Re: WebKit and GNOME



+1 for Will's comments.
First, Webkit needs strong accessibility foundation before moving onto advanced features like ARIA. While ARIA spec has reached its maturity, the user interaction model did not, and, I am afraid, we would not have answers for certain user interaction questions if asked right now.
Regards,
Vic

Willie Walker wrote:
Hi All:

Just my 2 cents here:

I would definitely object to WebKit being the de facto rendering engine if it did not support accessibility. In addition, as WebKit accessibility work is done, I recommend looking at the existing AT-SPI implementation done in Gecko as a potential model for how the document model can be represented via AT-SPI -- it was developed with real world experience. Furthermore, I would also recommend collaborating with assistive technologies along the way, making sure design decisions are actually workable solutions. Finally, if it has not already been done, I would suggest that the keyboard navigation model be nailed down -- mouseless users need to be able to fully navigate web pages, cut/paste content, etc.

For ARIA, I agree that basic accessibility integration for web content is a higher priority. This does not mean, however, that ARIA support should not be included in the plans. My hope is that Maciej really meant "we will look at basic accessibility integration first and ARIA next" instead of "ARIA is an interesting toy and we won't support it." ;-)

For yelp, I'm comforted that the team is targeting an accessible solution for GNOME 2.24: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=499744. This will help give our users much needed access to help and not require them to wait for WebKit a11y to emerge.

Will

On Apr 1, 2008, at 6:32 PM, Eitan Isaacson wrote:

On Tue, 2008-04-01 at 16:37 -0400, David Bolter wrote:
Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
4) Accessibility. This is only implemented in the Mac port currently.
We are moving the core accessibility code to be cross-platform, which
should make it fairly straightforward to hook it up to ATK or other
accessibility APIs. Sometimes ARIA is mentioned in the context of
accessibility - this is an interesting technology for future web apps,
but I believe basic accessibility integration for web content is a
higher priority.


This wording "Sometimes ARIA is mentioned in the context of
accessibility - this is an interesting technology for future web apps"
doesn't seem quite right to me. ARIA enabled browsers such as Firefox
provide access to ARIA enabled DHTML applications today. Opera and IE8
are adding support today. Google is putting ARIA into its web applications.


I agree with David. ARIA is becoming a major component in any accessible
web application. It's not something in the distant future. It would be
premature to crown webkit as the GNOME engine for all purposes until
this is properly addressed. Nonetheless, for basic document viewing,
like Yelp, Webkit could be a good solution, providing it has accessible
structured document support.

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