linux accessibility workshop, sun accessibility
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TRANSCRIPT
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Linux Accessibility Workshop2007-01-23, Karlsruhe
Sun AccessibilityMalte TimmermannTechnical ArchitectStarOffice/OpenOffice.orgSun Microsystems
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About the Speaker• Technical Architect in StarOffice/OpenOffice.org
Development• Working on StarOffice since 1991• Main focus: Core Development> Accessibility> Security> Architecture and Performance
• http://blogs.sun.com/malte
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Agenda• Sun Accessibility Efforts• StarOffice/OpenOffice.org Accessibility• Project of interest: Orca
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Sun Accessibility Efforts• Support for AccessX keyboard extension in Solaris X
Windows system• Java Accessibility API> To expose all needed information to AT
• Java Access Bridge for Windows> Because Windows AT is written in C/C++
• GNOME Accessibility API> Similar to JAA, with some improvements
• Java Access Bridge for GNOME> To make Java applications accessible on GNOME
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Sun Accessibility Efforts• GNOME TTS architecture• FreeTTS> Free “Text to Speech”, a port/re-write in Java of “Festival Lite”
• Implementation of accessibility APIs in different projects> Java, OpenOffice.org, GNOME, Mozilla,Thunderbird, Firefox,
Evolution
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Sun Accessibility Efforts• Gnopernicus> Open source screen reader for GNOME, in cooperation with BAUM
• GOK> Open source on screen keyboard for GNOME, in cooperation with
University of Toronto• Orca> Newest screen reader for GNOME> Developed by Sun, written in python, easy scripting support
• Regulation & Standardization> Member of OASIS OpenDocument Format Accessibility SC> Twice members of Section 508 advisory committee
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StarOffice/OpenOffice.org Accessibility• Started in 2001> Keyboard Accessibility> Colors and Fonts, High Contrast> Adapt to the color schemes and contrast display settings of the
operating system>Offers additional settings for colors which are not specified in
any system color schemes> Additional icon set
> Accessible Documentation> Additional features for different needs> Text selection cursor in read-only documents, disable
animations, force automatic font colors (for legacy documents)> Assistive Technology (AT)
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StarOffice/OpenOffice.org AT support• AT support questions> How to support different AT?> How to support different platforms?
• Decided to support Java Accessibility> Should work on Windows and on Linux/Solaris with GNOME> Only one implementation for both platforms> Advantages: Have AT support on multiple platforms more early
with given developer resources, only one implementation, maintenance costs>Disadvantages: Start-up performance (loading JavaVM) and
runtime performance (bridging C++ => Java => C)
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StarOffice/OpenOffice.org AT support• Design of UNO Accessibility API (UAA)> Looked at Java (JAA) and GNOME (ATK) APIs>Discussions with people from JAA and ATK>Discussions with AT vendor (BAUM) on best ways how to
expose different things> Full featured API > to not only expose UI and simple text content, but to also
expose full featured office document content> Lead to enhancements also in JAA and ATK> IBM did choose this API as a template for “IAccessible2”, which
they brought to “Free Standards Group” for standardization end of 2006.
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StarOffice/OpenOffice.org AT support• Bridging UAA to JAA> Faking to be a Java application> AT doesn't have to know anything about OpenOffice.org or
about that new Accessibility API> All AT that supports Java automatically supports OOo
• OOo 2.0.1: Direct UAA to ATK bridge> Improve startup performance, runtime performance and
memory consumption• Native Windows Accessibility support?> Win32 and MSAA are not powerful enough> Future: UIAutomation? IAccessible2 ?
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Project of interest: Orca• Started in 2004 by blind Sun engineer Marc Mulcahy> Python prototype, performance better than expected
• Project led by Willie Walker since early 2005> Willie is working on Accessibility stuff since early 90's
• User interface design by blind Sun engineer Mike Pedersen> Mike led the JAWS script writing department before coming to Sun
• Developed as an open source project from the beginning> The majority of design discussions and all of the source code have always
been free and open to the public• Orca is a "scriptable" screen reader that is layered on top of the GNOME
accessibility infrastructure> allows people to develop application-specific scripts for compelling access> Scripts are optional, not needed for general access to different applications
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Project of interest: Orca• Main focus currently are the GNOME desktop and office productivity applications• Orca primarily uses GNOME-speech for speech synthesis> GNOME-speech provides support for a number of speech synthesis engines,
both open source and commercial• Orca uses BrlTTY for braille support> BrlTTY supports a very large number of braille displays
• Orca uses GNOME-mag for magnification• Orca replaced Gnopernicus as the default screen reader for GNOME> The replacement came with the support of the Gnopernicus team
• Not only used for access to the desktop, but also for accessible installation of OS!• Orca community is growing> Contributions from all over the world> Positive feedback from users
