Project Announce: AT-SPI D-Bus

[Mark Doffman]

Hello,

A new project has recently been added to freedesktop.org that aims to
translate the AT-SPI interface to D-Bus and provide API compatible
replacements for the AT-SPI libraries. The project was started with
GNOME's deprecation of CORBA in mind, but also with the goal of
providing cross-desktop accessibility.

The libraries provided are currently fairly GNOME-centric. There are
replacements for the GNOME AT-SPI libraries - the atk-adaptor, plus 'C'
and Python client bindings. Our goal is to provide a QT adapter to the
AT-SPI D-Bus protocol, so that QT applications will be made accessible
in GNOME, and to open up the possibility of sharing an accessibility
infrastructure between the two desktops.

I am currently starting the work of producing a QT adapter for QT4 based
of the QT D-Bus accessibility bridge.
(http://labs.trolltech.com/page/Projects/Accessibility/QDBusBridge)

The repository with the GNOME replacement libraries is available at:

http://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/at-spi2/at-spi2-core.git
or
git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/at-spi2/at-spi2-core.git

Included in this codebase is:

A D-Bus version of the ATK bridge library.
A D-Bus version of the AT-SPI Registry daemon.
A D-Bus version of the pyatspi library.
A D-Bus version of the cspi library (Currently in disrepair)
The D-Bus AT-SPI specifications.

A page detailing the current status of the project and instructions for
testing are located at http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/AT-SPI_on_D-Bus.

The mailing list for the project is
accessibility-atspi@....

Thanks

Mark
_______________________________________________
kde-accessibility mailing list
kde-accessibility@...
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-accessibility

[Olaf Schmidt-Wischhöfer]

Hello Mark,

this project announcement is phantastic news.

The D-Bus port of AT-SPI is a crucial building block to move KDE accessibility
forward.

It has long been my dream to have a common accessibility stack shared between
KDE and GNOME. I always originally lacked technical background knowledge to
move this forward myself, and when I had learned more about accessibility, I
was increasingly too much short of time.

In the last years, KDE developers have often asked me where to start when
dealing with accessibility. I have then given them a few general rules (no
hardcoded colours and sizes, no reliance on mouse usage, etc) but was unable
to point them to a good starting point for assistive technology support.

One way to go could be testing tools and/or a tutorial on AT-SPI D-Bus usage.
Do you think such an approach would work to lower the entry barrier?

Olaf Schmidt
_______________________________________________
kde-accessibility mailing list
kde-accessibility@...
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-accessibility

[Mark Doffman]

Hi Olaf,

Sorry for my late reply. Busy two weeks.

> this project announcement is phantastic news.
>
> The D-Bus port of AT-SPI is a crucial building block to move KDE accessibility
> forward.
>
> It has long been my dream to have a common accessibility stack shared between
> KDE and GNOME. I always originally lacked technical background knowledge to
> move this forward myself, and when I had learned more about accessibility, I
> was increasingly too much short of time.

Its very much my dream now also.

>
> In the last years, KDE developers have often asked me where to start when
> dealing with accessibility. I have then given them a few general rules (no
> hardcoded colours and sizes, no reliance on mouse usage, etc) but was unable
> to point them to a good starting point for assistive technology support.
>
> One way to go could be testing tools and/or a tutorial on AT-SPI D-Bus usage.
> Do you think such an approach would work to lower the entry barrier?

Yes, a tutorial would be a great idea. The GNOME project recently
updated their Accessibility pages and they are looking pretty good.
http://library.gnome.org/devel/accessibility-devel-guide/nightly/gad-overview.html.en
Is a very decent (Quick) overview of how people can make sure their
applications are accessible. The page makes a few good points:

1 - If your application uses standard GTK widgets then you will probably
have to do little or nothing to make the application accessible.

This is really what we need to be aiming for for the QT widget set. In
terms of translating between QAccessible and AT-SPI I don't forsee too
many problems. QAccessible is apparently MSAA based. I think ATK might
once have been too, and AT-SPI is a heavily re-dressed ATK.

2 - If your application uses custom widgets, you may have to do some
work to expose those widgets' properties to assistive technologies.

This is really a big problem these days. A-lot of people are using
custom canvas-based widgets in their applications, and this is where
things start getting really inaccessible.

For people who are creating highly custom widgets need to be reminded
(Forced) to implement all the neccessary QAccessible Interfaces on it.

As for an application used for testing, there was an accessibility
introspecter created for QT D-Bus accessibility, but in reality
Accerciser is far more complete and mature. Unless there are real
objections to using it I think Accerciser should be reccommended.

Sidenotes -

Oddly enough KDE pages have the best GNOME accessibility architecture
overview out there. Kudos to whoever wrote this:

http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/atk.php

I will make the QT implementation I have so far public over Christmas.
I'll do a quick announce once I have.

Thanks

Mark


_______________________________________________
kde-accessibility mailing list
kde-accessibility@...
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-accessibility

[Willie Walker]

Hi All:

I am also very excited about this progress.  I think it's kind of
symbolic that this started with Rob Taylor and me striking up a
conversation while washing our hands in the restroom at a GNOME Boston
Summit -- you know, symbolically washing away CORBA.  OK, maybe that's
pushing the metaphor a little bit, but I'm excited nonetheless.  :-)

For the ATK/AT-SPI overview comment below, I've opened a new GNOME
bugzilla bug: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=564996.  I think
it would be a great thing to incorporate the page into the GNOME docs,
but I'd also like to get permission from the KDE folks before doing so.

Olaf, is getting permission to include the docs something you can help with?

Will

Mark Doffman wrote:

> Hi Olaf,
>
> Sorry for my late reply. Busy two weeks.
>
>> this project announcement is phantastic news.
>>
>> The D-Bus port of AT-SPI is a crucial building block to move KDE accessibility
>> forward.
>>
>> It has long been my dream to have a common accessibility stack shared between
>> KDE and GNOME. I always originally lacked technical background knowledge to
>> move this forward myself, and when I had learned more about accessibility, I
>> was increasingly too much short of time.
>
> Its very much my dream now also.
>
>> In the last years, KDE developers have often asked me where to start when
>> dealing with accessibility. I have then given them a few general rules (no
>> hardcoded colours and sizes, no reliance on mouse usage, etc) but was unable
>> to point them to a good starting point for assistive technology support.
>>
>> One way to go could be testing tools and/or a tutorial on AT-SPI D-Bus usage.
>> Do you think such an approach would work to lower the entry barrier?
>
> Yes, a tutorial would be a great idea. The GNOME project recently
> updated their Accessibility pages and they are looking pretty good.
> http://library.gnome.org/devel/accessibility-devel-guide/nightly/gad-overview.html.en
> Is a very decent (Quick) overview of how people can make sure their
> applications are accessible. The page makes a few good points:
>
> 1 - If your application uses standard GTK widgets then you will probably
> have to do little or nothing to make the application accessible.
>
> This is really what we need to be aiming for for the QT widget set. In
> terms of translating between QAccessible and AT-SPI I don't forsee too
> many problems. QAccessible is apparently MSAA based. I think ATK might
> once have been too, and AT-SPI is a heavily re-dressed ATK.
>
> 2 - If your application uses custom widgets, you may have to do some
> work to expose those widgets' properties to assistive technologies.
>
> This is really a big problem these days. A-lot of people are using
> custom canvas-based widgets in their applications, and this is where
> things start getting really inaccessible.
>
> For people who are creating highly custom widgets need to be reminded
> (Forced) to implement all the neccessary QAccessible Interfaces on it.
>
> As for an application used for testing, there was an accessibility
> introspecter created for QT D-Bus accessibility, but in reality
> Accerciser is far more complete and mature. Unless there are real
> objections to using it I think Accerciser should be reccommended.
>
> Sidenotes -
>
> Oddly enough KDE pages have the best GNOME accessibility architecture
> overview out there. Kudos to whoever wrote this:
>
> http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/atk.php
>
> I will make the QT implementation I have so far public over Christmas.
> I'll do a quick announce once I have.
>
> Thanks
>
> Mark
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> kde-accessibility mailing list
> kde-accessibility@...
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-accessibility

_______________________________________________
kde-accessibility mailing list
kde-accessibility@...
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-accessibility

[Meftah Tayeb]

hi my friends,
please i'm looking for a list of KDE supported Screen Reader
i know only ORCA and i'm no sur if is it a KDE Supported screen reader
is working perfectly with GNOME 1.16 (i'm using UBUNTU 8.04)
i'm asking about tha bicose i love KDE Develope (KDevelope) and Mono
Develope (Microsoft .Net FRAMEWORK Klone in linux)
please try to hzelp me using a screen reader for KDE
thanks my friend.

_______________________________________________
kde-accessibility mailing list
kde-accessibility@...
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-accessibility

[Olaf Schmidt-Wischhöfer]

Hi,

we have solutions for partially sighted users, and for a large group of other
disabilities, but nothing for blind users just now. But fortunately, Mark
Doffman is already working on a solution. His work will allow Orca to work
with KDE applications.

It will take a while, however, to iron out all of the problems and to make KDE
applications fully accessible to blind users in day-to-day use.

Olaf Schmidt
_______________________________________________
kde-accessibility mailing list
kde-accessibility@...
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-accessibility