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Re: Blind people using setup.exe?


On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Nikhil Nair wrote:

> On Sun, 26 Jun 2005, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 26 Jun 2005, Nikhil Nair wrote:
> >
> > > [...]
> > I'm sorry to say that the chooser is currently not accessible.  I'm
> > sure some setup developers have half-baked attempts to decouple the
> > logic from the chooser in their private sandboxes (I do), but nothing
> > worth even showing to others, apparently.
> >
> > Assuming you have the ability to edit files, as a temporary workaround
> > you could add the following line to your /etc/setup/installed.db (in
> > alphabetical order):
> >
> > emacs emacs-0-0.tar.bz2 0
> >
> > and re-run setup.  It should now "upgrade" the version of emacs it
> > thinks you have (0-0), effectively installing emacs.
> >
> > HTH,
> > 	Igor
>
> Thanks, Igor - that workaround performed flawlessly.
>
> Am I right in suspecting that, if I were to use this method for another
> package which had unsatisfied dependencies, setup.exe wouldnt' sort out
> those dependencies for me?  Or would it assume the dependencies had
> changed since version 0-0, and handle them seamlessly?

I'm hoping it's the latter, but don't have the opportunity to verify that
right now.  You can easily test that hypothesis yourself (just look in any
setup.ini file in your local package cache for the dependency
information)... :-)

> On a different note, could anyone spare a few minutes to describe
> exactly how you operate the chooser, as a sighted user?  If I can
> understand what I should be doing with the mouse, I may be able to get
> my screen reader to emulate that; it has quite a bit of power to
> simulate clicks, holding the mouse buttons etc., though most blind
> people don't use them since ordinary keyboard access is so much easier.

Unfortunately, this may not help much, since the chooser actually uses
graphics commands to draw strings on a canvas.  Would your software
actually be able to *read* those strings?  There's also the issue of
cutting off strings that don't fit in a column.  Resizing the column
requires positioning the mouse on a vertical bar that separates them --
would your software help you locate that?

If you *are* able to do the two things mentioned above and to tell which
row of the chooser your mouse cursor is pointing at, take a look at
<http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/setup-net.html#id4740819> for some
description of how the chooser works (if you haven't already).  You may
find it easier to use the "Full" view, rather than the "Category" view.
Then, to select a package for installation, left-click once on the label
that says "Skip" in the row that contains the package name (about 150
pixels off the left edge of the Setup window) -- it should change to
reflect the current version of the package.  It may be better to work with
a maximized window.  The vertical scrollbar controls are located at
(-35,-110) pixels off the bottom-right corner of the window (down arrow)
and (-35,120) pixels off the top-right corner of the window (up arrow).
The up/down arrow controls will scroll the chooser one line up or down,
respectively.

> Applications which need mouse manipulation of that sort are generally
> considered to be inaccessible, but that doesn't mean you can't get them
> working if you know what to do.

As mentioned above, the main accessibility problem with the chooser is not
mouse manipulation, but the graphical representation of strings.  Once
that's changed, it shouldn't be particularly hard to allow keyboard
controls as well (i.e., if standard Win32 controls are used, we'd get
keyboard bindings for free).
	Igor
-- 
				http://cs.nyu.edu/~pechtcha/
      |\      _,,,---,,_		pechtcha@cs.nyu.edu
ZZZzz /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_		igor@watson.ibm.com
     |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'		Igor Pechtchanski, Ph.D.
    '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) fL	a.k.a JaguaR-R-R-r-r-r-.-.-.  Meow!

"The Sun will pass between the Earth and the Moon tonight for a total
Lunar eclipse..." -- WCBS Radio Newsbrief, Oct 27 2004, 12:01 pm EDT


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