Ubuntu phones and accessibility for the blind

[Milton]

Maybe a point to start?
https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/03/03/the-value-of-the-community/?_ga=1.26280317.1569423750.1450296328



Op 02-03-16 om 06:18 schreef Michael Pozhidaev:
> Hi Luke,
>
> Thank you very much for the information you give! The only question I
> would like to ask is should we expect the team, which will be involved
> in fixing input events and general Mir support, working somewhere around
> Ubuntu or this team is just the same team who are now busy with AT-SPI
> development around Linux Foundation?
>
> Evidently, it's reasonable to expect that everything should happen
> in the main AT-SPI source code tree, but since we are talking about Mir
> and Ubuntu Touch, the work can go somewhere else.
>
> Luke Yelavich writes:
>
>> On Tue, Mar 01, 2016 at 06:20:18PM AEDT, Michael Pozhidaev wrote:
>>> Hi Luke,
>>>
>>> Luke Yelavich writes:
>>>
>>>> There is much to be done to get this off the ground. Given that
>>>> Canonical is writing its own display server Mir, the first requirement
>>>> is to properly tie in the accessibility infrastructure, mainly at-spi,
>>>> into working properly with Mir to intercept input events, and extend
>>>> at-spi itself to support touch. It would then be a matter of extending
>>>> Orca to work with touch, and not requiring Gtk support. In addition,
>>>> Qt's own linux accessibility support would likely need much work,
>>>> particularly the QML accessibility components. Ubuntu's QML based SDk
>>>> would also need much accessibility work.
>>>
>>> Yes, really a plenty of work to do. Could it be reasonable to try
>>> first getting some features for basic phone functions (just to have
>>> something for the beginning), and, after that try the work you have
>>> described?
>>
>> It is possible, but I am not sure how one would be able to find what they
>> need on screen without some way of the touch inputs being intercepted,
>> to make sure you don't activate something which you did not mean to
>> activate. Simple notifications like who is calling, incoming messages
>> could be done, but the problem as I see it, is then trying to get to the
>> appropriate app to re-read such data.
>>
>>> I know a bit about AT-SPI internals (Mike Gorse helped me a lot with
>>> that), and agree that this work is worthy enough to do, but will it let
>>> us get an accessible phone  in observable future?
>>
>> That all depends on the number of developers who are involved to make this
>> happen. Extending at-spi to support touch events will likely need to be
>> done at some point for Wayland, so that could certainly be started now by
>> those of us who are keen to get it done. The real challenge is then tying
>> it in with the Mir display server that Canonical is using on the phone
>> already, which would likely require help from the Mir developers for best
>> results. They already have a high level understanding of what is needed,
>> but getting this working is not a priority for them right now.
>>
>>  From what they told me, they would probably want Mir itself to assume
>> control for input interception, rather than at-spi itself, since they
>> don't want external processes to have access to any of Mir's input event
>> management data.
>>
>>> Is Ubuntu phone already on Mir or it still uses ordinary X.org? I am
>>> really impatient to try something (although don't have this phone
>>> yet). I am ready to try getting this phone, but I need to be sure
>>> that I will be able to have access to its internals. Otherwise,
>>> apparently , I will be unable to do anything at all.
>>
>> As above, Mir is used on the phone now.
>>
>>> I am planning to be in London from April 10th till 18th (and completely
>>> unaware when could get next chance to come to London). May I ask
>>> somebody to meet and let me know about this phone more please? If I get
>>> first understanding, I will purchase it for further experiments. I
>>> support everything what you have write and would be happy to participate
>>> in this development, but just want to have something to use as soon as
>>> possible. Just because I don't see nothing suitable arount instead. I
>>> don't trust Android, Tizen is completely unclear with its accessibility
>>> features, but Ubuntu phone is very inspirable also as a thing which I
>>> can improve myself.
>>
>> Sorry, I am not sure I am able to help here with advice as to who you could contact in London to try and get more info/help with the Ubuntu phone platform.
>>
>> Luke
>