Hi Jean-Philippe Thanks for highlighting the need for IA2 support in AOO.
I agree that IBM offering the Symphony support for the IA2 [1] accessibility API will 'potentially' make AOO available to a much wider user base by providing vital support to NVDA and other assistive technology running on Windows (incidentally, IA2 support will also make automated testing much easier on Windows and allows tasks traditionally done via UNO). As you point out the current limited support plus fact that the alternative Java Access Bridge is too complex for users to install themselves means that accessibility tool developers such as NVDA are forced to recommend Symphony as the accessible Office suite for Windows. I say 'potentially' as the developers in the community will make it a priority if, and only if, it is clear there is a strong demand for IA2 and someone leads the work and use of it. So I would encourage you to continue your work of letting us know of the need and also suggest you guide other users and developers who require IA2 support in AOO to join in the discussion here. A good approach would be to get folks to blog about why it is important and we can post links here. That way the AOO community will be encouraged to work on ensuring there is an open and accessible Office suite available for Windows. In fact there may eventually be even more choice for users if AOO becomes the core used by other projects, as indeed it has the potential to be. It's great to hear from Marcus that dev work is under way. It's up to us in the accessibility community to 'cheer them on'. So please do encourage the NVDA community to join in here. I'll ping the developers and let them know of your interest and this thread that you started. Thanks again 1: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/accessibility/iaccessible2 Steve Lee OpenDirective 2011/9/27 Jean-Philippe MENGUAL <mengualjean...@free.fr>: > Ok thanks very much for this interesting answer. If you need some > dialogue with NVDA or Orca (Linux), and if I can help as intermediate, > no problem, don't hesitate. I follow the situation as I consider it's a > very important progress to promote better free software in general. > > Thanks for your interest. > > Regards, > > Jean-Philippe MENGUAL > > > Le mercredi 28 septembre 2011 à 00:05 +0200, Marcus (OOo) a écrit : >> Am 09/27/2011 08:58 PM, schrieb Jean-Philippe MENGUAL: >> >> Hi Jean-Philippe, >> >> > As ordinary blind user, I work very much to promote OOo and >> > accessibility free software for blind people. The current problem is >> > that public administrations, in France, choose OOo, but blind people are >> >> thanks a lot for your effort to promote OOo. :-) >> >> > complaining, as they consider it's not perfectly accessible with NVDA >> > (Free screen reader for Windows). And migrating to Linux isn't always >> > easy in a network (active directory features, ...). >> > >> > However, IBM Symphony works fine. My problem is that's not a really free >> > software. Nethertheless, IBM, according I was told, gave to the Apache >> > Foundation Iaccessible2, which is the code which enables Symphony to be >> > perfectly accessible with NVDA. >> >> That's correct. >> >> > Could someone study Iaccessible2 and integrate it in OOo? It'd be great >> > if OOo could be accessible with NVDA in the next stable releases. As no >> > developper, I'd appreciate if you could tell me when it's integrated, if >> > someone accepts to do it. >> >> I don't know if it's already completely arrived or if there are still >> some things to fix before it can be integrated into the code. However, >> we are really working on taking advantage of the IA2 technology. Maybe >> Rob can say more about the current status. >> >> It's very unlikely that it will be part of the first AOO release because >> of this and nobody knows the side effects that could occur. So, IMHO >> expect it not for the coming release but for the following one. >> >> HTH >> >> Marcus >
