Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Laws and standards

It is so nice to know that you are aware of these issues.  Over the
years, I have learned to resign myself to settle for such suboptimal
solutions as the ones I described in my posting and put the best face
on it that I could.  If Libre Office could be made accessible out of
the box for all screen readers regardless of the platform, it would be
a truly fantastic thing!

Regards,
Alex M
On 1/3/11, Christophe Strobbe <christophe.strobbe@esat.kuleuven.be> wrote:
> At 03:15 8/12/2010, Alex Midence wrote:
> > 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.
>
> This is great to hear, even though it is not the best solution. There
> are several reasons for this:
> * scripts can break when the user interface changes,
> * JAWS scripts are specific to JAWS and don't help users of other
> screen readers,
> * scripts are not part of the standard download of
> OpenOffice/LibreOffice, not are they downloadable from
> http://www.openoffice.org/ or http://www.documentfoundation.org/ so
> users need to actively search for them [1].
>
>
>
> > 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.
>
> In my opinion, built-in accessibility is not just "nice", it should
> be the default.
>
>
> [1] Moreover: "Freedom Scientific does not typically accept
> unsolicited offers of scripts for third party applications."
> <http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_support/BulletinView.asp?QC=792>.
> JAWS users are referred to sites such as <http://www.JFWlite.com/>
> and <http://www.BlindProgramming.com/>.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Christophe Strobbe
>
>
>
> > 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
>
> --
> Christophe Strobbe
> K.U.Leuven - Dept. of Electrical Engineering - SCD
> Research Group on Document Architectures
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