Re: Ideas for upcoming Bolzano GTK+ hackfest

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Willie:

At last year's GTK+ hackfest there wasn't a lot of a11y discussion or
participation from the people who work on a11y-specific GTK+ features.
Since the hackfest is invite-only, I suspect that the right people will
only get invited if there is some reasonable list of issues and items
to warrant people traveling to attend the event and spending time
working on the issues involved.

> > Note that the GTK+ hackfest is more focused on issues that relate to
> > GTK+ and the future of GTK+.  It is probably not a good forum to deal
> > with issues where applications are not properly implementing GTK+ a11y
> > features, and other issues which do not relate directly to GTK+.
>
> Thanks for clarifying the constraints are for GTK+ only and no other 
> discussion is allowed or permitted.  This definitely narrows things, but 
> also opens up some stuff, too.

I would imagine it would be okay to discuss some non-GTK+ issues at the
hackfest, though it probably would not be the main focus.

> > > I have a few things that would be great to get a handle on:
> > >
> > > 1) http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=535827 - the current 
> > > solution of using environment variables is deemed distasteful by 
> > > some, but nobody has been able to offer a better solution.  Hackers 
> > > might try to look at this one hard.
> >
> > This seems like an issue that would be appropriate to discuss.
>
> Yep - even if the existing 'hacks' include changes in things outside 
> GTK+ (e.g., atk, java, OOo, Gecko), GAIL is indeed part of GTK+ and the 
> module loading is part of GTK+.  One thing that might be considered here 
> is whether a11y modules are different enough from other GTK+ modules to 
> warrant a newer/separate way to load them.
>
> <<<numerous items questioning the appropriateness of items deleted now 
> that the constraints are clearer>>>
>
> > It might be good if someone on the a11y team were to review
> > a11y-specific GTK+ bugs to see what issues might be good to discuss.
>
> This is definitely a good idea, and is what I mean by "open up" above. 
> Most of the GTK+ a11y bugs have been pushed aside or ignored, and this 
> might be a good venue to unclog them:
>
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&product=gtk%2B&long_desc_type=substring&long_desc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=accessibility&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bug_status=NEEDINFO&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=substring&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailqa_contact2=1&emailcc2=1&emailtype2=substring&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0= 

Yes, this would be a good use of the hackfest, I think.  Also, would
probably be good just to make sure that any future directions the GTK+
team is planning takes into consideration a11y issues.

> We can also go through our list of known GTK+ issues to make sure the 
> "accessibility" keyword is on them.

If possible, it would be good to get a more concrete list of items to
discuss so that we could propose to the GTK+ hackfest coordinators that
some a11y related issues be added to the agenda.

Brian