On Sun, Aug 04, 2002 at 09:29:01PM -0400, Joe Drew wrote:
> > Given all of the hype
> > about how accessable Gnome2 supposedly is, it's amazing how many features
> > I _train other low vision users to use_ he simply doesn't like for some
> > reason or another and therefore will not have in Metacity.
>
> I'm really interested in what these are and how they help; can you
> provide a reference?
The ability to open an application in a particular workspace and how it is
opened (zoomed, etc.) I've gotta use such big fonts in all of my windows
that I literally have ten different workspaces to put them all in. And I
use them, too! I have only two of those ten workspaces which are not
regularly populated.
I also have been asking for the ability to raise windows on alt-tab for
quite some time because the current method Metacity uses to highlight a
window to be raised lacks sufficient visual cues to be useful to
low-vision people. He finally agreed to do this on a different key, but
it hasn't been done yet and Havoc has commented that this is not a high
priority for him.
As to the window matching, he says it's a hack and it's not worth doing
for the "three people who would actually use it". Of the fully sighted
people I know, the number who use window matching for something at least
number closer to thirty than three. And I really don't like fully sighted
people telling me what I do and do not need to make my system accessable
to me.
Efficient window and workspace management is essential to anyone's ability
to use graphical environments at optimally, and this holds especially true
for low-vision users, who can easy get buried in large overlapping
windows, especially if more than half of them have the amazingly brilliant
and helpful title of "Terminal". I speak for every single computer user
who is blind or has low-vision when I say that we're frankly tired of
having to justify our needs to people who think we should do without
reasonable things because they are capible of doing so just fine.
With all of this talk of phasing out Sawfish, a window manger that works
(more or less) in favor of Metacity which doesn't and whose author has
been unreceptive to these issues, is it any wonder why I am rather hostile
toward the idea? Especially given all the talk of having One Gnome Window
Manager and making it one of those very few which lack essential features
I need, and which I train other low-vision computer users to rely upon.
I have professional experience training people to use large print and
speech systems for DOS/Windows, and I still train a few blind people now
and then with Linux if they're geeky enough to be able to manage it in a
Windows-dominated world. For the blind users, I teach them screader and
emacspeak (which I need a reference card for myself since I can't remember
half the commands from one day to the next!) The low-vision users are the
ones I teach X11 and Gnome to. Each and every one of these I've taught
has loved and used my techniques extensively. Now I'm faced with the
prospect of telling them that they can't use future versions of Gnome the
same way because Havoc deems the necessary features to be hacky and not
worth implementing for the few users who would benefit from them.
Do you have any idea how it feels to be told that something you've come to
depend on will no longer be available because it's not worth having just
for you and a small handfull of others? I know for certain Havoc has
underestimated both the impact of his decision to leave out these hacks
and the number of people who use them. Yes, window matching is a hack,
and a gross one at that. Yeah, it's not always reliable. And yet, it's
better than nothing.
--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@bluecherry.net> Crazy in the coconut
> >I don't really regard bible-kjv-text as a technical document,
> > but... :)
> It's a manual -- for living.
But it hasn't been updated in a long time, many would say that it's
sadly out of date, and the upstream maintainer doesn't respond to his
email. :-)
-- Branden Robinson, Oliver Elphick, and Chris Waters
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