RFC: Easier console accessibility configuration.

[Luke Yelavich]

Greetings all
For those of you who tracked the specifications during the Paris 
developer's summit, you will probably know that there were some 
important accessibility related specifications that were drafted, and 
subsequently approved. Among those specifications, there was speakup 
inclusion,(1) and spoken boot.(2) Both specifications state that 
configuration will allow them to be off by default, but allow them also 
to be turned on if a user so wishes. Both these specifications also rely 
on other packages, some of which have to be loaded via an init script at 
system startup.

Since these services need to be turned off by default, and since the 
spoken boot specification requires additions to the initramfs, I am 
proposing that for this release at least, a script be written to more 
easily allow the user to turn features on and off accordingly. This can 
then be re-written to be a more useful control panel for all 
accessibility options, and support more desktop environments in future 
releases.

I am currently working on the userspace scripts required for the speakup 
inclusion specification, and will also be doing so shortly for spoken 
boot, so it won't take much to include what I have proposed above.

However, I am wondering about how we may present these options to the 
user. Even though speakup is a console tool, users may still wish to 
enable it when in GNOME, and they also may wish to enable spoken boot. I 
was thinking it may be possible to extend the assistive technologies 
control panel somehow, and add a tab with the options available, but I 
also think we should have a command-line tool available to 
enable/disable/show status as well.

Thoughts and suggestions welcome.

(1) https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SpeakupInclusion
(2) https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SpokenBoot
-- 
Luke Yelavich
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