Re: Flexible multiple AT app configuration

[Henrik Nilsen Omma <henrik ubuntu com>]

Bill Haneman wrote:
> Hi Henrik:
>
> Thanks for doing the mock-up.  I like this idea.
>
> I would suggest adding the 'description' bar (like the one in 
> add/remove applications)
> to the AT configuration dialog, so the user could see more info about 
> the applications before selecting them for autostart.

That makes sense. We'll be needing an XML file or something (gconf?) for 
the data anyway so we could easily add a description (unless you think 
the .desktop files you mention at the end can hold all the info we need).

> Do you think we really need "add" and "remove" buttons here?  
The idea was that the user would be able to add their own applications, 
perhaps installed directly from a 3rd party. This may even be 
proprietary things. From an Ubuntu perspective I don't actually care 
much about this as we will package the things we consider most useful.

That raises the question of what happens when the user installs a new 
application from the repository, say Dasher. In Ubuntu we do not install 
Dasher by default because we feel that the need is fairly well covered 
by the on-screen keyboard. Using that you should be able to install 
Dasher if you want it.

But Dasher is clearly an AT app and so when the user installs it from 
synaptic I would want it to appear in this dialog automatically, 
complete with the relevant meta-data. Where is that stored? In the new 
XML file already, or will we modify the Dasher package to inject this 
data when it is installed (and remove upon un-install)?

Perhaps the best option would be to have Dasher appear on the list even 
when not installed, but greyed out. That way we would make even the 
non-installed packages more discoverable. The XML file would not need to 
change dynamically because the utility would just check if an AT was 
installed and show it greyed out if not. Such non-installed items could 
of course have an install button on it for easy installation.

Getting back to the question: I'd be happy to go without the Add/Remove 
buttons for now and see if there is a real-world demand. Perhaps hat and 
a few other things can go under and Advanced button in the future.
> Or would just "configure" and "start", plus the autostart checkbox, be 
> enough?  
After making the mock-up and looking at Add Applications again, I now 
think that the separate button for autostart should be removed and the 
checkmark for it should be interactive (as in Add Apps)

> I presume the up/down arrows are for controlling the order in which 
> the ATs start?
Right. I'm not sure those are really needed though. Does it really 
matter which start first? Perhaps the ones selected for autostart and 
the installed ones should just appear above the not-installed ones?

> I don't really like the idea of removing the ATs from the applications 
> menu altogether though; I think they should still be discoverable and 
> invokable from a submenu of the Applications menu, and I think many 
> users will have grown to expect them there.  
Because we have a few key pieces of AT installed by default in Ubuntu, 
on every Live CD and HD install we have opted to remove them from the 
Applications menu (which we try to keep minimalistic -- if everyone got 
their favourite feature in there it would be a mess). We have other ways 
of activating them though, from the Live CD boot prompt, from at-prefs 
(our hack) and we are looking at options for GDM startup. It's fairly we 
documented on our website and we've not had complaints of poor 
discoverability.

But, that's just us. Other distros will take a different approach. I'm 
also happy for the Gnome default behaviour to be that each installed app 
has an entry in Applications -> Accessibility (or can we call it 
'Universal Access'? :) ). When we install something extra in Ubuntu like 
Dasher that app does get a menu item and we do then spawn an 
Applications -> Accesibility menu. Users often expect to find newly 
installed apps in the menu.

I would hope that Gnome and other distros would find it reasonable to 
also have a start button on the AT config dialog we are discussing even 
though it is slightly redundant. At the least I would ask that we put it 
in the source code as an ifdef so that the Ubuntu patch can be very simple.

> But I really like this dialog as a way of starting the ATs 
> automatically.  Should we retain the "AT support" checkbox, or should 
> AT support be somehow implicit, i.e. if you select orca or LSR at 
> startup should the AT support automagically be turned on as well?  (If 
> we decide the answer should be 'yes', then we have the question of 
> when to turn it off...)

From a usability POV I think the answer is clearly 'yes' and we should 
focus on 'how' until that proves impossible.

If we make this the standard utility for deciding what starts 
automatically, can we then modify AT-SPI (or whatever is responsible for 
starting it) to check the XML file/gconf at startup? Each application 
would have a needs_atspi flag and a start_on_boot flag. It would be a 
simple matter of searching for an application where both are true and 
then start AT-SPI.

> I think the 'AT' application type can be set/provided in the .desktop 
> files for the apps, so I'd suggest using the .desktop files to find 
> the installed ATs on a system.

Sounds good, though we may need to store some more info about each in a 
separate register.

Henrik