Free Software Accessibility, Call to Arms

Chris Hofstader Director of Access Technology for Project GNU writes his thoughts on the future of Free Software Accessibility.

Call to Arms

In the time since I joined FSF/GNU as Director of Access Technology, I have focussed largely on policy, fundraising and coordination with other groups. Meanwhile, I've whined a lot about the state of the software which must be our highest priority.

We have three areas where we need to focus our hacking efforts: OS level things like dbus (I don't understand this part of a GNU/Linux system too well but Bill, Joanie and Janina seem to have good ideas for these areas), orca and other AT "middleware" that needs to communicate both with the OS and applications and, very importantly, support for the applications and how they communicate with the AT.

We thought of setting priorities but this would, at the start at least, just be a list of lists of lists and would probably, like so many lists before it, die on the vine.

So, instead of finding tasks and then volunteers to work on them, we are switching gears again and trying to first find volunteers and asking them what they want to work on. We may try to suggest specific high priorities for volunteers but, as they aren't being paid, letting them find their way to the projects they find interesting will likely be the best route to productivity.

We also need volunteers to step up and take the lead role on projects and project components. Don has taken charge of OCR and we've seen great progress there, Joanie owns orca and needs lots of help, Bill and Tony (of course) run the vinux shop, Sina is leading the Java Access stuff but, while we've talked about it a lot, we've no leader for speech recognition/dictation, no one on magnification, learning disabilities and other projects suited for people with non-vision disabilities. On braille, of course, we have John J. Boyer whose project has led the pack for a number of years. We are on our way to a FLOSS AT future but we've lots of work from now until then.

At yesterday's Open a11y (www.a11y.org) call, we discussed priorities and a list of mostly vision related items topped the list. This group needs help with regression testing for orca (this can be done by pretty junior people and those interested should contact Joanie but keep in touch with us so we can know what is going on around this small community) and the second item was poor performance of orca which needs people with C programming skills, an understanding of how GNU/Linux works under the hood and a talent for finding bottlenecks (Python will also be helpful) and this group should probably contact either Joanie or Bill but, as above, stay in touch with us.

A lot of us, including me, complain about performance and functionality in various applications when running orca. We've got to stop whining and get hacking. It would be good to have people take the lead on Firefox, OpenOffice and other "high value" programs. It would also be useful for people to take charge of entirely new AT (like speech recognition) projects to help us move forward in areas that are not already covered.

We need resources to be used judiciously but we also want our hackers to have fun working on projects they will find most rewarding. We need hackers, testers, documenters and probably a bunch of other skills that I cannot think of at this moment.

Please forward this message to as many lists you can find that may have interested parties on them. Also, if anyone on this distribution has skills in languages other than English, please try to send along translations calling for volunteers who may not speak English.

Orca Caps Lock Issue

Caps Lock key doesn't work is the most common complaint from Orca screen readers users. On Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx I found that Caps Lock is reset mysteriously. Here is workaround you can use until we find the culprit responsible for this.

Debugging with xmodmap

You find the present keymaps setting with xmodmap command. You can see that the line starting 'lock' is empty. We can set it properly with xmodmap -e "add Lock = Caps_Lock".

$ xmodmap 
xmodmap:  up to 4 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses):

shift       Shift_L (0x32),  Shift_R (0x3e)
lock      
control     Control_L (0x25),  Control_R (0x69)
mod1        Alt_L (0x40),  Alt_R (0x6c),  Meta_L (0xcd)
mod2        Num_Lock (0x4d)
mod3      
mod4        Super_L (0x85),  Super_R (0x86),  Super_L (0xce),  Hyper_L (0xcf)
mod5        ISO_Level3_Shift (0x5c),  Mode_switch (0xcb)

# Set the Caps_Lock with xmodmap 
$ xmodmap -e "add Lock = Caps_Lock"

# Now caps lock works properly
$ xmodmap 
xmodmap:  up to 4 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses):

shift       Shift_L (0x32),  Shift_R (0x3e)
lock        Caps_Lock (0x42)
control     Control_L (0x25),  Control_R (0x69)
mod1        Alt_L (0x40),  Alt_R (0x6c),  Meta_L (0xcd)
mod2        Num_Lock (0x4d)
mod3      
mod4        Super_L (0x85),  Super_R (0x86),  Super_L (0xce),  Hyper_L (0xcf)
mod5        ISO_Level3_Shift (0x5c),  Mode_switch (0xcb)



 Bash Autostart script for setting Caps lock

 Now we know that this can be fixed so I used a bash script to call the modmap script everytime we boot. Somehow '.Xmodmap' settings are not getting loaded so I am using an alternative script '.xmodmaprc' and call it from .bashrc file manually.  

# .xmodmaprc
xmodmap -e "add Lock = Caps_Lock"

# .bashrc
if [ -f ~/.xmodmaprc ]; then
    . ~/.xmodmaprc
fi

Reboot the computer and enable the modmap file to be loaded at boot time. PS: Kudos to dotslashblog for the xmodmaprc solution

Accessibility Evaluation: Yelp GNOME Help Browser

During last few months Yelp Gnome help viewer had few hiccups. The ever vigilant users quickly posted "Yelp in Ubuntu Lucid is currently not accessible" messages to various mailing-lists. I am quite happy to report that Yelp (2.29.5.x) is now fully accessible with gnome orca screen reader once again. The accessibility testing was done on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid with Orca screen reader (2.30.0pre) and Accerciser.

You will find few accessibility and usability suggestions from the evaluation listed below. Willie Walker and Shaun McCance helped by offering sage advice on Gnome #a11y IRC channel and Gnome Bugzilla. You can track these issues by subscribing to bugs.

Click image for full size

• Show Previous page in history button inaccessible (bgo #613265)
• Navigation Links provide additional information (bgo #613262)
• Reverse tabbing fails in search bar(bgo #613301)
• Side bar and other information boxes (bgo #613267)
• Alternative Home Link Location (bgo #613300)

Please do let me know if you find more issues with Yelp. I'll promise to look at them once I return from the easter vacation.

Espeak Klatt voices in Ubuntu Lucid

The next version of Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) ships with espeak version 1.43. This new release of espeak has the klatt voices that's everyone is talking about.

In December 2009 I first read about the Klatt voices in a post on NVDA mailing list. After some initial testing, I filed a Ubuntu bug report(LP: #510182) requesting to include this version into Ubuntu. Eddie Hung build Espeak packages for testing on Ubuntu Lucid development release.

Meanwhile Luke Yelavich mentioned that we can't include unstable software releases and I wrote to espeak developer Jonathan Duddington to make a stable release just in time before the lucid code freeze. Luke and Jonathan managed resolve the technical problems, thanks to them you can now try out the espeak voice variants. Give it a try!

espeak -v 'en-us+klatt2' "This is espeak test"

Storm dargon responded to my email request to provide the steps to enable the klatt2 voice for US english. Here is how you enable them to use with orca screen reader.

cd /usr/share/espeak-data/voices/en/ cp en-us en-us.bak sudo gedit en-us #move to the end of the file press enter and type: klatt 2 #save the file and exit. Espeak will change to klatt 2 automatically.

Someone once commented "espeak voice sounds like a 1960's science fiction robot" and I think its true. Right now we should work to make them better, Interested Anyone?

Gnome Keyboard Shortcuts

Accelerate your Gnome keyboard navigation with these shortcuts. You should master these if you are orca screen reader user along with Orca keyboard shortcuts.

• Global Keyboard Shortcuts
• Alt+F1 Open the Main Applications Menu
• Alt+F2 Open the Run Application dialog.
• Print Screen Take a screenshot of the entire screen.
• Alt+ Print Screen Take a screenshot of the window that currently has focus.
• F1 If the focused element is an application window or dialog, this keyboard shortcut opens the Help for the application.
• Ctrl+F1 If the focused element is a panel or application window, this keyboard shortcut switches the display of tooltips for the window or panel objects on and off.
• Shift+F10 Open a popup menu for the element that has focus (if a popup menu exists for that element).
• Tab Give focus to the next element or control.
• Shift+Tab Reverse the navigation direction and give focus to the previous element or control.
• Ctrl+Tab Give focus to the next element or control if the Tab key has a specific purpose in a control.
• arrow keys Navigate within an element or control.
• spacebar Activate the element or control that has focus.For example, if the current control is a button, this action is the equivalent of clicking on the button with a mouse.
• Esc Close a window, menu, or drawer.
• F7 Switch to caret navigation mode. Caret navigation mode enables you to use the keyboard to select text.
• Ctrl+Alt +D Temporarily hide all windows and give focus to the desktop background.
• Ctrl+Alt +Tab Display a popup window with icons that represent the desktop background and the panels. Press and hold Ctrl+Alt and continue to press Tab to switch the focus between the desktop background and the panels.
• Navigating Windows
• Alt+Tab Display a popup window with icons that represent each window.
• Alt+Esc Raise each window in turn until you reach the window you want.
• Alt+F6 Cycle between windows belonging to the current application (eg, a multiple document interface application like Text Editor).
• Alt+ spacebar Open the Window menu.
• Alt+F4 Close the window.
• Alt+F9 Minimize the window.
• Alt+F10 Maximize the window.
• Alt+F5 Restore a maximized window to its original size.
• Alt+F7 Start the move operation.
• arrow keys Move the window 10 pixels at a time in the direction of the arrow key.
• Ctrl + arrow keys Move the window one pixel at a time in the direction of the arrow key.
• Shift + arrow keys Move the window in the direction of the arrow key and align it with the edge of the nearest window, panel or screen edge.
• spacebar Complete the move operation, leaving the window in the current position.
• Esc Cancel the move operation, restoring the window to its original position.
• Alt+F8 Start the resize operation.
• arrow keys Resize the window in the direction of the arrow key.
• spacebar Complete the resize operation, leaving the window at the current size.
• Esc Cancel the resize operation, restoring the window to its original size.
• F6 Give focus to the next pane.The system gives focus to the control that last had focus in the pane.
• F8 Give focus to the first resize handle in the window.The resize handle is displayed between the panes and enables you to resize the panes.Press F8 again to give focus to the next resize handle.
• Navigating Applications
• F10 Open the first menu on the application menubar.
• Alt + access key Open the menu that is associated with the access key
access keys Select the menu item that is associated with the access key.
• left arrow and right arrow Switch focus between the menus on the menubar.
• up arrow and down arrow Move focus into a menu.
• Esc Close the open menu and give focus to the control that had focus before the menubar.
• Ctrl+O Open the file selector dialog.
• Ctrl+S Open the Save dialog.
• Ctrl+L Open a Location dialog, enabling you to type the name of a file that you want to open or save.
• Ctrl+P Open a Print dialog, if available.
• Ctrl+C Copy highlighted text to the global, application-spanning clipboard.
• Ctrl+X Cut highlighted text to the global, application-spanning clipboard.
• Ctrl+V Paste text from the global, application-spanning clipboard to the current cursor position.
• Alt+access key Activate or select a control.
• Tab Give focus to the next control.
• Ctrl+Page Up Move to the next page/tabbed section of the dialog.
• Ctrl+Page Down Move to the previous page/tabbed section of the dialog.
• Esc Cancel/dismiss the dialog.
• Return Perform the default action for the dialog.
• Navigating Folders
• arrow keys Select the next or previous file or folder in the direction of the arrow key.
• Ctrl + arrow keys Give focus to the next or previous file or folder but do not select the item.
spacebar Open the focused file or folder.
• Ctrl + spacebar Select the item that currently has focus.
• Home Select the first file or folder within the current folder.
• End Select the last file or folder within the current folder.
• backspace Open the current folder's parent folder.
• Shift-F10 Open a file or folder popup menu.
• Ctrl-F10 Open the enclosing folder's popup menu (equivalent to right-clicking on the view pane background).
• F6 Switch focus between the side pane and the view pane.
• Shift+F10 Open the side pane popup menu.
• Caret Navigation Mode
• F7 Switch to caret navigation mode [Yelp-only].
• left arrow Move one character to the left.
• right arrow Move one character to the right.
• up arrow Move up one line.
• down arrow Move down one line.
• Ctrl + left arrow Move to the beginning of the previous word.
• Ctrl + right arrow Move to the end of the next word.
• Page Up Scroll up one page of content.
• Page Down Scroll down one page of content.
• Home Move to the beginning of the current line.
• End Move to the end of the current line.
• Shift + arrow keys Move from the current position to the destination position, selecting all text between the two positions.
• Tab Move focus to the next focusable control.
• Shift+Tab Move focus to the previous focusable control.
• Enter Activate a button, link or other control
.

Orca Keyboard Shortcuts

Perhaps the most common request from Orca screen reader users is the documentation. Few months ago Orca developers started rewriting most of the existing documentation. The Orca keyboard shortcut cheat sheet is part of this effort, it is now part of new orca man page.

Desktop Mode
       Flat review commands

       Numpad-7 move the flat review cursor to the previous line and read it.

       Numpad-8 read the current line.

       Numpad-9 move the flat review cursor to the next line and read it.

       Numpad-4 move the flat review cursor to the previous word and read it.

       Numpad-5 read the current word.

       Numpad-6 move the flat review cursor to the next word and read it.

       Numpad-1 move the flat review cursor to the previous character and read it.

       Numpad-2 read the current character.

       Numpad-3 move the flat review cursor to the next character and read it.

       Numpad-slash perform a left mouse click at the location of the flat review cursor.

       Numpad-star perform a right mouse click at the location of the flat review cursor.

       Bookmark commands

       Alt+Insert+[1-6] assign a bookmark to a numbered slot. 

       Insert+[1-6] go to the position pointed to by the bookmark bound to this numbered slot.

       Alt+Shift+[1-6]

       Insert+B and Insert+Shift+B move between the given bookmarks for the given application or page.

       Alt+Insert+B save the defined bookmarks for the current application or page.

 Miscellaneous functions

       Numpad+Plus
        'say all' command; reads from the current position of the caret to the end of the document.

       Numpad+Enter 'Where am I' command; speaks information such as the title of the current application 

       Insert+H enter into orca's 'learn mode'; press Escape to exit.

       Insert+Shift+Backslash toggle live regions monitoring on and off.

       Insert+F speak font and attribute information for the current character.

       Insert+Space Launch the orca Configuration dialog.

       Insert+Ctrl+Space  reload user settings and reinitialize services as necessary.
 Also launches the orca Configuration dialog for the current application.

       Insert+S toggle speech on and off.

       Insert+F11 toggle the reading of tables, either by single cell or whole row.

       Insert+Q quit orca.

       Debugging

       Ctrl+Alt+Insert+Home report information on the currently active script.

       Ctrl+Alt+Insert+End print a debug listing of all known applications 
to the console where orca is running.

       Ctrl+Alt+Insert+Page_Up print debug information about the ancestry of the object with focus.

       Ctrl+Alt+Insert+Page_Down print debug information about the hierarchy of the application with focus.

Laptop Mode
       Flat review commands

       Caps_Lock+U move the flat review cursor to the previous line and read it. 
Double-click to move flat review to the top of the current window.

       Caps_Lock+I read the current line. 
Double-click to read the current line along with 
formatting and capitalization details.

       Caps_Lock+O move the flat review cursor to the next line and read it. 
Double-click to move flat review to the bottom of the current window.

       Caps_Lock+J move the flat review cursor to the previous word and read it. 
Double-click to move flat review to the word above the current word.

       Caps_Lock+K read the current word. 
Double-click to spell the word. Triple-click to hear the word spelled phonetically.

       Caps_Lock+L move the flat review cursor to the next word and read it. 
Double-click to move flat review to the word below the current word.

       Caps_Lock+M move the flat review cursor to the previous character and read it.
Double-click to move flat review to the end of the current line.

       Caps_Lock+Comma read the current character. 
Double-click to pronounce the character phonetically if it is a letter.

       Caps_Lock+Period move the flat review cursor to the next character and read it.

       Caps_Lock+7 perform a left mouse click at the location of the flat review cursor.

       Caps_Lock+8 perform a right mouse click at the location of the flat review cursor.

       Caps_Lock+8 perform a right mouse click at the location of the flat review cursor.

       Bookmark commands

       Alt+Caps_Lock+[1-6] add a bookmark to the numbered slot. 
If a bookmark already exists for the slot it will be replaced with the new one.

       Caps_Lock+[1-6] go to the position pointed to by the bookmark bound to this numbered slot.

       Alt+Shift+[1-6]

       Caps_Lock+B and Caps_Lock+Shift+B move between the given bookmarks 
for the given application or page.

       Alt+Caps_Lock+B save the defined bookmarks for the current application or page.

 Miscellaneous functions

       Caps_Lock+Semicolon Caps_Lock+Enter

       Caps_Lock+H enter learn mode (press Escape to exit).

       Caps_Lock+Shift+Backslash toggle live regions monitoring on and off.

       Caps_Lock+F speak font and attribute information for the current character.

       Caps_Lock+Space launch the orca Configuration dialog.

       Caps_Lock+Ctrl+Space reload user settings and reinitialize 
services as necessary; also launches the orca Configuration dialog 
for the current application.

       Caps_Lock+S toggle speech on and off.

       Caps_Lock+F11 toggle the reading of tables, either by single cell or whole row.

       Caps_Lock+Q quit orca.

       Debugging

       Caps_Lock+Alt+Ctrl+Home report information on the currently active script.

       Caps_Lock+Alt+Ctrl+End prints a debug listing of all known applications
to the console where orca is running.

       Caps_Lock+Alt+Ctrl+Page_Up prints debug information about the ancestry 
of the object with focus.

       Caps_Lock+Alt+Ctrl+Page_Down prints debug information about the 
object hierarchy of the application with focus.

State of gnu/Linux Accessibility

Joanie's post sparked more conversations on gnu/Linux Accessibility. Here are some of the views expressed some of members of gnu/linux community.

Over the years, great progress has been made in the accessibility of GNOME. Using Orca, I am able to navigate around GNOME applications and Firefox. This has been made possible through a collaboration between engineers at Sun and dedicated volunteers (or perhaps "a dedicated volunteer" would be more apt). Engineers working on Firefox have also spent significant amounts of time ensuring that Gecko exposes the information that access technologies such as Orca need to represent web pages. This collaboration has been a blessing for the community and has allowed people with disabilities to productively use GNOME. On January 29, however, Will Walker, the lead Orca developer, was laid off by Oracle, and so now there are no more paid Orca developers. This was a continuation of what has been an over-all trend over the last couple of years in which companies have pulled funding from open source accessibility projects. I am concerned about the potential implications for the future if some sort of funding structure is not established.
on the state of open-source accessibility by Mike

As many of you may have heard, from blogs by Eitan, Mike and Joanie, as well as an e-mail to the gnome-foundation-lists by Fernando, the Gnome a11y community is having a tough time.

I have been interacting with the a11y community for over two years now, and in that time the funding situation has never looked good. I do not wish to insult or demean companies that are no-longer involved in funding Gnome a11y. Companies and individuals have their own priorities that they must follow. Work they have done in the past on Gnome is very much appreciated by me, even if they cannot continue that work in-to the future.

Funding Gnome a11y by Mark Doffmans

I have been on the road for the last two weeks. Headed back to Seattle tomorrow after a great FOSDEM in Brussels.

While on the road I have heard all sorts of news regarding GNOME accessibility, none of it good. I am angry, I feel like blaming somebody or something, but I am not sure what. Right now I am directing my frustration towards academics who still have funding to continue various assistive technology research that will probably never see the light of day as a usable application while the real bread and butter of an accessible platform is being taken away. It’s reflexive, I know it. Maybe later I will have a clearer picture of how we move forward.

GNOME accessibility, don’t take it for granted by Eitan

As you all probably know, Oracle recently bought Sun. Sun has been one of the largest contributors to the GNOME project during the last years. Probably is too early to know how this is going to affect GNOME project. However this last week we have seen some relevant events: Oracle laid off two members of the Sun's Accessibility Program Office.
e-mail to the gnome-foundation-lists by Fernando

An Open Letter to Oracle on the Topic Of Accessibility

Dear Oracle: You don't know me, so please permit me a brief introduction: I'm Joanie. By day, I'm an assistive technology specialist working with individuals who are blind or visually impaired. By night, weekend, and holiday for almost four years now, I've been a GNOME community contributor working primarily on the Orca screen reader, a project led by Sun's Accessibility Program Office. Working with the engineers at Sun, both inside and outside of the APO, has been an honor for a variety of reasons, not least of which is our shared common belief: Access isn't a privilege; it's a right. Towards that end, Sun Microsystems strived to ensure that ALL users have access to software and information.
Read More

Free software and the Blind: The IISE Experience

Abstract
The challenges and experiences of adopting GNU Linux at Braille Without Borders - International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs (IISE). Linux is non-commercial operating system developed by the world wide Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) community. Driven by the values of freedom and sharing of software, it is one of biggest volunteer effort to develop alternatives for commercial software. The easy to use Linux operating system is stable, secure, accessible, virus free and available in almost every language of the world.

The visually impaired participants of IISE are introduced to Linux and given laptops with Orca Screen reader. They are encouraged to participate and contribute by providing feedback on various accessibility and usability issues. Using Linux resulted in huge cost saving and it is used extensively in running campus Intranet and Internet connectivity. The benefits of adopting Linux were apparent despite some of the shortcoming of Linux assistive technologies. Working closely together the FLOSS developer community enabled us to resolve some of problems and helped make Linux better for blind everywhere.

What is FLOSS?

Linux operating system is developed by the world wide FLOSS (free/libre open source software) community. The FLOSS community of users and developers does collaborative development via the Internet. Anyone can contribute by finding and fixing software defects, suggest improvements, write documentation and translate software into different languages. The developers release an improved version of Linux every 6 months. Linux can be installed and configured by the visually impaired independently from sighted assistance.

What is IISE?

Braille Without Borders is a non-profit organization focuses on empowerment of the blind and partially sighted around the globe. Last year it has started International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs (IISE) in Kerala, India. The institute offers a one-year residential course for mainly blind and visually impaired participants from all over the world. The course imparts the necessary skills needed to initiate and run social projects to create opportunities for the disadvantaged. The FLOSS community is driven by values of freedom and sharing of software is apt choice for an organization that strives for social empowerment. The project uses Ubuntu Linux distribution as its main operating system and along with Orca screen reader.

The Challenges

Perhaps the biggest challenge was addressing the misconceptions about Linux. Being free in many people's opinions, means it cannot be stable and usable. Also people who used other operating systems and commercial screen readers would resist the change. After few weeks of training the participants started to open up and slowly became more comfortable using Linux with Orca screen reader. Given that Linux is virus free and wouldn't crash often also worked in its favor.

The Orca screen reader is slower and not as responsive as commercial screen readers. The voice quality of the FLOSS text to speech (TTS) leaves much to be desired. We are working closely with the developers to improve it and find workable solutions. The Orca screen reader is in active development, the new release supports Grade 2 Braille and uses a new speech system that improves its performance.

The Linux Advantage

There is huge saving of cost as there is no need to purchase licenses for an operating system and assistive technologies. Linux gives high performance on inexpensive hardware and there is no need for hardware upgrades to run newer software. Linux has a blind-friendly installation and most administration tasks can be done with a screen reader. It comes with large documentation and FLOSS community also offers online support.

Linux has a large number of software programs to choose from. It has everything you need from word processing software, spreadsheets, multimedia players and server software needed to run local Intranet. The IISE campus network runs various Linux servers for network management and Internet connectivity.

Bridging the Gap

The IISE encourages participants to engage with the FLOSS community in order to avoid becoming a passive consumer of software. This enables the visually impaired to influence and customize Linux to their needs. Apart from computer trainers, we had developers on campus who would ooeer a helping hand. The FLOSS developer community online provided quick fixes to various problems and gathers feedback about the needs of the visually impaired. By providing the users with the latest release of software, we found that they were quick to point out potential accessibility and usability issues. Thus we were able to do comprehensive testing of the operating system and improve it for every blind person around the world.

Conclusion

In all, Linux offers a win win situation being a sustainable alternative to commercial operating systems. Non-profits and institutions can benefit from its huge array of software. Problems do exist but can be addressed with the help of the FLOSS community. It is important to avoid being passive consumers of FLOSS software but be more proactive. We feel that the IISE experience can be a viable model that's worth emulating.

Paper published by Rakesh 'arky' Ambati in National Conference on ICTs for the differently- abled/under privileged communities in Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship (NCIDEEE 2009)

IISE Christmas Greetings

Its Christmas eve, the IISE campus is now a very lonely place. We miss our friends who returned to their countries to pursue the dream projects. I hope this audio greeting would bring joy and many warm memories.
Merry Christmas !!

Orca on Ubuntu Mobile Internet Device (MID) Edition

After trying various gnu/Linux distributions for mobile devices, I choose Ubuntu MID (8.10 Intrepid Ibex), a keyboard / mouse driven distribution from Ubuntu. It was possible to use a spare PC laptop as my test development platform instead of a MID Development kit. The idea behind this experiment to try running Orca screen reader on devices other than gnu/Linux personal computers.

Ubuntu MID distribution is targeted at new Mobile Internet Device (MID) devices, though it doesn't include gnome-orca package. But don't let that stop you, you can get the packages and its dependencies from main repositories and install it manually with dpkg. Right now not possible to install the gnome-orca packages from the main repositories due to 'lpia' architecture package tag conflict.

The list of needed packages are given below.

• at-spi_1.24.0-0ubuntu3_i386.deb
• gnome-orca_2.24.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb
• libatspi1.0-0_1.24.0-0ubuntu3_i386.deb
• libbrlapi0.5_3.10-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
• libgail-gnome-module_1.20.0-1ubuntu1_i386.deb
• libgnome-speech7_0.4.21-0ubuntu5_i386.deb
• libxevie1_1.0.2-3_i386.deb
• libxevie1-dbg_1.0.2-3_i386.deb
• python-brlapi_3.10-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
• python-gnome2_2.22.3-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
• python-gnome2-desktop_2.24.0-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
• python-gnomecanvas_2.22.3-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
• python-pyatspi_1.24.0-0ubuntu3_all.deb

Once the packages are installed with 'dpkg -i *deb'. The orca can be enabled via the accessibility menu or by setting the gconf settings. Though the interface is not yet accessible, I was able to use midori browser with Orca without any trouble.

Documentary on Rural Internet Kiosks in Africa

Few hours ago I heard that my friend Jawahar Patani finished the documentary about Rural Internet Kiosks(RIK) project. I have been helping this project for while now. I hope that this documentary would spread the word about this wonderful initiative.

Please visit www.ruralinternetkiosks.com to learn more about this project.

About the Documentary

This short documentary features ICT development in Africa with emphasis on how the Rural Internet Kiosk (RIK) is changing the way rural Africa communicates. The Rural Internet Kiosk is 100% solar powered and is connected to the Internet via Satellite using Astra2Connect VSAT technology.

You can watch the part 1 and part 2 of this documentary on youtube.

PyCon India 2009

Most action happens on conference sidelines PyCon India 2009 is no expection. You can always watch the recordings of talks later on. Catching up with friends comes first. Sharing ideas about projects, events and just talking all things geek. Good to hear that Santhosh was interested about integrating dhvani with speech dispatcher for Orca screen reader. Sharing experiences of working with non-profits with Sayamindu and talking about accessibility issues on OLPC SUGAR. And exploring possibilities of doing Ubuntu Karmic release parties in Chennai and Bangalore with Parthan (technofreak), Renuka and Debayan.

I did catch few of the lectures of Ramakrishna on Enterprise Linux, Parthan and the presentation by the FOSSEE team.

Parthan Python newbie talk The Mallu Gang ! Praveen shows his Android G2 Baij T-shirt with topsy turvy logo What's Reappy ? Jinesh checking out Samsung mobile (Q2?) Hiran hacking my T-shirt with a pen :) The Food was Good! Where are the crowds ? Ah! 75 students took off to see the city! Prabhu Ramchandran charms the crowds The feedback !

At National Workshop on Web Accessibility in Trivandrum

Delivered a lecture about Ubuntu accessibility features and Orca screen reader at the National Workshop on Web Accessibility here in Trivandrum. I had to wrap up the usually hour long talk quickly so that I can catch the train to Bangalore to be at the Pycon India 2009 the next day.

The two day Web Accessibility workshop hosted by SPACE and Centre for Internet and Society concluded at Christ Nagar International School today. 43 participants from various Government departments and private firms took part in the workshop. The aim of the workshop was to educate web developers of Government and non Government agencies on how to develop websites that are equally accessible to people with disabilities.

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Better Gnome Desktop Magnification with eZoom

The Gnome desktop provides magnification with gnome-mag. This program has very limited features and has quite a few performance issues. After upgrading to Ubuntu Jaunty, we had trouble using the full screen magnification. Ever since I have been searching for a better magnification for partially sighted, low vision Gnome desktop users.

The Compiz-Fusion's eZoom (Enhanced Zoom) desktop plugin steps in to fill the gap.

The zooming is quite smooth, but its appears very jerky in this video.

How to enable eZoom in Ubuntu Gnome Desktop?

To use eZoom desktop plugin, first install the compiz-fusion-plugins-main package. This package is available in Ubuntu itself. Then open the Compiz Configuration Manager and enable "Enhanced Zoom Desktop" under Accessibility menu.

Next step is to assign the keyboard shortcuts to zoom in and out. I have assigned Super+1 (Windows Key+1) to zoom in and Super+2 to zoom out.

GDM Timed Login

The Gnome Display Manager(GDM) is the graphical login program for Gnome Desktop environment. It is being completely rewritten, one of its goals is to provide better accessible login support.

The latest version of GDM has been uploaded into Ubuntu Karmic and is under active testing. There are few issues to be ironed out before we can have a fully accessible login with orca screen reader and magnifier. Until then I advice the blind gnu/Linux users to use GDM timed login.

Add the following lines to your /etc/gdm/custom.conf file to enable GDM timed login. Replace 'user' with your username.
[daemon] AutomaticLoginEnable=true AutomaticLogin=user TimedLoginEnable=true TimedLogin=user TimedLoginDelay=10
Please note that the configuration of GDM has moved away from previously single configuration file /etc/gdm/gdm.conf . As of now you can't use the graphic gdmsetup to configure GDM.

Enable Ctrl-Alt-Backspace in Ubuntu

Here is one change in the latest Ubuntu release Jaunty (9.04) that is *really* not blind friendly. You can no longer use the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace key combination to restart the graphical (X) session by default. Most of the Orca screen reader users have to resort to using this key combination to start over when Orca screen reader stops or hangs for some unknown reason.

Its not very difficult to turn on this feature back on. To enable this Ctrl-Alt-Backspace key combination you have to use the dontzap program. You might want to install this package on your computer. They type this command in the terminal.
sudo dontzap -d
Reboot the computer and you are ready.

Update In Ubuntu Karmic the dontzap has been removed. You have use the keyboard preference tool.

• Select "System"->"Preferences"->"Keyboard"
• Select the "Layouts" tab and click on the "Layout Options" button.
• Select "Key sequence to kill the X server" and enable "Control + Alt + Backspace".

Notify-OSD Now Works with Orca

The message came in last night as I was leaving office. It was response to bug #333134, it was a request to enable notifications from the new Notify-osd system work with Orca screen reader.

Hi Arky,
I would like to believe that this is resolved in recent updates. Please make sure you are using the most recent version of gnome-orca and notify-osd.

Thank you guys! You really made a difference to all the blind users around the world. Now there is one more good reason to grab the jaunty.

Gnome Default File Associations

One of the thing that's missing in the Gnome Desktop is an easy way of changing the default file associations. Especially for people with special needs like the blind and low-vision who access the Gnome Desktop using a Orca Screen reader. You can edit the mailcap file straight away to change the setting however that way for people who dabble in technical stuff.

The Davyd Madeley What's new in GNOME 2.8? page provides a nice preview of the changes in Gnome 2.8. The new MIME system looks the same as in the Gnome 2.24.1 . You still have to right click and use context menu, that a terrible idea for me. I rather like the accessible GUI like the Gnome Preferred Applications tool or the Nautilus File Management Preferences. I hope someone from the Gnome team can remedy this and provide single place to easily edit file associations.

GNOME Shutdown Menu Not Accessible

The accessibility problem of the GNOME shutdown menu is perhaps the most frequently raised question on accessibility (a11y) and the Orca mailing-lists and chat rooms. Orca screen reader doesn't speak up the contents of the shutdown dialog and its a pain to wait for next 60 seconds for the computer to start the shutdown process.

Here is a work around I use in Braille Without Borders IISE campus, the idea is to avoid the shutdown dialog prompting altogether. Here is how you turn it off. Go to System Menu and choose Preferences sub menu and scroll down to Power Management and select it (System > Preferences > Power Management). In the GNOME Power Management tool, select General Preference tab, change the "When power button is pressed is pressed" option to 'shutdown' instead of 'ask me'.