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KDE Gains Full Accessibility Support
kandalf writes "Together with some other interesting news about making KDE and Gtk apps interoperable as well as porting OpenOffice to Qt/KDE, KDE gained accessibility support through the ATK interface from Sun with Qt - so KDE 3.2 will be 'accessibility ready' for the end user once coming out in January. Got the dot?"
This is a big step onward. Anyone know how this assistive technology compares with gnopernicus ? Or do the separate softwares need to be made due to differences between Gnome & KDE?
For example, Windows' accessibility features has saved me many times when the mouse just doesn't want to work for various reason. It enable me to use the numpad to simulate the mouse, and troubleshoot the problem - instead of reinstalling it.
I welcome this addition to KDE even more for that reason.
2.6.0, 3.2 and R.o.T.K. all about the same time?!
Where will I ever find the time to get a life!
How does this make KDE any more useful to us , who don't really need accessibility.
I'm sure you can find a use for screen magnification, improved typing commands, and keyboard-mouse-control.
So it is more useful--about as "more useful" as that handicapped ramp you never appreciated until you have to roll a heavy desk up it.
Making KDE more accessible to physically handicapped people is sure nice and appriciable, but shouldn't it come down the list of things like
No. You can use KDE as-is. Others cannot use it without handicapped accessability at all.
'sides which, this is OSS "scratch an itch" software.
This is already included in X server (on which KDE is running), if you press SHIFT+NumLock, you can navigate mouse cursor with arrows on numpad.
So, if I am a partially deaf or blind kernel developer, why should I have to wait for fucntionaility everyone else already has?
It's easy to discount stuff that doesn't immediately apply, but this is only a good thing for lots of people.
I agree that UI consistency is something that needs work, but thinking about how *everyone* uses KDE can only help the UI design.
XSettings and the Desktop Color Scheme specs only refers to things like mouse curosr movement, drag and drop timeouts, and color schemes, trivial things of that nature. None of the more advanced types of configuration, like positions of panels, menu types, etc, are included in there.
All it is is a standard spec for controlling how happs behave in a fundamental fashion.
KDE and Gnome are so different and have such totally different config architectures (GConf vs. KConfig ) that you'll never be able to manage both with one single spec, unless either one desktop ditches their system and adopts the other (not going to happen ), or someone makes a huge monolithic app that can do both ( would be hideous ).
Then don't do it. Noone forces you to change everything, the defaults of KDE are at least as sensible as the ones of Gnome (although with a different focus)
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I lost most of the use of my fingers and 40 percent of my vision in a chemical accident 15 years ago. I am so glad to see linux taking steps to make things more usable for people like me. I truly feel linux will soon take the lead in accessibility (not to mention stability and performance) from Microsoft very soon. Thank you linux hackers!
--Berry
QT and GTK are toolkits - libraries that display stuff (windows, toolbars, buttons, text boxes, etc.) on the screen. KDE is a desktop environment - a set of programs that use the QT toolkit to create a user interface. ATK is a set of accessability standards, which are now supported by KDE and GNOME, the two majro desktop environments.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Distributions can modify KDE as they want (the *modular* control center comes in handy here =P ) so it isn't overwhelming for newbies.
It's easy to choose defaults and hide functionality for newbies.
That said most newbies I know are more comfortable with KDE than with Gnome because KDE with its default settings is similar to Windows in look and feel.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
There are many other settings where making something accessible also makes it easier to use for the rest of us:
It's really just about being user-friendly, making your edge cases disappear.
sigs, as if you care.
Knoppix actually does give you some choice as to the desktop you use - it's just slightly hidden. When you boot the CD, hit F2 (I think) and it'll give you a list of options that you can pass to the initialization scripts. Among these options is "desktop=foo". I prefer Fluxbox, as it loads significantly faster than KDE does from a CD. There's about 8 other WM's to try, so you've got your pick of the litter.
So, just type the following when you reach the Knoppix splash screen:
knoppix desktop=fluxbox
"eople with special needs have to pay more, because special needs cost more."
Except that disabilities often make it hard for them to pay at all. Think of it as an investment instead. If you make something accessible to the disabled it means they can contribute more to society and you won't be paying their unemployment instead. It means they'll be productive and more importantly happier and more empowered.
A lot of disabled access tools are also the same tools people that you often don't think of as disabled need - older people tend to lose their ability to focus well and benefit from maginfiers and chunky displays. People with arthtritis benefit from some of the other control features and so on.
And for the totally selfish: Its always worth remembering that by the time you are 70 you too will probably have poor eyesight, poor mobility and poor motion control.
Because accessibility tools exist there are a lot of productive people out there, including people writing Linux kernel code that most of the world doesn't even know are blind or otherwise disabled.
If you actually use Window's accessibility features, you will find them sadly lacking. Actually trying to navigate the desktop just using ATs is very difficult, lots of apps take no notice of the system settings, etc.
I am not an accessibility expert, but there have been some studies to suggest ATK is ahead of Windows here.
I know that I'm probably just feeding a troll here, but I just can't resist...
Look, KDE has been very involved with creating the specs at Freedesktop.org. Hell, I'm a KDE developer, and I'm also in the CVS commit list on the freedesktop server. The reason that you haven't seen Freedesktop standard support in KDE yet is because either A) You haven't tried a KDE 3.2 beta or B) You're obviously trolling.
KDE 3.2 will have support for all of the relevant standards that have moved out of the 'still in progress' stage and even some support for a few that haven't yet been finalized. KDE 3.1 was released almost a full year ago, when none of these standards was really done yet, so it isn't exactly a crime that it didn't support standards that didn't exist.
And KDE 3.3 will support even more of the specs that Freedesktop puts out, because we're involved in their creation (things that are currently pre-spec, even, like the shared MIME and Help systems).