Re: getting to the desktop
Under most circumstances, alt+control+d should hide all windows and focus the desktop. I believe it used to be defined as "Show the desktop" in the system's keyboard shortcuts, but it works here even though I no longer see the shortcut definition. ~Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: How to add x86 libraries?
You shouldn't need x86 libraries in order to run Seamonkey on a Raspberry Pi. The distro should already have a package for it. I know there is an Arch package. That doesn't necessarily mean that Raspbian or Ubuntu will have it in their repositories, but it does mean that ARM binaries are available. Hope it helps. ~Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: evolution
Interesting. I haven't noticed any crashing within the past month. I only notice the issue I reported, which has been pretty much the same for more than 10 years actually. It definitely did crash some time back, but that seems to have been fixed recently. ~Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: evolution
Evolution isn't completely unusable, but it focuses you on the message headers. Getting to the message body is possible, but it requires playing with the tab key a bit. It can be hit or miss. I filed a bug against Evolution, but this appears to be a problem with webkit and the way it handles iframes. See https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/evolution/-/issues/908 for my bug report and explanations of what is happening. ~Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: using dd writing iso file to usb drive
If the iso file you are writing is the only file in the directory, you should be able to have it filled in by pressing the tab key immediately after if=. So dd if= would fill in the filename, unless you do have more than one file, in which case, you can tab again and get the list. If you are typing a letter or two and the tab completion isn't working, my best guess is that the filename is capitalized and you're typing a lowercase letter, or else the filename is lowercase and you're typing a capital letter, in which case, Bash won't correct you. That said, usb-creator-gtk is probably your best option, as it allows you to choose exactly the file and device you want. ~Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: live image of current system
You should have access to Clonezilla. I believe that will do what you need, though I have little experience with it. I believe it runs from a terminal. ~Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Xenial Mate [20170306] built by PINE64
I can't be sure that it has Orca on the image by default, but I know that it can be installed, and that it will in fact work. You may need to get ssh working, but if it works out of the box, you can prepare your board for speech from the shell using aptitude as usual. Please do let me know if this works for you, as I really want to do something with this Pinebook I have, and its wifi alone is problematic for me, though I do have the ability to teather it to my phone with little difficulty. Imetumwa kutoka meza yangu -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Accessible Coconut Linux
I've heard of it. In fact, it's been mentioned fairly recently on a couple of other lists. I can't remember if it's based on Debian or an Ubuntu LTS. If memory serves and the search results I'm seeing are correct, I believe a company called Cocofrix develops it. I found them at cocofrix.com. Their about page certainly mentions accessibility, and that name definitely looks familiar. Hope it helps. Imetumwa kutoka kwa kuongezeka kwa nazi kubwa kwenye mti mrefu -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Writing to disk
You may need the brasero application. I think that may give you the option you need in the file manager. If not, you should have no trouble opening Brasero and writing from the iso directly to your DVD, which would be listed as a blank disk. Imetumwa kutoka simu yangu -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: ot gnac replacement
Isn't handbrake accessible? Arista Transcoder may also work. I believe both use gtk, and I did make them both work at one time, though I usually just use ffmpeg now. Imetumwa kutoka samaki yangu -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Problem with thunderbird in ububuntu 17.04.
It doesn't sound like your problem is with Thunderbird. I think Gmail is the culprit here. It's possible it doesn't fully recognize you and thinks you're trying to login from an unknown device. You will need to verify that you are you by other means before Google will unblock your access to that account. It's possible that logging into the blocked account via gmail.com will fix this, but you also may need to authorize Thunderbird to access your Google account, which it usually does automatically via a popup with an allow button. Otherwise, there are a few other options you can try that may also unblock your access. Sent from the here and now -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Sonar GNU Linux merges with Vinux
Yes. Vinux will have one more release based on Ubuntu 16.04. Sent from the bridge -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Kodi
Kodi doesn't work with any OS screen reader. You need the kodi screen reader addon, which you will be able to unzip inside Kodi's addons directory before you start it for the first time. Open up a terminal and execute the following commands before you start Kodi, being sure that you are working in your home directory. wget http://mirrors.kodi.tv/addons/krypton/service.xbmc.tts/service.xbmc.tts-1.0.6.zip mkdir -p .kodi/addons cd .kodi/addons unzip ~/service.xbmc.tts-1.0.6.zip cd Now run kodi from the sound and video menu and it should come up speaking with its own screen reader. Hope this helps. Sent from graffiti bridge -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: arm devices
I'm not sure how that works, although Ubuntu probably packages more kernels from supported devices, so that may make the difference. Ubuntu packages different kernel packages from Debian and also patches its own software as well, so it's not surprising that they are able to support more devices due to different packaging guidelines and such. Sent from the everlasting now -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: introduction
The main problem with Thunderbird is that it seems to freeze when your ~/.thunderbird directory gets too large. The best way to resolve this issue is to uncheck "store messages on this computer" from your account settings for each account. Hope this helps. Sent from my ordinary world -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: how can I get a beep sound when GRUB appears
One thing you may possibly need to do once you uncomment that line is to run sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg If this still produces no beep, then it's likely that your device is incapable of beeping before the kernel's sound driver is loaded, in which case, you will hear nothing from GRUB. Sent from my underwater city -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Very bad news for meI do not know how many others/UbuntuOne cloud storage service to be shutdown
The silver lining in this dark cloud (pun intended) is the fact that Canonical will be releasing the source code for the serverside components of Ubuntu One storage. So it will be possible to run Ubuntu One on your own server, and you may start seeing providers doing exactly that in the future. For now, I've been running ownCloud on my VPS, and the latest version of the client and server seems to work very well with Orca. If you don't have your own VPS, there are providers who are already using ownCloud that offer free storage space. I believe there's a list somewhere on owncloud.org that may be helpful. Yes, I'm gonna miss Ubuntu One also, as I have it on my Android phone, and it was also working on Arch before the maintainer decided to move it out of the official community repository because of the shutdown of the service. I'm really hoping that the open source release will allow multiple competitors to step up and offer something good based on the Ubuntu One code. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk/ -- Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle? Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - The Amazing Evie -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: dreams and schemes
According to Gabe Vega: snip # Linux Accessability is not viable simply because # people are Wishy Washie, it has nothing to do with money. snip With an attitude like that, it's no wonder at all why you have trouble finding people who want to work for you. YOu have made it crystal clear that you think blind people just don't want to work, but I would submit that with an attitude like that, most people would rather work for someone who doesn't share your negative views. BTW, I have quite a bit of trouble with your acessment that Linux accessibility is not viable, but yet you say you hire people who work with Linux accessibility. I have found Linux to be quite viable, both from an accessibility/usability standpoint when related to use of screen readers and other assistive technologies and from an overall usability standpoint as related to average users just sitting down in front of a Linux computer and getting things done. As a matter of fact, I have used Linux exclusively for nearly 5 years, and have used it more than 75% of the time for the 5 years before that, and I absolutely refuse to look back, even so far as to run Windows or MacOS in a virtual machine. There is just nothing I find that I miss from the days of running Windows that much, and everything I need to do on a computer can be done on any Linux operating system, and I don't have to be a sit at home all day geek, as you so eloquently put it, in order to do those things. Furthermore, I recently showed someone with little to no computer knowledge at all how to plug in a thumb drive running Linux and use it to get on the internet to look for jobs, read e-mail and much more, and I didn't have to take a lot of time doing it. Granted, he didn't need a screen reader, but my point is that he learned how to use Linux, and he had no computer skills to speak of. Linux is viable. Linux accessibility is viable. Linux is freedom, and Linux freedom is practical and useful. In a later post to this thread, you posted a BTW with a link to your job site. Well, I'm not sure about anyone else, but although I do want to work, and although I do want to make a living supporting Linux and building computers with Linux on them, both talking and non-talking for *anyone* who needs one, I feel that with the attitudes you present in this thread, I would much rather work for someone else or simply do business for myself. I leave you with this question. Why would I want to work for you with regard to Linux or Linux accessibility when it would seem from where I'm sitting that you as a potential imployer don't take it seriously? My skills are put to better use for a person or company who does take Linux seriously, as I could tell you nothing about the state of proprietary operating systems and screen readers today, and don't want to have to learn/relearn such crap. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk/ -- Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle? Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - The Amazing Evie -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
free educational materials (was Re: What happened with Firefox 25?)
I hadn't yet looked at any educational sites other than Saylor. I noticed immediately that they have nearly complete fields of study, and that enrollment is fully open; courses can be taken at any time. In fact, enrollment in a course is only required in order to take a final exam. I also like their free as in freedom philosophy. I understand that they aren't able to adhere to it 100% of the time, but they do adhere to it wherever possible. They also seem to use mostly open standards, with the possible exception of PDF, which I have been told is considered to be an open standard these days, even though Adobe still controls the format as far as I knoe. I am able to read the files for the most part, but some still have some layout issues that are making them difficult to read. Everything related to the website appears to be fullly accessible to Orca using Firefox, although I haven't yet tried taking a final exam. Much of the website is powered by WordPress, and the EPortfolio that keeps track of enrolled and completed corses I believe is using Moodle. Some of the course materials may be available in WikiBooks, so I'll try that as an option as well. I plan to also at least take a look at EDX and Coursera, which also sound like good places to get a free or otherwise much more affordable college education. None of them offer free degree programs, but most sites like these appear to have a way to upgrade to a degree or certificate for a very low price compared to the price of a degree or certificate program at a university. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk/ -- Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle? Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - The Amazing Evie -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: What happened with Firefox 25?
I'm becoming a big fan of The Saylor Foundation http://saylor.org/ I like their philosophy as well as most of the licensing they've been able to use for their course materials. I just wish they would offer additional formats other than PDF for their reading materials. The first text I read had no issues, but I can't seem to get through the Introduction to Software History, which is required reading, but somehow gets jumbled up by the second or third page during conversion. I was able to read the HTML version of the same document, but the PDF version says it's modified from the original, but I'm not sure how it's modified. Both Evince and Firefox are jumbling it a bit, as are pdftotext and pdftohtml. I really do like the concept though, and hope either their text or our reading tools will improve soon. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk/ -- Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle? Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - The Amazing Evie -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Anyway possible using Svox Classic TTS engine with Ubuntu?
According to Fernando Botelho: # Well, since Voxin is no longer for sale, this might be a good time for # us to get started on improving espeak in Spanish. Googling and looking on the website, I don't think it's no longer for sale, but it's so badly outdated, and takes so much ancient code to run, that it might as well be no longer for sale. It will only get harder and harder to run Voxin as hardware and software become newer. It's like putting that old floppy drive in new computer after new computer until it eventually no longer fits, even with adaptors. Eventually, if you still want to use your old floppy collection, you will need to move the files to something like a flash drive or purchase a USB floppy drive. Voxin is much the same, in that eventually people who are currently making it work will need to improve the more maintained bits of code such as eSpeak, because eventually, all the adapted and ancient libraries in the world won't make it work. The website indicates that it just uses an old C++ library, but there's no way that old library will work in the future, as it's already well over 10 years old. Eventually it will become incompatible with the entire system bit by bit. I said all that to say that Voxin may still be for sale, but it's much more profitable for the community to work to improve eSpeak, SVox Pico, Festival, Flite or any of the other freedom synthesizers available with source code that can be freely modified and improved than it will ever be to keep trying and trying to make Voxin or any other packaged version of this speech synthesizer run just a little longer. ~Kyle http:/kyle.tk/ -- Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle? Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - The Amazing Evie -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Anyway possible using Svox Classic TTS engine with Ubuntu?
Unfortunately the SVox Classic voices, as far as I know, are only built for Android, and an interface to be able to use speech-dispatcher is not currently available for desktop Linux. It's likely that x86 binaries would speak with the right dependencies, but I doubt that the Pico module for speech-dispatcher will support it. The only other option for many different languages is eSpeak, but many of its languages need native speakers to fix them up so they sound better. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk/ -- Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle? Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - The Amazing Evie -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: how good will be the gnome shell edition of Ubuntu 13.04?
According to Krishnakant Mane: # Still no confirmation for my query on some thing similar to Heads up # display? # Is such a feature there in Gnome 3.6? I believe you are referring to the menu for your current application window that is available in Unity? Yes, GNOME-shell has this also, and 3.8 is an improvement of this feature over 3.6 even, with better integration of default applications. However, it seems that the transition is going a bit more slowly than it did in Unity. Many applications only have Quit up there. So far, it seems that Nautilus and possibly the terminal have done the most transition work there. It is to be expected that the applications that ship with GNOME will have made this transition more quickly and smoothly than other applications at this time. I am hoping this is maybe a freedesktop specification, however, so other applications will likely follow if this is the case. If you are referring to something different, ignore what I just wrote and indicate the specific features you need or behaviors you are expecting. # Also, I wish to know from all the eminent list members, is Gnome shell # the right path to go for a long terms solution? I would definitely say yes at this point, especially since it is more widely used by virtue of the fact that it is available in more distros. Unity, although free software, is still primarily developed by Canonical, and is not included by default in any distro other than standard Ubuntu, meaning that overall, less resources are available for development at this time. # Is it any faster in performance as compared to Unity? I can't speak specifically to performance, since the only times I have used Unity recently have been on a very old machine and a virtual machine that had half my physical resources allocated to it. It seems a tiny bit less responsive to me, but that is to be expected given the circumstances. I haven't tested it on recent bare metal. Having said this, even if Unity and gnome-shell are exactly the same in terms of actual performance on hardware, I find gnome-shell to be faster from a productivity standpoint. I believe this is an opinion based on personal preference, but I seem to be able to navigate faster and do more in less time with gnome-shell than I could with Unity, and 3.8 has made a major improvement in that regard. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk/ -- Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle? Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - The Amazing Evie -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: is Ubuntu 13.04 going to be any better?
I'm just a little concerned that the GNOME edition is still running GNOME 3.6 + Orca 3.8, whereas Ubuntu 13.04 should be running GNOME 3.8 in its entirety. But maybe they will upgrade the GNOME edition to 3.8 after the Ubuntu release is finalized. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk/ -- Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle? Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - The Amazing Evie -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
I do lots of things with my computer using Linux. Granted, my primary distro is Arch Linux rather than Ubuntu, so I get all the latest stuff as soon as it's released, but I don't use Windows, except the very rare times when I need to print something, because I have yet to purchase a good printer, at which times I use a left-over XP install on a 10-year-old box. I browse many websites on my Linux box using Orca and Firefox, and I use no other browser, not even Chrome+ChromeVox. I have nothing against trying different things, but I tend to stick with what works, and Firefox+Orca works quite well here. I have yet to find a website that is impossible to navigate, with the exception of Flash content, which is more miss than hit on any browser in any OS. Yes, the times I still have to use Windows for printing, I find NVDA to be quite usable, but if making Firefox+Orca more usable for others means converting to a clunky virtual buffer system that doesn't handle dynamic content well, and cludgy work-arounds like lists of links, then I'll hold off on the downgr ... I mean upgrade, thank you very much. Yes, Firefox and the way Orca works with it could be improved, and this is happening. But saying that you'd rather use Windows for web browsing because you haven't even tried the latest versions of either Orca or Firefox is utterly ridiculous. So before spouting and spitting about how accessibility needs to improve, first start by trying the latest versions of things, so that you can file more informed bug reports based on the newest, dare I say shiniest, technology. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk/ -- Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle? Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - The Amazing Evie -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Here it is...Ubuntu Phone
QT accessibility in Linux still has a long way to go. I'm not denying this. However, giving credit where credit is due, QT accessibility has made major improvements, going from near zero just 2 years ago to something that in many cases is mostly usable, and even surpasses the level of QT accessibility in other operating systems today, and most of these improvements have happened within the last 4 months. There are also reports that qt-at-spi, the plugin responsible for making QT work with Orca and the accessibility stack, will be included in the core of QT version 5, hopefully due out this year. If I'm jumping the gun, let me know, but I have read this in several places. Accessibility is something I fight for every day in many aspects of my daily life; I do need it after all. Having said this, it is extremely important to give credit where it is due, to file informed bug reports when something isn't working correctly and to contribute code and financial resources if possible, rather than just fussing andd whining that something isn't accessible, ABC developers don't care about accessibility, or XYZ Company's product works better, without providing meaningful insight into what we need to work and how it can work better for us, and where improvements and increases in resources devoted to accessibility can help to make something easier for us to use. Keep in mind that a lack of accessibility features in applications and operating systems is generally not caused by developers or companies not caring. After all, how many blind, visually impaired or otherwise disabled developers, who know exactly what they need, actually work to develop the applications and operating systems we use every day? How many more of us don't necessarily know how to code, but can put into simple terms exactly what we need an application, OS or interface to do in what situations that can help us use it more effectively? Many of us can probably educate developers about our needs and how to best meet them, but most of us just whine and scream on e-mail lists about how much better XYZ is or how little ABC's devs seem to care about accessibility, without providing any meaningful feedback. It's enough to make most developers want to give up; I know I would. However, when meaningful discussions take place between developers and end-users, when developers are made aware of our needs and how best to meet them, and when we have the patience to explain concepts that are difficult for people who don't have certain physical disabilities to understand, our access to more operating systems, interfaces and applications will begin increasing quite rapidly, because we will be recognizing the fact that developers are in fact human beings, and developers and the companies who employ them will recognize that we are also human beings. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk/ -- Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle? Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - The Amazing Evie -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: installing 2012.10
Although Ubuntu 12.10 is not considered to be accessible out of the box, I believe the installer still works without needing extra help, and once installed, you can configure it to use standard GNOME 3.6. The recommended Ubuntu for accessibility and eyes-free installation is still 12.04 LTS. You could also try one of the Sonar images at http://sonar-project.org/ which is based on Ubuntu 12.04 and then update it to run GNOME 3.6. Hope this helps. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: installing 2012.10
Sonar is based on Ubuntu 12.04, so the update manager should get you the latest packages, while still allowing you to keep Sonar's modifications, and therefore should update to GNOME 3.6. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: installing 2012.10
I'm not sure that Orca is working properly on 12.10's login screen. I could drop it into VirtualBox, but I'll need to download it first. Ubuntu 12.10 will install Unity by default, which has problems with Orca. However, Sonar has a modified installer that will fully install GNOME 3.6 either with or without gnome-shell, depending on the image you download, and configure it to run by default. I'm not 100% sure that Orca speaks the login screen on Sonar, but it should as far as I know. ~Kyle http://kyle.tk -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Google+ readability
Yes, the off-list message was a mistake. I should have looked back at the To: box to be sure it was going to the list, as some lists don't seem to handle replies correctly. Thanks for pointing this out. ~Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Google+ readability
It may be a long battle to keep Google thinking of improving accessibility to its products, but it is indeed worth the fight. The battle for accessibility to any company's product is worth it, even though it may be long, hard and even frustrating at times. Although many Linux distributions have had some form of screen reading technology for more than 10 years, it has been only about 5 years since we have had a usable screen reader in GNOMW, and even less since we've had magnification. But look how far we've come; it's been well worth the time, energy and effort it has taken to make it all work as well as it does today, and it's still improving every day. Heck, even Windows has taken a giant leap forward in accessibility, with the availability of NVDA, and that has only happened within the past 4 years, and Windows accessibility is even now improving. I have had the pleasure of owning my first Android phone for about a month now, and it already is a giant leap ahead of any other phone I used in the past, and that is even taking into account the fact that I went with the lowest price I could find because of my extremely tight budget. All these OS's and platforms have a great need for more improvement, but it is very easy to see what can happen when we fight the long hard battle to gain equal access to as many products as possible at equal prices to what someone with fully functional eyes, ears, etc. would pay. Keep up the fight for accessibility everywhere, and keep up the great work toward making it work on Ubuntu and other Linux distributions. ~Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Show-Stopper: Metacity 'save' and 'open' dialogues in Ubuntu 11.04 broken when Orca running!
From my experience, the system hangs if your home directory or the directory where you last opened or saved a file contains a large number of files. This appears to be a GNOME problem that has existed for a rather long time, and doesn't appear to be limited to Ubuntu. I have noticed, however, that in GNOME3, I seem to have to kill Python the first time I open or save a file using the Metacity file chooser in order to get Orca talking again, which does seem to be a new problem. Nautilus also hangs on my home directory, but usually for only about 5 seconds. ~Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: embedded text to speech converter
If eSpeak doesn't sound as good as you like, SVox Pico may work better on embedded systems than OpenMary. SVox Pico is the default Android speech synthesizer, and speech-dispatcher works with it somewhat now, and support should improve, as its module is rather new. Also, neither SVox Pico nor eSpeak require Java to be installed, although there is some Java stuff in SVox Pico's git tree, presumably for Android. It isn't needed for Ubuntu AFAIK. Take a look at libttspico0 and related packages on Ubuntu 10.10 and later. You shouldn't need a speech system that is based on QT,. You should simply be able to link your QT application against the needed speech libraries and program your application to speak where necessary. You could connect to speech-dispatcher through its various backends, or simply link against the library for your speech synthesizer of choice directly. My personal recommendation is to use speech-dispatcher, since it provides an abstraction layer for a number of free and proprietary speech synthesizers. ~Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: embedded text to speech converter
But doesn't libopenmary-c++ still require a JRE? Isn't it just a c++ interface to the Java-based synthesizer? I'm curious because I'm interested in OpenMary, but I can't even get the download to install. My JRE is not speaking the installation. A pure c++ library, or even Java source code would be much easier to deal with than the nonspeaking graphical installer in te downloadable jar. Also, speech-dispatcher can likely be made to work at least a little with OpenMary using the generic module architecture until a proper plugin can be developed, provided a command line utility exists. ~Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: embedded text to speech converter
Sounds like my main problem with OpenMary is that I'm using openjdk-jre instead of sun-java6-jre. I'll try again with sun-java6-jre installed to see if that solves the problem. The requirement of sun-java6-jre may be a little too much on an embedded system where the OP plans to use it though, unless the remote server is an option. But usually it is unwise to require a connection to a network in order to get speech. In this case, eSpeak and SVox Pico are the smallest and best options, as they use much less memory and are both already supported by speech-dispatcher. Flite is another option for low-memory systems, but the speech-dispatcher module for it only works with the worst sounding voice. There are 3 or 4 other better voices that can be selected from the command line, but they don't work with speech-dispatcher's flite module for some reason. ~Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Maverick and speech-dispatcher?
I found the same problem when loading the RS Games client on my Maverick system. I sent an email to the developer, and so far the only response I have received is that he would be installing a copy of Maverick so he could track down the issue that causes the client not to speak. I expect another response in future, and I'll forward it to this list when I receive it. For now, if you feel you can add anything I may have missed, send an email to rsga...@gmail.com describing the problem in as much detail as you are able. It's possible that you may be able to shed some light on the problem if you can find an error message or something else I may have overlooked. ~Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: ubuntu and talks
AFAIK, the Talks package is just a file that needs to be transferred and installed on the phone. As long as you can transfer the file, either over bluetooth or usb, the file should install once it's on your phone, no matter the OS. I have an old 6682 and transfer files and applications to it over bluetooth on Ubuntu all the time, so it should work for Talks on your N82 as well. ~Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: I have a question about thunderbird
If you are using Thunderbird 3.0 and open a message, you can press control-W to get back to the list. Each message opens in its own tab, and control-W closes the tab. ~Kyle -- Jesus you're my life. I live only to serve You Each and every day. --Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: ubuntu 9.10 vm help
Running from a virtual machine does make it harder to know when to take steps to turn on the accessibility options because there's no CD that will start spinning at the right time. However, I think the boot prompt gives you about 30 seconds, so if you wait about 10 to 15 seconds after you start the VM, you should be able to enter the key sequence and everything should work as advertised. Kyle -- Jesus you're my life. I live only to serve You Each and every day. --Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: pulseaudio problems again
Something in Karmic is causing the volume of sound to mute whenever a system sound is played. This started I believe yesterday evening August 15. This has been a problem in the past where certain sounds would automatically drop the volume down or raise it out of control, but this is the first time I have seen a total drop-out of the master volume all the way to 0. Things like this seem to happen when pulseaudio is updated. If you are uninstalling pulseaudio, simply resetting your master volume should get you talking again. For me, it's more than a small annoyance, because I try to use pulseaudio, even though I really don't need it because I have a SoundBlaster Live which does hardware mixing. Good luck, Kyle -- Jesus you're my life. I live only to serve You Each and every day. --Kyle -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
