Re: Why isn't Open Office on Windows Accessible?

  • From: "RicksPlace" <ofbgmail@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 05:28:32 -0400

Hi Ken: I don't use java but that is the same problem senario under any Visual 
Studio or Microsoft environment as well. The hooks are there but they take time 
for developers to learn and then apply to projects both in Web and Desktop or 
Mobile applications. Your solution is also the best on I can think of. Perhaps 
if developers were required to use the accessibility tools the tools themselves 
would get much faster and easier to use. My guess is there would be allot of 
grumping if they were not fast and easy to use so the tool developers 
themselves would make the accessibility hooks easier and faster to use for 
developers. They would likely use some standard defaults for the accessibility 
hooks based on the control being exposed at the very least.
Rick USA 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Ken Perry 
  To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 7:52 PM
  Subject: RE: Why isn't Open Office on Windows Accessible?


  This is sort of what Android is doing even if they have not went far enough 
yet.  They have an accessible event that is thrown by all controls excepting 
static and some other problems but at any rate if you use basic controls you 
get the accessible events if however you want to make a custom action you can 
also throw accessible events that the screen readers like talk back will catch 
and speak or the accessibility tools like kick back and sound back can catch 
and do something with.  So its part developer putting in special access and 
part developer using the controls that are already accessible.  The unfortunate 
problem is what you get is only part accessible in most cases.  I am not saying 
Android is not accessible I am saying what Android is once again proving is if 
you leave it up to the developer at all us as developers are too lazy to do it. 
 Take me for example if I as a blind coder wrote a scrabble game I would not 
think of special cases for high resolution graphic cards to have spinning tiles 
or something to make the game more interesting for a sited player.  I would be 
shooting for my target audience.  The reverse is even worse not only are 
sighted programmers used to rapid development and anything that slows them down 
out, but they wouldn't know what we need to have sent to make something 
accessible unless we point it out.  Here is an example under the Android 
platform.  The default media player has very accessible artist and song lists. 
But when you open them they say nothing for example When you open the media 
layer you are on a tab screen and when you arrow left and right it says artist 
albums and songs.   If you click on artist nothing happens or at least as a 
blind person hears it nothing at all happens.  If however you are sighted you 
will notice that a whole list below opens up sort of like a tree but it's more 
like an expanded list.  If you don't know what you're doing and you click on it 
again because you thought nothing happened it would close the list.  Now a 
sighted coder wouldn't know this is a problem and the current access frame work 
doesn't take this into account.  What should have happened is a open event 
should have been thrown even though focus didn't change there should have been 
a notification.  Well it would have cost maybe 10 lines a code to make this 
work but those lines are not easy to find and if you don't know it needs to be 
there well you're not going to go looking in the View.java class and the 
accessible_inf_event.java class to figure out how it works because you don't 
know you need to.  

   

  So how do we fix this?  My answer is better thought out tool kits. Once the 
developers can just use and it will be accessible.  If they make accustom 
control then don't do something for accessibility it will error.  Will this 
ever happen.  My answer is no but shrug I hope I am wrong.

   

  Ken

   

  From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jay Macarty
  Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 1:29 AM
  To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Subject: Re: Why isn't Open Office on Windows Accessible?

   

  One of the ideas I have been toying with for the java screen reader (either 
we4java or jac) is providing a set of runtime annotations which could be used 
to enhance an application's accessibility by allowing the app developer to put 
in self voicing annotations. There are differing schools of thought on self 
voicing. Some say it is good because the developer knows the app best and where 
self voicing would be helpful. On the other hand, putting in self voicing 
without providing the user a way of controling it or turning off certain levels 
of it, takes away from the user's control over the accessibility feedback. If 
we put self voicing annotations into the java screen reader, a developer could 
add them in if desired but the base screen reader code base would still have 
control and could provide a common mechanism for allowing the user to adjust 
the self voicing feedback.

   

    ----- Original Message ----- 

    From: Ken Perry 

    To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

    Sent: Friday, August 13, 2010 5:20 PM

    Subject: RE: Why isn't Open Office on Windows Accessible?

     

    I agree with Chris H.'s answer but I want to point out it's our fault it's 
not already accessible.  I wrote a simple talking java screen reader that did 
very little but it made it so I could use  Open Office. Crappily but the 
buttons talked and all and I did this in like 200 lines of code.  I know that 
code got passed around and I have since lost my copy but it  can be done by 
replacing the access bridge with self voicing code.  It just takes someone 
actually doing it. 

     

    I am interested to see where Open Office goes now that it is Oricals.  I am 
worried about all Java stuff now that Orical is trying to Sew Google into 
stopping Android.  It's a crazy world.

     

    Ken

    From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kerneels Roos
    Sent: Friday, August 13, 2010 3:30 AM
    To: programmingblind
    Subject: Why isn't Open Office on Windows Accessible?

     

    Hi List,

    Sorry if this question has been raised before and dealt with. Does anyone 
know exactly why the Windows version of Open Office is only partly accessible 
with a screen reader, while the Linux version is streets ahead? Because Open 
Office is written in Java I assume the code base is 98% identical across 
platforms. Is the problem mainly with the JAB (Java Access Bridge) or with the 
screen readers themselves? Could the JAB not be open sourced so it can be 
updated to bridge Java, MSAA, UIA and any other access middle ware standard? 

    NVDA works the best with Open Office, so I would assume it makes the best 
use of the JAB. Is there other Java to access technology middle ware in common 
use today?

    I can remember a really long thread that in part had some info on Java 
accessibility, but I just can't justify going through all that to possibly find 
out more.

    Keep well


    -- 
    Kerneels Roos
    Cell/SMS: +27 (0)82 309 1998
    Skype: cornelis.roos

    The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese!

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