Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26 [IAccessible2 support in JAWS]
On 22/06/2022 14.44, Jason White wrote: Note also that GTK 4 implements its own accessibility API, which, under Linux, connects directly to the running AT-SPI 2 demon. This approach may be an option in the future when the GTK 4 accessibility support matures. In other words, GTK is migrating away from ATK. For now, though, maintaining and improving the ATK support would be the best option for Linux users. I agree that focusing on improving a11y for the gtk3 variant (gtk3 "VCL plugin", which uses ATK) for Linux sounds like a reasonable approach for production use for now until GTK4 a11y matures. Besides that, I am also looking a bit into improving a11y for the Qt based VCL plugins, but that is far from being in a usable state as of now. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
RE: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26 [IAccessible2 support in JAWS]
Hi Michael,
yes, it is correct that IAccessible2 and ATK were both devised with the Open
document format model in mind, with the implementation in Firefox following
closely behind, introducing some web specific modifications into the
specifications for both platforms.
So, yes, as Michael W. suggested, for the near term, and probably some years to
come, it is a good strategy to fix bugs in the IAccessible2 and ATK layers to
get them up to speed. And as I said, even Impress can be made to work, at least
with NVDA, by making sure to collaborate with the NVDA project so they support
it when it is ready.
It is, however, a good strategy to also keep an eye on UIA, at least on the
side, and also watch what Mozilla do with Firefox in the longer term with
regards to an UIA implementation. Just to not get hit out of the blue with
suddenly IAccessible2 support twindling within assistive technologies because
everyone else has moved to UIA.
Marco
-Original Message-
From: Michael Stahl
Sent: Thursday, June 9, 2022 11:51 AM
To: Michael Weghorn ; Marco Zehe ;
accessibility@global.libreoffice.org
Cc: libreoffice...@lists.freedesktop.org; libreoff...@lists.freedesktop.org
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26
[IAccessible2 support in JAWS]
On 09.06.22 11:21, Michael Weghorn wrote:
> I suppose that supporting new UIA concepts/features in addition would
> probably require more fundamental changes than "just" adding a new
> wrapper/bridge for UIA around existing LO a11y interfaces (either a
> custom one, or using Gtk/Qt).
> But I'm not an expert and have only little experience with a11y so far
> and not looked into UIA any closer, so all of the above would need
> deeper knowledge/further investigation for a more reliable statement.
>
> Unless there are resources to work on UIA specifically, I tend to
> think it would make sense to focus on improving the existing
> IAccessible2-based implementation ("winaccessibility") (and fixing
> issues that are not platform-specific) for now if that's (still)
> sufficiently supported by AT in practice, and reconsider what to do
> about UIA at some later point in time (at which there might also be
> news on the state of gtk4 and qt5/qt6 a11y).
i tend to agree, one aspect of this is that AFAIK the AT-SPI and
IAccessible2 APIs that concern document content were designed specifically with
OOo's document models in mind - there might be a bigger impedance mismatch to
other A11y APIs, needing more code in the "translation layer".
but i don't know any details about UIA.
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Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26 [IAccessible2 support in JAWS]
Hi Marco, all,
On 09/06/2022 09.39, Marco Zehe wrote:
AFAIK, QT exposes accessibility information to UIA on Windows. They switched
over from an MSAA implementation to UIA some time in the QT5 time frame:
https://www.qt.io/blog/2018/02/20/qt-5-11-brings-new-accessibility-backend-windows.
Indeed, that was what I had come across as well. (I had linked the
corresponding Qt commit in the wiki article about adding UIA support.)
So, using QT widgets in the VCL certainly would help with that, UIA
implementation bugs in the Windows QT layer not withstanding of course. So,
there are advantages of using QT on Windows where appropriate, but that also
entails the danger of inheriting QT UIA bugs.
Very true. While looking a bit into a11y of the Qt-based LO VCL plugins
on Linux, I also came across some issues that need fixing for the AT-SPI
integration in the Qt library rather than in LO.
I don't know anything about GTK4, so cannot make any qualified statement.
At a quick glance, everything underneath Gtk 4's "gtk/a11y" directory in
git ( https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/tree/main/gtk/a11y ) still
looks AT-SPI only, though that might change at some point.
The original advantages of IAccessible2 and GTK3 was that they were made to be
very closely related to one another in terms of concepts. But with GTK4 and
other frameworks becoming more prominent, this has only been in a maintained
state for years, not really further developed, except for adding necessary
missing pieces for new HTML widgets or markup. UIA, on the other hand, has
turned out to be much more flexible especially with the latest enhancements
published by Microsoft. Custom property sets etc., which allows for various
annotations in MS Word, Excel etc. NVDA has a pull request for implementation
of some of these newest UIA technologies into their support for MS Office here:
https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/pull/13387
So, in the long run, it is probably safest to indeed invest in switching to an UIA implementation.
Note, however, that you may still need to do some work yourselves for the document specific stuff for Writer, Calc, and Impress specifically, since probably not everything is available in the QT libraries that you need.
As I understand it from what I have seen so far, the concept for current
LO a11y is also largely based on the same concepts as
IAccessible2/AT-SPI, and Qt a11y API is also largely based on the same.
IIUC, what current platform-specific a11y integrations in LO (gtk3,
qt5/qt6, winaccessibility) do is mostly provide a wrapper around/bridge
between LO a11y API and the platform-specific API (ATK for gtk3 which is
bridged to AT-SPI by ATK, Qt for qt5/qt6 which is then bridged to AT-SPI
by the Qt library for the Linux case, MSAA/IAccessible2 for
winaccessibility).
Most of the LO UI and document-specific a11y is implemented in a
platform-independent way (VCL toolkit for the UI) and the mapping to the
platform-specific implementations happens in a thin layer.
In my understanding, that would remain unchanged in case of using either
Gtk or Qt on Windows as well. As far as a11y is concerned, this would
essentially mean dropping the MSAA/IAccessible2 bridge contained in the
"winaccessibility" directory and reusing the code that is also used for
Linux (and leave the mapping to UIA to Gtk/Qt).
Should that turn out to be a reasonable approach (which I don't know!),
my expectation would be that this would essentially give us the same set
of features with UIA that we currently have with IAccessible2.
I suppose that supporting new UIA concepts/features in addition would
probably require more fundamental changes than "just" adding a new
wrapper/bridge for UIA around existing LO a11y interfaces (either a
custom one, or using Gtk/Qt).
But I'm not an expert and have only little experience with a11y so far
and not looked into UIA any closer, so all of the above would need
deeper knowledge/further investigation for a more reliable statement.
Unless there are resources to work on UIA specifically, I tend to think
it would make sense to focus on improving the existing
IAccessible2-based implementation ("winaccessibility") (and fixing
issues that are not platform-specific) for now if that's (still)
sufficiently supported by AT in practice, and reconsider what to do
about UIA at some later point in time (at which there might also be news
on the state of gtk4 and qt5/qt6 a11y).
Happy to hear what others think about this.
Michael
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RE: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26 [IAccessible2 support in JAWS]
Hi Michael, AFAIK, QT exposes accessibility information to UIA on Windows. They switched over from an MSAA implementation to UIA some time in the QT5 time frame: https://www.qt.io/blog/2018/02/20/qt-5-11-brings-new-accessibility-backend-windows. So, using QT widgets in the VCL certainly would help with that, UIA implementation bugs in the Windows QT layer not withstanding of course. So, there are advantages of using QT on Windows where appropriate, but that also entails the danger of inheriting QT UIA bugs. I don't know anything about GTK4, so cannot make any qualified statement. The original advantages of IAccessible2 and GTK3 was that they were made to be very closely related to one another in terms of concepts. But with GTK4 and other frameworks becoming more prominent, this has only been in a maintained state for years, not really further developed, except for adding necessary missing pieces for new HTML widgets or markup. UIA, on the other hand, has turned out to be much more flexible especially with the latest enhancements published by Microsoft. Custom property sets etc., which allows for various annotations in MS Word, Excel etc. NVDA has a pull request for implementation of some of these newest UIA technologies into their support for MS Office here: https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/pull/13387 So, in the long run, it is probably safest to indeed invest in switching to an UIA implementation. Note, however, that you may still need to do some work yourselves for the document specific stuff for Writer, Calc, and Impress specifically, since probably not everything is available in the QT libraries that you need. Marco -Original Message- From: Michael Weghorn Sent: Thursday, June 9, 2022 9:01 AM To: Marco Zehe ; accessibility@global.libreoffice.org Cc: libreoffice...@lists.freedesktop.org; libreoff...@lists.freedesktop.org Subject: Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26 [IAccessible2 support in JAWS] Hi Marco, On 08/06/2022 13.09, Marco Zehe wrote: > JAWS does support IAccessible2, but only if it needs to, like in Firefox, and > some parts of Chromium-based browsers. However, with the UI Automation > implementation for the latter becoming stronger, there might be a time when > JAWS moves to UIA for web content support in Chromium browsers. But you never > know what plans Vispero actually has for which version of JAWS, ZoomText, and > Fusion. All I notice is that, with Windows 11 having an even stronger UIA > implementation than 10, more things are being done through that interface > rather than traditional MSAA or IAccessible2 channels where possible. And as > has been said elsewhere, UIA properties and events are even very accessible > from within the JAWS scripting language, which makes this even more > compelling because the end user experience can be customized further. As > IAccessible2 is an extension of MSAA, and MSAA is largely deprecated by > Microsoft, it will probably never get the same treatment. thanks a lot for that valuable input. I have added a new sub-section for adding UIA support to the wiki page ( https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Under-loved_areas#UIA_support_on_Windows ), mostly based on the above and more information from your other email about announcing slide content in Impress presentation mode ( https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/msg01007.html ). A probably rather crazy thought I once had was whether it would be a good idea to try to get rid of our custom a11y bridge on Windows in the long run after all, e.g. by switching to Gtk or Qt there as well (at least as one option). But that would certainly have to make sense not only from the a11y perspective but the UI as a whole and would probably be rather contentious. (I have close to zero knowledge about Windows-specific bits in LO besides winaccessibility, so don't know whether there would be any value in even spending any time in looking into this any further at some point in time. And as of now, neither the gtk4 nor the qt5/qt6 VCL plugins in LO have proper a11y anyway, and the Gtk 4 library presumably doesn't have any a11y implementation for Windows yet either, even though the new a11y architecture [1] in Gtk 4 should allow for one to be added at some stage.) Michael [1] https://blog.gtk.org/2020/10/21/accessibility-in-gtk-4/ -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26
Hi Marco, thanks for the additional input. I have added that to the Bugzilla ticket: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=149488#c1 Michael On 08/06/2022 13.03, Marco Zehe wrote: Correct, in PowerPoint, when a presentation is started, both NVDA and JAWS, and presumably at some point, Narrator, too, will grab the slide contents and present it slide by slide like a web page. JAWS even annotates links, tables, lists, etc., in a very rich way. NVDA, to my knowledge, doesn't do that yet. In MS Office, screen readers have largely switched to using UI Automation (UIA) for access to all things documents and UI. This is primarily because of Narrator, which doesn't support anything other than UIA (MSAA and IA2 are only supported by way of an IA2 to UIA bridge, which is slow and unreliable). As a consequence, Microsoft never got on the IAccessible2 bandwaggon, but has pushed the UIA implementation in the Chromium project so they can stop using the IAccessible2ToUIA Bridge for Narrator's access to web content. There were even plans and experiments to switch Firefox over to UIA when I was still working at Mozilla. But since I am no longer involved there, I don't know if this is still on the table for the time after they finish the "Cache The World" project. So, in the long term, and as resources permit, the more future-proof way forward for LibreOffice on Windows might be to switch over to an UIA implementation as well. But even without that, there would need to be a concerted effort between the Impress and screen reader teams, like NVDA, to make NVDA realize that it is in a slide show in presentation mode, and gain all the access to the slide contents like it were a web page or similar. That cannot be achieved by one party alone I think. And getting Vispero on board for JAWS support is an even bigger fish to fry. Marco -Original Message- From: Jason White Sent: Tuesday, June 7, 2022 9:34 PM To: accessibility@global.libreoffice.org Subject: Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26 On 7/6/22 06:07, Michael Weghorn wrote: I tried again with just a single screen instead of two, and then NVDA announces "Slide 1", then reads out the slide content, and when moving further: "Slide 2" and its content, etc. Is that what you think Impress should do as well? (It didn't in a quick test with gtk3 on Linux.) Yes. If I recall correctly, under MS-Windows/PowerPoint, NVDA and JAWS both support arrow key navigation in the slide contents when the slides are being presented (i.e., after F5 is used to start a presentation). Ideally, one should be able to do the same in LibreOffice/Impress, and under Linux also. Space/Backspace navigate among slides in Windows/PowerPoint too. Obviously, Impress needs a similar keyboard mechanism for slide navigation. None of this should depend on the number of attached displays. I don't think anyone wants their accessibility to fail just in virtue of the number of displays that happen to be connected. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26 [IAccessible2 support in JAWS]
Hi Marco, On 08/06/2022 13.09, Marco Zehe wrote: JAWS does support IAccessible2, but only if it needs to, like in Firefox, and some parts of Chromium-based browsers. However, with the UI Automation implementation for the latter becoming stronger, there might be a time when JAWS moves to UIA for web content support in Chromium browsers. But you never know what plans Vispero actually has for which version of JAWS, ZoomText, and Fusion. All I notice is that, with Windows 11 having an even stronger UIA implementation than 10, more things are being done through that interface rather than traditional MSAA or IAccessible2 channels where possible. And as has been said elsewhere, UIA properties and events are even very accessible from within the JAWS scripting language, which makes this even more compelling because the end user experience can be customized further. As IAccessible2 is an extension of MSAA, and MSAA is largely deprecated by Microsoft, it will probably never get the same treatment. thanks a lot for that valuable input. I have added a new sub-section for adding UIA support to the wiki page ( https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Under-loved_areas#UIA_support_on_Windows ), mostly based on the above and more information from your other email about announcing slide content in Impress presentation mode ( https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/msg01007.html ). A probably rather crazy thought I once had was whether it would be a good idea to try to get rid of our custom a11y bridge on Windows in the long run after all, e.g. by switching to Gtk or Qt there as well (at least as one option). But that would certainly have to make sense not only from the a11y perspective but the UI as a whole and would probably be rather contentious. (I have close to zero knowledge about Windows-specific bits in LO besides winaccessibility, so don't know whether there would be any value in even spending any time in looking into this any further at some point in time. And as of now, neither the gtk4 nor the qt5/qt6 VCL plugins in LO have proper a11y anyway, and the Gtk 4 library presumably doesn't have any a11y implementation for Windows yet either, even though the new a11y architecture [1] in Gtk 4 should allow for one to be added at some stage.) Michael [1] https://blog.gtk.org/2020/10/21/accessibility-in-gtk-4/ -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
RE: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26 [IAccessible2 support in JAWS]
Hi Michael, JAWS does support IAccessible2, but only if it needs to, like in Firefox, and some parts of Chromium-based browsers. However, with the UI Automation implementation for the latter becoming stronger, there might be a time when JAWS moves to UIA for web content support in Chromium browsers. But you never know what plans Vispero actually has for which version of JAWS, ZoomText, and Fusion. All I notice is that, with Windows 11 having an even stronger UIA implementation than 10, more things are being done through that interface rather than traditional MSAA or IAccessible2 channels where possible. And as has been said elsewhere, UIA properties and events are even very accessible from within the JAWS scripting language, which makes this even more compelling because the end user experience can be customized further. As IAccessible2 is an extension of MSAA, and MSAA is largely deprecated by Microsoft, it will probably never get the same treatment. Marco -Original Message- From: Michael Weghorn Sent: Tuesday, June 7, 2022 1:27 PM To: Christophe Strobbe ; libreoff...@lists.freedesktop.org; accessibility@global.libreoffice.org Cc: libreoffice...@lists.freedesktop.org Subject: Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26 [IAccessible2 support in JAWS] Hi Christophe, On 07/06/2022 12.14, Christophe Strobbe wrote: > After some online searching, it seems that JAWS at least used to support > IAccessible2, originally mainly for IBM Lotus Symphony. > According to a tweet by Marco Zehe from December last year, JAWS > handles Chromium and Edge via IAccessible2. (See > https://twitter.com/MarcoInEnglish/status/1471523578805997570 ) That sounds promising, JAWS was what I vaguely had in mind about having been mentioned of presumably not supporting IAccessible2 (well) in the past. > Twitter is not an ideal source, but I couldn't find any documentation related > to IAccessible2 on Freedom Scientific's website. They do have documentation > on to use script access to UIAutomation: > https://support.freedomscientific.com/support/jawsdocumentation/UIAScriptAPI > but nothing similar for IAccessible2. > This calls for some LibreOffice testing with JAWS; I hope to do some of that > next weekend. Thanks a lot, that's much appreciated! Best regards, Michael -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
RE: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26
Correct, in PowerPoint, when a presentation is started, both NVDA and JAWS, and presumably at some point, Narrator, too, will grab the slide contents and present it slide by slide like a web page. JAWS even annotates links, tables, lists, etc., in a very rich way. NVDA, to my knowledge, doesn't do that yet. In MS Office, screen readers have largely switched to using UI Automation (UIA) for access to all things documents and UI. This is primarily because of Narrator, which doesn't support anything other than UIA (MSAA and IA2 are only supported by way of an IA2 to UIA bridge, which is slow and unreliable). As a consequence, Microsoft never got on the IAccessible2 bandwaggon, but has pushed the UIA implementation in the Chromium project so they can stop using the IAccessible2ToUIA Bridge for Narrator's access to web content. There were even plans and experiments to switch Firefox over to UIA when I was still working at Mozilla. But since I am no longer involved there, I don't know if this is still on the table for the time after they finish the "Cache The World" project. So, in the long term, and as resources permit, the more future-proof way forward for LibreOffice on Windows might be to switch over to an UIA implementation as well. But even without that, there would need to be a concerted effort between the Impress and screen reader teams, like NVDA, to make NVDA realize that it is in a slide show in presentation mode, and gain all the access to the slide contents like it were a web page or similar. That cannot be achieved by one party alone I think. And getting Vispero on board for JAWS support is an even bigger fish to fry. Marco -Original Message- From: Jason White Sent: Tuesday, June 7, 2022 9:34 PM To: accessibility@global.libreoffice.org Subject: Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26 On 7/6/22 06:07, Michael Weghorn wrote: > I tried again with just a single screen instead of two, and then NVDA > announces "Slide 1", then reads out the slide content, and when moving > further: "Slide 2" and its content, etc. > Is that what you think Impress should do as well? (It didn't in a > quick test with gtk3 on Linux.) > Yes. If I recall correctly, under MS-Windows/PowerPoint, NVDA and JAWS both support arrow key navigation in the slide contents when the slides are being presented (i.e., after F5 is used to start a presentation). Ideally, one should be able to do the same in LibreOffice/Impress, and under Linux also. Space/Backspace navigate among slides in Windows/PowerPoint too. Obviously, Impress needs a similar keyboard mechanism for slide navigation. None of this should depend on the number of attached displays. I don't think anyone wants their accessibility to fail just in virtue of the number of displays that happen to be connected. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26
On 07/06/2022 21.34, Jason White wrote: Yes. If I recall correctly, under MS-Windows/PowerPoint, NVDA and JAWS both support arrow key navigation in the slide contents when the slides are being presented (i.e., after F5 is used to start a presentation). Ideally, one should be able to do the same in LibreOffice/Impress, and under Linux also. Space/Backspace navigate among slides in Windows/PowerPoint too. Obviously, Impress needs a similar keyboard mechanism for slide navigation. None of this should depend on the number of attached displays. I don't think anyone wants their accessibility to fail just in virtue of the number of displays that happen to be connected. Thanks for the explanations. I have created a bug report based on this: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=149488 Could you please double-check that one? -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26 [IAccessible2 support in JAWS]
Hi Christophe, On 07/06/2022 12.14, Christophe Strobbe wrote: After some online searching, it seems that JAWS at least used to support IAccessible2, originally mainly for IBM Lotus Symphony. According to a tweet by Marco Zehe from December last year, JAWS handles Chromium and Edge via IAccessible2. (See https://twitter.com/MarcoInEnglish/status/1471523578805997570 ) That sounds promising, JAWS was what I vaguely had in mind about having been mentioned of presumably not supporting IAccessible2 (well) in the past. Twitter is not an ideal source, but I couldn't find any documentation related to IAccessible2 on Freedom Scientific's website. They do have documentation on to use script access to UIAutomation: https://support.freedomscientific.com/support/jawsdocumentation/UIAScriptAPI but nothing similar for IAccessible2. This calls for some LibreOffice testing with JAWS; I hope to do some of that next weekend. Thanks a lot, that's much appreciated! Best regards, Michael -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26 [IAccessible2 support in JAWS]
Hi Michael, All, (Apologies if this message has too many addressees; I'm not sure which ones I should drop.) After some online searching, it seems that JAWS at least used to support IAccessible2, originally mainly for IBM Lotus Symphony. According to a tweet by Marco Zehe from December last year, JAWS handles Chromium and Edge via IAccessible2. (See https://twitter.com/MarcoInEnglish/status/1471523578805997570 ) Twitter is not an ideal source, but I couldn't find any documentation related to IAccessible2 on Freedom Scientific's website. They do have documentation on to use script access to UIAutomation: https://support.freedomscientific.com/support/jawsdocumentation/UIAScriptAPI but nothing similar for IAccessible2. This calls for some LibreOffice testing with JAWS; I hope to do some of that next weekend. Best regards, Christophe Strobbe > On 07 June 2022 at 11:25 Michael Weghorn wrote: > >(...) > > One other aspect that came to my mind: > > For Windows, we currently support IAccessible2, but not UIA. > That's fine for NVDA, but I have heard/read at times that other screen > readers/AT rely more on UIA. (But I haven't done any further research so > far.) > Does anybody know more about this and whether it would actually be > necessary to implement native UIA support in LO for those AT to properly > interact with LO? > (Or is it more about having proper plugins/app modules/scripts for LO > for the single AT, since e.g. NVDA and JAWS appear to rely heavily on > those to properly support specific apps?) -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26
On 07/06/2022 11.54, Michael Weghorn wrote: Could you please explain what the expected (and actual) behavior would be when showing an Impress presentation? I think it makes sense to create a bug report to keep track of this (and I'd be happy to do so, but don't know what to write). (In a quick test with MS Powerpoint and NVDA in a dual screen setup, NVDA just announced "Slide show complete" when I pressed F5 to start presentation mode and the first of three slides was shown... NVDA didn't announce anything when I was moving around using the tab key, so a quick look at that competing product didn't help me to figure out how it *should* behave...) I tried again with just a single screen instead of two, and then NVDA announces "Slide 1", then reads out the slide content, and when moving further: "Slide 2" and its content, etc. Is that what you think Impress should do as well? (It didn't in a quick test with gtk3 on Linux.) (Given the above, it looks to me at first sight as if MS Office was more or less behaving the opposite way of what you described for Impress, and is only accessible when presenter console is *not* enabled? Not having much experience, I might just be using it incorrectly, though...) -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26
On 31/05/2022 22.13, Jason White wrote: On 31/5/22 14:11, David P Á wrote: Other problem with accessibility is comments and tracked changes on Writer. The issues with these systems make using Writer problematic in professional settings. I agree, and in particular, the screen reader/accessibility API support isn't implemented - at least for Linux. Thanks, Colomban also mentioned comments and tracked changes, and they are on the wiki page of topics that need some attention [1]: "Some relations are missing, like for annotations and footnotes (s. e.g. tdf#96481). Also, there is a lack of semantics for change tracking leading to messy output from ATs (s. e.g. tdf#96487). These could be seen as smaller and simpler issues." A further screen reader issue is that, at least when I last checked, running a presentation in Impress was not accessible, unless Presenter Console were used. However, I couldn't test Presenter Console, as I didn't have multiple monitors (I was using a laptop with its in-built display). Could you please explain what the expected (and actual) behavior would be when showing an Impress presentation? I think it makes sense to create a bug report to keep track of this (and I'd be happy to do so, but don't know what to write). (In a quick test with MS Powerpoint and NVDA in a dual screen setup, NVDA just announced "Slide show complete" when I pressed F5 to start presentation mode and the first of three slides was shown... NVDA didn't announce anything when I was moving around using the tab key, so a quick look at that competing product didn't help me to figure out how it *should* behave...) [1] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Under-loved_areas#Document_Level_Accessibility -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26
On 31/05/2022 14.20, Jason White wrote: It seems to be very much a matter of unaddressed bugs and regressions. The Document Foundation advertised a contract (presumably fulfilled by now) to rewrite the accessibility regression testing infrastructure in C++. FWIW, that conversion to C++ is currently still being worked on. That's an important step, but once the testing is in place, someone is going to have to find and start fixing the bugs - then maintain the quality of the implementation over time. Maintaining quality and avoiding regressions is where many accessibility efforts fall apart, whether in the free software world or in the products of large and well resourced corporations. There is also a tendency to implement solutions only partially, but not with good enough quality to satisfy the needs of the users. Being a large corporation with vast financial reasources doesn't necessarily resolve these difficulties. On the other hand, well organized and resourced free software projects can be remarkably successful in this area. +1 -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26
On 31/05/2022 16.24, Christophe Strobbe wrote: I don't have a comprehensive overview of LibreOffice UI accessibility either, unfortunately. However, if you are looking for ways to prioritise issues, one way may be based on the accessibility requirements in the ETSI standard EN 301 549, which defines the requirements that software, documents and a number of other IT products will need to fulfil in the EU starting June 2025. If you want the biggest bang for your buck, my recommendations are the following: (1) With regard to the UI, focus on Windows-based accessibility issues first, since that is where (a) the majority of people with disabilities are and (b) the version that is most likely to get audited if accessibility audits get done. (As a Linux user, I would also like GTK-related to get fixed, but I am not representative of the market.) With regard to applications, I would focus on Writer before Impress or Calc. (I don't know how often Base and Draw are used in professional contexts, if at all.) Thanks, Christophe, that's really helpful. I generally agree with the priorities. (FWIW, looking at, comparing and working a bit on the a11y implementations of all of Windows/gtk3/qt has proven to be very useful to me to get a deeper overall understanding, though.) One other aspect that came to my mind: For Windows, we currently support IAccessible2, but not UIA. That's fine for NVDA, but I have heard/read at times that other screen readers/AT rely more on UIA. (But I haven't done any further research so far.) Does anybody know more about this and whether it would actually be necessary to implement native UIA support in LO for those AT to properly interact with LO? (Or is it more about having proper plugins/app modules/scripts for LO for the single AT, since e.g. NVDA and JAWS appear to rely heavily on those to properly support specific apps?) -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26
On Tue, 2022-05-31 at 16:24 +0200, Christophe Strobbe wrote: > Hi Michael, Caolán, all, > ... > (2) With regard to document formats, continue improving PDF/UA > conformance for exported PDF documents. ... (Institutions that have > been established to monitor compliance with the EU's Web > Accessibility Directive often simply check for PDF/UA conformance as > a substitute for a real accessibility check.) thanks, that's a very interesting insight wrt the a11y+pdf category -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26
On Tue, 2022-05-31 at 09:41 -0500, Devin Prater wrote: > A lot of toolbar widgets in Writer don't seem to be accessible, like > the ones to create forms and such. I created a sub category to capture the theme that various widgets have accessibility failings, your toolbar case, the extension dialog and related cases of the earlier mentioned possible base/math problems. -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy
Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26
A lot of toolbar widgets in Writer don't seem to be accessible, like the ones to create forms and such. Devin Prater r.d.t.pra...@gmail.com On Tue, May 31, 2022 at 9:31 AM Christophe Strobbe wrote: > Hi Michael, Caolán, all, > > I don't have a comprehensive overview of LibreOffice UI accessibility > either, unfortunately. However, if you are looking for ways to prioritise > issues, one way may be based on the accessibility requirements in the ETSI > standard EN 301 549, which defines the requirements that software, > documents and a number of other IT products will need to fulfil in the EU > starting June 2025. If you want the biggest bang for your buck, my > recommendations are the following: > (1) With regard to the UI, focus on Windows-based accessibility issues > first, since that is where (a) the majority of people with disabilities are > and (b) the version that is most likely to get audited if accessibility > audits get done. (As a Linux user, I would also like GTK-related to get > fixed, but I am not representative of the market.) With regard to > applications, I would focus on Writer before Impress or Calc. (I don't know > how often Base and Draw are used in professional contexts, if at all.) > (2) With regard to document formats, continue improving PDF/UA conformance > for exported PDF documents. PDF/UA conformance currently requires expensive > extensions or plug-ins for Microsoft Office (Adobe Acrobat's PDF Maker > plug-in has completely dropped the ball on PDF/UA) or Adobe InDesign. > PDF/UA conformance in documents exported from Writer (and eventually also > Impress) would be a strong selling point; there is currently no office > suite that pulls this off natively. (Institutions that have been > established to monitor compliance with the EU's Web Accessibility Directive > often simply check for PDF/UA conformance as a substitute for a real > accessibility check.) > > Best regards, > > Christophe Strobbe > > > > On 31 May 2022 at 01:57 Michael Weghorn wrote: > > > > > > On 30/05/2022 11.08, Caolán McNamara wrote: > > > For a11y I don't know what is seen as the major problems, is there some > > > fundamentally missing pieces (like in the past not having direct > > > windows IAccessible2 support and needing a java access bridge). Or are > > > the fundamentals ok and its a matter of a general malaise. Is the > > > general widgetry ok, but particular components have poor document level > > > a11y. Or is there an endless amount of fairly easy entry level problems > > > that there isn't enough people to take care of. > > > > I don't have a comprehensive overview at this point. > > At least from the little experience I have by now, I *tend to think* > > it's mostly the latter, at least as far as root causes for the major > > problems are concerned. > > (I have also *heard* that Base seems to be most problematic in general, > > but haven't had much to do with it myself yet.) > > > > From what I have seen so far while looking at some a11y issues > > affecting Windows and Linux (gtk3 and qt5/qt6 VCL plugins), the > > fundamentals look fine, and it seems to be mostly that various smaller > > issues in LO a11y code of the single components and the platform > > integrations (and sometimes in other projects, like the NVDA screen > > reader or the Qt library) cause a lack of a11y in the UI (lack of > > usability with accessibility technology, like screen readers, e.g. > > because not everything is announced) and documents (like a11y-related > > attributes not being properly set in docs, in particular when exported > > to other formats like OOXML, PDF, (X)HTML). > > > > The a11y meta bug tdf#101912 [1] currently lists ~200 specific issues. > > (I also have a ranked list from Richard, CCed, a blind user who uses the > > NVDA screen reader on Windows.) > > Working on some issues requires some level of understanding/experience > > with AT (accessibility technologies, like a screen reader), others (like > > doc export to other formats) shouldn't. > > > > I don't know about the situation on macOS. > > > > IIUC, the gtk4 VCL plugin currently doesn't have an a11y implementation > > yet, and there has been a change of how a11y is handled at least within > > the Gtk library itself. [1] > > @Caolán: Is that correct? And is it something you are planning to look > > into at some point or something that should be covered otherwise? > > > > > > I've added the accessibility mailing list; maybe others have further > > insights to add here. > > > > > > [1] https://blog.gtk.org/2020/10/21/accessibility-in-gtk-4/ > > [2] > > > https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Budget2022#Fix_accessibility_issues > > > > -- > > To unsubscribe e-mail to: > accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org > > Problems? > https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ > > Posting guidelines + more: > https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette > > List archive:
Re: [libreoffice-accessibility] Re: ESC meeting minutes: 2022-05-26
Hi Michael, Caolán, all, I don't have a comprehensive overview of LibreOffice UI accessibility either, unfortunately. However, if you are looking for ways to prioritise issues, one way may be based on the accessibility requirements in the ETSI standard EN 301 549, which defines the requirements that software, documents and a number of other IT products will need to fulfil in the EU starting June 2025. If you want the biggest bang for your buck, my recommendations are the following: (1) With regard to the UI, focus on Windows-based accessibility issues first, since that is where (a) the majority of people with disabilities are and (b) the version that is most likely to get audited if accessibility audits get done. (As a Linux user, I would also like GTK-related to get fixed, but I am not representative of the market.) With regard to applications, I would focus on Writer before Impress or Calc. (I don't know how often Base and Draw are used in professional contexts, if at all.) (2) With regard to document formats, continue improving PDF/UA conformance for exported PDF documents. PDF/UA conformance currently requires expensive extensions or plug-ins for Microsoft Office (Adobe Acrobat's PDF Maker plug-in has completely dropped the ball on PDF/UA) or Adobe InDesign. PDF/UA conformance in documents exported from Writer (and eventually also Impress) would be a strong selling point; there is currently no office suite that pulls this off natively. (Institutions that have been established to monitor compliance with the EU's Web Accessibility Directive often simply check for PDF/UA conformance as a substitute for a real accessibility check.) Best regards, Christophe Strobbe > On 31 May 2022 at 01:57 Michael Weghorn wrote: > > > On 30/05/2022 11.08, Caolán McNamara wrote: > > For a11y I don't know what is seen as the major problems, is there some > > fundamentally missing pieces (like in the past not having direct > > windows IAccessible2 support and needing a java access bridge). Or are > > the fundamentals ok and its a matter of a general malaise. Is the > > general widgetry ok, but particular components have poor document level > > a11y. Or is there an endless amount of fairly easy entry level problems > > that there isn't enough people to take care of. > > I don't have a comprehensive overview at this point. > At least from the little experience I have by now, I *tend to think* > it's mostly the latter, at least as far as root causes for the major > problems are concerned. > (I have also *heard* that Base seems to be most problematic in general, > but haven't had much to do with it myself yet.) > > From what I have seen so far while looking at some a11y issues > affecting Windows and Linux (gtk3 and qt5/qt6 VCL plugins), the > fundamentals look fine, and it seems to be mostly that various smaller > issues in LO a11y code of the single components and the platform > integrations (and sometimes in other projects, like the NVDA screen > reader or the Qt library) cause a lack of a11y in the UI (lack of > usability with accessibility technology, like screen readers, e.g. > because not everything is announced) and documents (like a11y-related > attributes not being properly set in docs, in particular when exported > to other formats like OOXML, PDF, (X)HTML). > > The a11y meta bug tdf#101912 [1] currently lists ~200 specific issues. > (I also have a ranked list from Richard, CCed, a blind user who uses the > NVDA screen reader on Windows.) > Working on some issues requires some level of understanding/experience > with AT (accessibility technologies, like a screen reader), others (like > doc export to other formats) shouldn't. > > I don't know about the situation on macOS. > > IIUC, the gtk4 VCL plugin currently doesn't have an a11y implementation > yet, and there has been a change of how a11y is handled at least within > the Gtk library itself. [1] > @Caolán: Is that correct? And is it something you are planning to look > into at some point or something that should be covered otherwise? > > > I've added the accessibility mailing list; maybe others have further > insights to add here. > > > [1] https://blog.gtk.org/2020/10/21/accessibility-in-gtk-4/ > [2] > https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Budget2022#Fix_accessibility_issues > > -- > To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org > Problems? > https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ > Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette > List archive: https://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/accessibility/ > Privacy Policy: https://www.documentfoundation.org/privacy -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: accessibility+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive:
