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

  • From: Alex Midence <alex.midence@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:40:43 -0500

The blind developer community's ability to potentially self-voice open
office notwithstanding, I think Open Office is not accessible because
FS and GWMicro haven't decided to make it so.  From everything I have
read, a lot of effort has been made to make the app accessible from
hotkeys to UI customization to partial support for ia2accessibility.
If someone like Ken and the rest of you who are profficient in Java
and other languages can customize the app to make it accessible,
surely members of the staff at FS and GW Micro can as well.  They have
the source code available, for godsake, so it's not like they can't
get cooperation from the vendor or something like that.  Not enough
people in the blind community in general nor the
vocational/rehabilitation/government services community in particular
are aware that it even exists.  I just sat down with people from my
own state's department of rehabililtation services's Division for
Blind Services and only 1 out of about 6 or 7 of them had ever even
heard of it.  When they found out there was an office suite out there
that was free and could potentially be put on people's pc's and enable
them to learn word processing, spreadsheet techniques, database
techniques ETC., that it also offered support for exporting to daisy
and an extension for braille translation, they were flored.  "Where
can I get this?" they wanted to know.  They didn't even know about
NVDA.  they were floored about that too.  "really, a free screen
reader?  Wow!"   I seriously think that if more people in these types
of organizations knew about it, and the other open source apps out
there, that FS and Gwmicro would starthearing many more demands for
their product to work with them.  Sadly, not everyone can code their
own solution to the problem so, some effort should be made to raise
awareness of these issues with the people who could probably get a
quicker and more favorable response from the screen reader vendors
who, in my opinion, have the responsibility for making their product
work with as many apps as possible.

My two cents.
Alex


On 8/17/10, RicksPlace <ofbgmail@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 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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