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Summary

We would very much like to have a Mageia install optimised for accessibility for blind and VI people by default, as proposed here Feature:Accessibility, with talking login, speech enabled by default, screen reader enabled and braille output and magnification available. Other access methods could be added for other needs, or a separate install made for different needs.

However, because we don't know yet whether that proposal will be done in that form and because we are aware we don't even have any documentation on how to make Mageia more easily usable by people with special needs, we are starting to document what there is and looking beyond the links given there.

Detailed Description

  • Based on Gnome desktop (features included in a basically Gnome installation),
  • Orca,
  • speech-dispatcher (included in Orca),
  • brltty/BrlAPI,(BrlAPI is a service provided by the brltty daemon.)
  • other packages as needed
  • KDE Accessibility
  • Debian Accessibility

Gnome Desktop

Gnome brings many solutions for low-vision users.

Themes

Installation of themes

Gnome has seven official accessible themes for use on the desktop.

  • Alt + F1 to access the Application menu
  • Use the down arrow to navigate to Accessories and chose “Terminal”
  • Type “sudo apt-get update” and enter your password if requested
  • Type “sudo apt-get install gnome-accessibility-themes” and Type “Y” if any other packages are required.

Overview of Themes

Gnome provides seven themes which can assist users that are low vision or are in need of contrast themes. The choices of accessible themes are:

  • Large Print
  • High Contrast
  • High Contrast with Large Print
  • High Contrast Inverse
  • High Contrast Inverse with Large Print
  • Low Contrast
  • Low Contrast with Large Print

The themes with large print also provide automatic font resizing. To take advantage of this feature use the tab key to navigate to “Apply Font” and use the Space-bar to activate it.

Increasing Font Size

Increasing font size for:

  • Applications
  • The Desktop
  • Window Titles
  • Terminals

Screen Resolution

must be inserted

Toggle Keys

must be inserted

Installing Large Mouse Cursors

To Install large mouse cursors which are easier to see:

   Type “su - apt-get install xcursor-themes”

Use Alt + F1 to go to System > Preferences > Mouse Tab over to “Cursors” to chose the cursor which suits you best.

Mouse Preferences

  • Increased cursor size
  • Highlighting of the mouse by using the Control Key
  • Speed of the cursor
  • Drag and Drop threshold options

Terminal Magnification

The gnome terminal provides magnification to increase the size of the text on the font window. To modify these settings:

  • Use Alt + V to navigate to View.
  • Use the arrow keys to navigate to “Zoom In” or hit the “I” key.
  • Alternatively you can use the “Ctrl” + “Shift” + “+=” key (plus/equals key) to increase the magnification without using the menu.

If further zooming is needed in the file management (i.e. “Nautilus” file manager) Use the Alt + F1 key and then arrow over to System > Preferences > File Management. Here you can adjust the size of the icons and list view details by zooming up to 400% of the original size.


Orca

Orca works with applications and toolkits that support the assistive technology service provider interface (AT-SPI), which is the primary assistive technology infrastructure for the Solaris and Linux operating environments. Applications and toolkits supporting the AT-SPI include the GNOME GTK+ toolkit, the Java platform's Swing toolkit, SWT, OpenOffice/LibreOffice, Mozilla, and WebKitGtk. AT-SPI support for the KDE Qt toolkit is currently being pursued.

Orca is part of the Gnome Platform (Mageia Ver, 2.32.1, Rel 2.mag1)

Vinux

What is Vinux?

Vinux is a remastered version of the Ubuntu Linux Distribution optimised for visually impaired users. It provides a screen-reader, full-screen magnification and support for Braille displays out of the box! It can be run from a Live CD without making any changes to your hard drive. If you like it you can install it to a USB pendrive or to your hard drive either alongside Windows using the Virtual Version, or as a complete replacement for windows.

KDE Accessibility

KDE Applications

  • Kmag: Also known as KMagnifier, a screen magnifier from KDE.
  • KMouseTool: An automatic mouse "clicker" for people with Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) or similar.
  • KMouth: A type-and-say GUI for speech synthesizers (Integrates with Jovie).
  • Jovie: The KDE Text-to-Speech system (Prior to KDE SC 4.5, this application was known as KTTS).
  • simon: A speech recognition system to replace mouse and keyboard.

Debian Accessibility

Dasher

Dasher is an information efficient input interface which is driven by gestures which are natural and pointing continuously. Dasher is a competitive input system where no keyboard can always either be used in full size, for example

  • on aPalmtop-Computer,
  • on a computer integrated into clothes
  • at a one-handed computational use, by means of joy-stick, touch-sensitive screen, track ball or via mouse,
  • at computational use without hands (e. g. over a head mouse or via following of the ocular movement).

The ATK accessibility toolkit

ATK is a Toolkit which provides Toolkits barrier free interfaces for applications or others. By these interfaces being implemented, these other Toolkits or applications with tools like screen pre-readers, extension magnifying glasses and other alternative input methods can be used.

The running time part of ATK which is needed for executing thus built applications is available in the package of libatk1. 0 0. Development files for ATK required for translating programs or Toolkits which use it are provided by the package of libatk1. 0-dev. Ruby language connections is provided by the package of libatk1-Ruby.

Yasr

One all-purpose console screen harvest program for GNU/Linux and others, Unix-like operating systems. The name "yasr" is, (all-purpose screen reader) an acronym you the one either for "Yet Another Screen readers" (still an other screen reader) or for "Your space pure pose Screen reader" can stand.

Supporting DEC talcum, BNS, Apollo and stand-in talcum hardware generators currently temptedly yasr Speak-outly. It also is able to communicate with Emacspeak language servers and therefore is able to communicate with generators which it directly doesn't support such as festival Lite (via eflite) or FreeTTS.

Yasr works by opening a pseudo-terminal and running as Shell and intercepting all one and expenditure. It has a look at the sent escape sequences and manages a virtual "window" with the contents which it believes on the screen. It therefore doesn't use special functions of Linux and can be ported to other Unix-like operating systems without a lot of trouble.

Screader

The background program screader reads the screen and passes the information on to a text to language software package (like 'festival') or to a hardware language generator.

BRLTTY

A daemon which permits the access to the Linux console for a blind person with a braille line. It operates the braille terminal and offers a complete screen selection functionality.

At present, the following braille lines become (in Version 3.4.1-2) supported:

  • Alva B.V.: ABT (3nn), Delphi (4nn), Satellite (5nn) (in Germany by Tieman)
  • Baum: Vario/RBT 40/80 (emulation 1/2)
  • Blazie Engineering: BrailleLite 18/40/M20/M40
  • EuroBraille: AzerBraille, Clio, Iris, NoteBraille, Scriba
  • Freedom Scientific: Focus 44/70/84, PAC Mate 20/40
  • Handialog: VisioBraille 2040
  • Handy Tech Elektronik GmbH: Buchwurm, Braille Star 40/80, Braille Wave 40, Braillino 20, Modular 20/40/80, Modular Evolution 64/88
  • La O.N.C.E.: EcoBraille 20/40/80
  • MDV: MB208/MB408L/MB408S (protocol 5)
  • Papenmeier: Tiny, Compact, 2D Lite, 2D Screen Soft, EL 2D-40/66/80, EL 80, EL 40 P, Elba 20/32, IB 80 CR Soft II EL 40/66/80 S
  • Pulse Data International: BrailleNote 18/32
  • Telesensory Systems Inc.: Navigator 20/40/80 (nur die neueste Firmware-Version), PowerBraille 40/65/80
  • Tactilog: LogText
  • Tieman B.V.: CombiBraille 25/45/85, MiniBraille 20, MultiBraille MB125CR/MB145CR/MB185CR, Voyager 44/70 (USB)
  • Tiflosoft: VideoBraille 40
  • Tivomatic: Albatross 46/80

BRLTTY provides a client server based infrastructure for applications which want to use a braille line. The daemon process waits for single coming TCP/IP connections on a certain port. A running time library in the object format for clients is provided in the package of libbrlapi. A static library, header files and documentation is provided in the package of libbrlapi-dev. This functionality is for example used by Gnopernicus to support braille lines which aren't supported by Gnopernicus directly yet.

eSpeak

eSpeak is a software Sprachsynthesier for English and some other languages.

eSpeak makes English language in good quality. It uses another voice synthesis, as another Open source to language machines (TSS) (text voice synthesis connected none, therefore it has low resource need) and sound quite different. It is still not so of course or "evenly" probable but some find the discussion more cleanly and more easily to listen to periods for a long time.

It can be used as a command line program to read text from a file or Stdin. It works as "Talker" with the KDE text to language system (KTTS) also well, for example as an alternative to festival. In this function it can read text, which was selected into the intermediate file or direct from the Konqueror browser or the Kate editor.

  • Contains different voices whose characteristics can become changed.
  • Speech generation can make as a WAV file.
  • Text can translate into phoneme codes so that it could be adapted as a surface for other voice synthesis programs.
  • Potential for other languages. Rudimentary (and probably funny) tests for German and Esperanto are contained.
  • Compact size. The program and his data sinnd altogether about 350 kilobytes great.

Written in C++.

eSpeak can be used also with GNOME speech and Speech dispatcher.

MCC and Drak tools or command-line versions added to menus.

Collection of accessible standard applications - office, system tools, games, audiovisual applications

  • Discuss Libre Office
  • Discuss Firefox
  • Discuss Email Client


File Management Settings

A good starting-point is the Gnome Accessibility Project, also the Vinux project.

Links: