cursor
can be scripted such that they become accessible.  If the Jaws cursor
can see it, the invisible cursor can too, usually.  I managed to make
some progress wtih Open Office this way.  Some of the controls I could
only access with the jaws cursor might be made accessible through
hotkeys set to change from pc to invisible and then back to pc again
at the click of a key.  In the end, what may happen is that Libre
Office is made to be scriptably accessible  which is ok, I guess
though out of the box accessibility would be nice.

Alex M


On 12/7/10, Octavian Rasnita <orasnita@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, if an interface is accessible only by using the JAWS cursor, we can
> say that it is really inaccessible, because it is not an application that
> can be currently used.
> The edit fields where we should type strings are not accessible and the
> other controls are very hard to find with the JAWS cursor...
>
> Octavian
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alex Midence" <alex.midence@gmail.com>
> To: <accessibility@libreoffice.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 5:37 PM
> Subject: 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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