Re: Exploring LibreOffice Accessibility with Accerciser.

[Jason White <jason jasonjgw net>]

Dattatray Bhat <bhatdv gmail com> wrote:
 
> Thanks for the prompt response. I am working on Orca screen reader. I want
> to add a feature that would provide the user with a document summary
> including all elements (headings, tables, form elements etc.) irrespective
> of whether they are on-screen or off-screen.

I'm wondering whether this would be better written in LibreOffice itself or as
an extension rather than as an Orca script.

I don't know either way, but I am concerned about screen readers that
implement features which really ought to be part of the application, e.g.,
navigable lists of links/document outlines etc.

I can think of three disadvantages:

1. Only screen reader users can access the feature even if it would be helpful
to others.

2. All of the processing has to be carried out over the accessibility
interface by the screen reader, whereas it would be faster if the application
took care of it.

3. The code of the screen reader becomes more complex. There is more
application-specific code that has to be maintained by screen reader
developers indefinitely into the future and which has to keep up with changes
in the application.

I don't know what you're proposing and I am not well qualified to give an
opinion on whether your feature should be written in Orca or in LibreOffice.
Rather, I am expressing a general concern about the push for more and more
complex, application-specific, interactive features in screen readers which I
think should be resisted.

In the free software world, we also have the advantage that changes can be
made to applications and extensions can be written, so it doesn't have to be
done in the assistive technology.