GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 531595
g-s-d should support launching AT programs via mouse gestures
Last modified: 2019-02-01 11:29:55 UTC
g-s-d should have support for launching AT programs via mouse gestures. Users with mobility issues who can only use the mouse have no way to launch needed AT programs (such as GOK or dasher) for typing. It would be useful if g-s-d provided some support for launching the Preferred AT programs by doing some sort of mouse gesture. GDM 2.20 and earlier supported this by having the user move the mouse in and out of a window in various combinations. You can refer to the GDM 2.20 dwellmouselistener to see how this worked. However, other mouse gestures could also be used for launching AT programs, such as moving the mouse cursor to an edge of the screen and leaving it there for a certain amount of time. It doesn't really matter what the gesture is, as long as it isn't too cumbersome to complete. The following gestures should be supported - Launch the on-screen keyboard in normal mode - Launch the on-screen keyboard in dwell mode - Launch text-to-speech Providing this functionality would allow users to launch needed AT programs easily without needing someone else to first configure their session to launch such programs on session startup. Now that the new GDM 2.22 uses g-s-d, this would also allow login users to launch AT programs easily to navigate the login screen.
Hmm, I fear a lot has changed since GNOME 3 here. Also, with wayland we would need to implement such gestures directly in the shell (which should be feasible, I think). Anyway, it has been more than 10 years, closing this. If this is a good way to improve a11y, then a bug against gnome-shell is probably a good idea!