Re: [orca-list] Webkit

[Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs igalia com>]

Hey Alex.

On 04/23/2012 06:06 PM, Alex Midence wrote:
> Exactly my point in my prior message.  Does such a feature negatively
> impact the experience for somebody who doesn't use a11y?

I don't know. In the bug I filed against Gwibber, the developer
mentioned it might raise some issues with their "non-standard scrolling
behavior." By the same token, the developer did not ignore the bug or
say "who cares?" See https://bugs.launchpad.net/gwibber/+bug/682235.

I think the thing to remember is that most projects have a very small
team of developers with quite a lot on their plates. They have to
prioritize. So I just pinged the bug in question. If using Gwibber
really matters to you, a constructive comment to that effect might prove
beneficial.

As for your other question about why not do it in Orca via AT-SPI2: That
is less reliable and it is less performant. Compare how speedy Orca is
in Epiphany versus Firefox; consider the fact that text selection is
reported in Epiphany and not in Firefox; look at the thousands upon
thousands of lines of fragile code Orca has for Firefox, compared to the
hundreds of lines of code Orca has for WebKitGtk content; ask yourself
why it is that any significant change in the Gecko accessibility
implementation threatens the Orca user experience (hint: it's not
because of a bug in Gecko or in Orca, but simply because something
somewhere changed unexpectedly). The reason why the Firefox experience
has the problems it does for Orca users is *because* we did for Gecko
exactly what you are suggesting: Do it via AT-SPI2.

So, yeah, I hear you. Your concerns are valid. But, I think that if we
can get the developers of the apps we really care about (e.g. Gwibber)
to enable caret navigation, we'll get the results we want for those
apps. And as we come across additional apps, our bug reports can include
a reference to those apps whose developers have already solved the
problem. After all "please do this thing you don't yet know how to do"
is not nearly as persuasive as "please do this thing, and by the way,
here's some code that illustrates how to do it." <smiles>

Take care.
--joanie