GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 531596
Should provide keybindings for launching AT programs
Last modified: 2021-06-09 16:01:27 UTC
GNOME should provide default keybindings for launching AT programs so that users who need to run text-to-speech, or an on-screen-keyboard can easily launch such programs. Users who need such programs cannot navigate the GUI, so providing a keybinding that launches AT programs would allow users to start needed AT programs so they can then navigate the GUI. The following keybindings should be supported: - Launch on-screen keyboard in normal mode - Launch on-screen keyboard in dwell mode - Launch text-to-speech
I view this more or less as a duplicate of bug 114796. While we could add some additional hard-coded bindings for this, I'd rather not do that.
The difference between this bug and bug 114796 is that many users with disabilities simply cannot use the desktop without being able to first launch AT programs. This need, I think, puts this class of keybindings in a unique category. Most other "arbitrary" keybindings are used to make life easier for the user, to quickly launch a program that they might want to launch frequently, for example. Such keybindings are nice-to-have, but not really needed to be able to use the desktop. It would be best if the keybindings used to launch AT programs were standardized across all GNOME desktops, rather than being arbitrary keybindings that each distro could configure differently. Users with a11y needs should know that a specific keybinding will work regardless of which GNOME distro they are using. Otherwise users with a11y needs will have difficulty switching between distros. Especially users like blind users, who obviously can't get any hints from the GUI about what the differences might be.
Note similar bug #387973, which George Kraft just made me aware of. I'm not sure if it makes more sense to implement this in metacity as that bug suggests or in the keybinding prefernces, but wanted to highlight this similar bug.
See related bug #599093.
See also http://live.gnome.org/Accessibility/PreferencesRework. The approach outlined there builds upon the Universal Access Preferences dialog and focuses on the methods the user needs to interact with the machine (e.g., speech, magnification, braille, etc.) versus the actual technology (e.g., a screen reader).
Mass move to new component "Keyboard" where the keyboard shortcuts live in GNOME 3.
Most of those features are supported in GNOME 3. The only thing missing is a list of default keybindings. What do other OSes use for those?
*** Bug 387973 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Agree that we should have shortcuts for a11y features. I'm pretty sure there has been some discussion about this already. This page has some relevant information: https://live.gnome.org/GnomeOS/Design/Whiteboards/KeyboardShortcuts
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