Re: [gtk-list] Re: Gtk Accessibility for the blind and deaf

[Kenneth Albanowski <kjahds kjahds com>]

On Fri, 8 Jan 1999, Paolo Molaro wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 08, 1999 at 10:04:29AM -0500, Kenneth Albanowski wrote:
> > It just occured to me that Gtk, by not using the Athena or Motif widgets,
> > has one significant disability: support of packages like UltraSonix, which
> > provide screen review of text via speech and braile interfaces. Has anyone
> > looked at this issues (and the simpler ones of auditory cues not being
> > usable by the deaf)? 
> > 
> > I'm in contact with the UltraSonix folks, but I'd like to know if anyone
> > else has done any work in this area.
> 
> I'm working on a gtk module that you can load with --gtk-module
> and that will enable a speech interface. I'm using festival right
> now, but it's easy to add other speech sinthesizers...

Are you interfacing this with any existing speech control systems, or is
it just speech from each individual gtk application? 

> This will automatically enable every gtk app to produce
> speech feedback for blind users.

But is there a governor between different applications, or are they all
just producing speech feedback by themselves?

> There is, however, another thing that must be implemented
> and working in every app for them to be usable by blinds: 
> keyboard navigation and complete keyboad control of the application.

Well, it certainly wouldn't hurt, but remember that the concept of
"navigation" can break down fairly quickly, and synthesizing focus changes
is perhaps the simplest task that a speech agent might have to perform. 
Better to have a well defined concept of control order first, and build
navigation on top of that. 

-- 
Kenneth Albanowski (kjahds@kjahds.com, CIS: 70705,126)