Current Work OSA

Back to Open Source Accessibility Home Page

OSA Roadmap

Other points

  • JS+??: Some discussion about pros/cons of web-based vs. operating systems
  • RS: On platform should focus on things like TTS that can't currently be done over the web but the applications will be web-based
  • ARIA is in first last call - ~70% done - but HTML5 integration coming up - SVG making use - used in XUL components in Firebug - Implementation Guide being produced - 2 gaps is not enough tools (so a new open source tool is being developed) and the other gap is education (getting people to understand that access is more than alt tags...but about interoperability) - HTML5 Canvas issue and potential solutions
  • New section needed on Language support - 100 to 200 langs in significant use
  • GV: Would like a major push on open source TTS
  • TTS on mobile: isn't open source TTS on mobile
  • Moblin(?)
  • Ubuntu Netbooks remix-basically Gnome- but app launcher is written in Clutter - not accessible
  • Simple apps might be more accesible in several ways
  • Big gaps in open desktop:
    • Media:
      • PDF
    • Application Tasks:
      • Email?
      • MIDI tool
      • Skype (there is open source telephony)
    • ATs
      • Voice Rec
      • TTS
    • Community support (friends, service orgs, training etc. recommending proprietary packages)
    • Testing - to prevent regressions in access support
    • Public awareness
    • Policy

Operating Systems

Operating Systems

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

Linux (Ubuntu, etc.)

http://www.linux.org/
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Accessibility

- accessibility much better than 2yrs ago
- audio is generally a problem

- lots of users rely on distros to provide accessibility out of the box - but when distros regress it turns off users quickly (so responsible integration into distros is important)
- proliferation of OSs can be a problem

 

Vinux

http://vinux.org.uk/

Active

A Customized Version of Ubuntu for Visually Impaired Users

 

Ubuntu Accessibility

http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/accessibility

- distro has an accessibility staff person (diff than other distros)

- "downstream" project; 6 month distro cycle

 

OpenSolaris

http://opensolaris.org/
http://opensolaris.org/os/project/indiana/status/accessibility/AccessibleLiveCd/

-

-

 

Platform Accessibiltiy APIs

Application/AT APIs

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

IAccessible2 (Windows)

IAccessible2 Home Page

Version 1.1 is complete

Added IAccessibleTable2 and IAccessibleTableCell.  This is in support of ARIA grids and treegrids and has been implemented in Firefox 3.6.

 

ATK/AT-SPI (Linux)

ATK v1.26.0
AT-SPI C Bindings

 

 

 

  • Notes: We should record completenes - 508 refresh is trying to get accessibility APIs to add strong access API requirement

Graphical Environments on Multiple OSs

Graphical Environments on Multiple OSs

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

Gnome

http://www.gnome.org/
http://projects.gnome.org/accessibility/index.html

- Going fairly well
- Several research efforts (eg. CORBA->Dbus - towards a Linux-wide solution;)
- Speech Dispatcher work

WW: Getting to a tipping point where mainstream devs thinking more about access.

 

KDE

http://kde.org/

 

 

 

Assistive Technologies

Multi-Platform Assistive Technologies

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

Dasher

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/

 

 

 

Virtual Magnifying Glass

http://magnifier.sourceforge.net/

 

 

 

WebAnywhere

http://webanywhere.cs.washington.edu/

 

 

 

Windows Assistive Technologies

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access)

http://www.nvda-project.org/

 

 

 

AccessAT (OS AT Bundle from abilitynet)

http://www.abilitynet.org.uk

 

 

 

Vu-Bar

http://www.fxc.btinternet.co.uk/assistive.htm

 

 

 

Power Reader

http://www.projectpossibility.org/viewProject.php?id=1

 

 

 

Word Predictor 

http://www.projectpossibility.org/viewProject.php?id=5

 

 

 

AccessApps (runs from memory stick) 

http://www.rsc-ne-scotland.ac.uk/eduapps/accessapps.php

 

 

 

Thunder Screen Reader

http://www.screenreader.net

 

 

 

Linux/OpenSolaris (GNOME, Ubuntu, KDE) Assistive Technologies

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

GNOME Onscreen Keyboard (GOK)

http://www.gok.ca/

 

 

 

Orca

http://live.gnome.org/Orca/

 

 

 

MouseTweaks

http://live.gnome.org/MouseTweaks/

 

 

 

MouseTrap

http://live.gnome.org//MouseTrap

 

 

 

VizAudio

http://2009.hfoss.org/VizAudio

 

 

 

GNOME Mag

http://live.gnome.org/GnomeMag

 

Magnifier that operates standalone and also used by Orca. Potentially replaced by work-in-progress enhancements to http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell

 

GNOME Speech

http://live.gnome.org/Orca/GnomeSpeech

 

TTS wrapper used by Orca

 

Speech Dispatcher

http://www.freebsoft.org/speechd

 

Potential replacement for GNOME Speech

 

BrlTTY

http://mielke.cc/brltty/

 

Braille device driver that operates standalone and also used by Orca.

 

XKB/AccessX

 

 

AccessDOS-like functionality built into X Windows.

 

KMouseTool, KMag, KMouth

http://accessibility.kde.org/aids/

 

 

 

Sites that Aggregate OS ATs

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

Oatsoft

http://www.oatsoft.org

 

 

 

Project Possibility

http://www.projectpossibility.org/index.php

 

 

 

FX Software

http://www.fxc.btinternet.co.uk/assistive.htm

 

 

 

LaZee Tek

http://www.lazeetek.com/html/links.html

 

 

 

Fullmeasure

http://fullmeasure.co.uk/

 

 

 

JISC TechDis

http://www.techdis.ac.uk/getfreesoftware

 


 

Raising the Floor

http://raisingthefloor.net/projects/masterlist/

 

Access Feature MasterList

 

Web Toolkits

Web Toolkits

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

Dojo

http://www.dojotoolkit.org/

-"core" widgets enabled for low-vision and keyboard (work with high contrast mode and font changes)
- work is ongoing for some DOJO extensions

JavaScript toolkit for easily building interactive Web Applications. The core widget set (found in the dijit directory) has been made keyboard, low vision and screen reader accessible via ARIA.   Dojox DataGrid widget is also implemented with basic accessibility.  Accessibility Statement at [http://docs.dojocampus.org/dijit-a11y-statement.
] Widget set Documentation: [http://docs.dojocampus.org/dijit/index
]

 

jQuery

http://jquery.com/

- approx. half of widgets have keyboard access and ARIA
- Ongoing

The jQuery community is actively engaged in added ARIA and keyboard navigation support to the jQuery UI widgets. Current support includes the Progress Bar, Dialog, Slider, and Accordion widgets.

 

Fluid Infusion

http://fluidproject.org/products/infusion/

1.1.1

Infusion is a JavaScript application framework built from the ground up with usability and accessibility in mind. Infusion is markup-driven and highly interoperable, including support for ARIA and unobtrusive templating on client side.

 

YUI Yahoo!User Interface Library

http://developer.yahoo.com/yui

-3.0 beta 1
- final release should be fully accessible

-lots of underlying things besides widgets (manage focus, keyboard support, resizing)
-chose not to build ARIA directly in - ARIA done with plugins - so ARIA can be turned on and off

 

EXTjs

 

- not accessible yet

 

 

ICEfaces

 

- not accessible yet

 

 

Woodstock

 

- not accessible yet

 

 

GWT (Google Web Toolkit)

 

 

 

 

Desktop Toolkits

Desktop Toolkits

Link

Status

Comments

Clutter

 

-not accessible

 

GTK+ (via ATK, AT-SPI, GAIL)

http://www.gtk.org/

-in general accessible

 

QT (KDE version of GTK+)

 

- waiting on CORBA>Dbus

 

XUL

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL

-has some bugs open - but generally OK

- like DOJO for the desktop
- ORCA has regression tests

Java

http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/accessibility/accessbridge/index.jsp
http://live.gnome.org/Java%20Access%20Bridge
http://live.gnome.org/Accessibility/JavaATKWrapper

- Java Access API not updated for some time
- Java>Gnome bridge is being rewritten
- Java>Windows is fairly old - AEGIS research effort to see what would be required in a replacement
- Java>MacOS bridge - no status report
- Java>Oracle
SWT (Standard Widget Toolkit) - another java toolkit
-pretty accessible

 

AXSJAX

http://code.google.com/p/google-axsjax/

 

leverages AJAX techniques to inject accessibility support into Web 2.0 applications

UNO Widget set

 

- supported on Gnome
- Mac (in progress)
- some Win support

-used by OpenOffice

AXS?

 

 

 

General accessibility libraries

Libraries

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

eSpeak

http://espeak.sourceforge.net/

- ongoing, some dev.

- Cross-platform TTS library used by assistive technologies on Windows and UNIX and GNU/Linux systems
- small, fast, support several languages
- forment (sp?) engine
- hard to get support to do the work of adding languages
- WIN and MacOS has more built-in TTS

- languages missing (Arabic, etc.)
- for speech disabilies (and some cognitive impairments) concatenative engines often work better.
- mainstream vendors have moved to concatenative over forment

Festival

 

 

- TTS

 

Flight(sp?)

 

 

- TTS

 

Liblouis

http://code.google.com/p/liblouis/

-

- text>contracted Braille in mamny languages
- most used Braille translation library - used in ORCA, NVDA
- Braille important for blind literacy worldwide and deaf-blind

 

Sphinx

 

-Sphinx3 in C
-Sphinx4 in Java

- Speech-to-text

- lacking integration with desktop (command+control)

Voice Gestures

http://sourceforge.net/projects/voicegestures/

- alpha (inactive)

Discrete speech to text engine

- requires training
- not production-ready

Aibicom

http://komodoopenlab.com/use/aibicom/

- released

- Single-switch control library
- can be used to enable gaming, drawing, virtual object manipulation

 

Accessibility Testing Tools

Web Accessibility Test Tools

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

Firebug Add-On

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843

 

 

 

Firebug Add-On with ARIA support

http://wiki.codetalks.org/wiki/index.php/Repository_Tools#Firebug%20Accessibility

 

 

 

AChecker

http://www.atutor.ca/achecker/

- new PHP ver. is open source
- monitoring module coming

- incl. check authoring tool, guideline authoring tool

- multimedia checks, lang. use checks

WAVE Firefox extension

http://wave.webaim.org

 


 

Open Ajax Alliance Accessibility Tools Task Force Rules and Best Practices

http://www.openajax.org/member/wiki/Accessibility
a Code repository is coming




Speclenium

http://monotonous.org/specular/

 

- tests browsers for ARIA implementation

 

Webaim WAVE Toolbar

http://wave.webaim.org/toolbar

- for FF

 

 

Firefox Accessibility Extension

 

- for FF

 

 

Built-in Accessibility Test Tools

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

Accessibility Tools Framework (ACTF) for Eclipse

http://www.eclipse.org/actf/

 

 

 

Net beans work (PK?)

 

 

 

 

A-Designer (RS?)

 

 

-for ODF?

 

Platform Accessibility Test Tools

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

AccProbe

http://www.eclipse.org/actf/downloads/tools/accprobe/

0.4.4 is now available with support for IAccessibleTable2 and IAccessibleTableCell

 

 

Accerciser

http://live.gnome.org/Accerciser

 

 

 

Accessibility Test Rules (mentionned by RS)

Accessible Content Authoring Support

Accessible Content Authoring Support

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

CapScribe

http://www.capscribe.ca/

 

- for captions and audio descriptions

 

Dots

http://git.gnome.org/cgit/dots

- proof of concept

 

 

Liblouis

http://code.google.com/p/liblouis/

 

 

 

TinyMCE

 

 

- javascript plugin
- implements some of ATAG2

 

OpenOffice

 

 

 

 

Magpie

 

 

 

 

Desktop File Formats

Desktop Document Formats

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

ODF

OASIS ODF Public Site

 


 

OOXML

 

 

- improvements made in standardization process
-

- still some gaps (e.g., nav order in slides, contains links with some semi-proprietary standards (e.g. clipboard))

PDF

 

 

 

 

Desktop Applications

Productivity Software

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

OpenOffice.org

http://www.openoffice.org/
http://openoffice.org/access

Work is ongoing and accelerating

OOo's supports AT. Good AT support on GNOME and MAC OSX. Windows AT support not sufficient, plan is to support IA2 in the future.

 

Browsers

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

Firefox

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
http://www.accessfirefox.org/

 

 

 

E-Mail

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

Evolution

http://projects.gnome.org/evolution/

 

 

 

Thunderbird

http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/

 

 

 

Readers

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

 

 

 

 

 

Instant Messaging Clients

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

Pidgin

http://www.pidgin.im/

 

 

 

Web Applications

Web Applications

Link

Status

Comments

Gaps

Sakai

http://sakaiproject.org/

 

 

 

Moodle

http://moodle.org/

 

 

 

ATutor

http://www.atutor.ca/

 

 

 

uPortal

http://www.jasig.org/uportal

 

 

 

OpenCast

http://www.opencastproject.org/

 

 

 

Mobile Accessibility

Accessible Gaming

Hardware Devices

Research-Level Work

Evaluation, evidence and research

Documentation

Education and Outreach

Education and Outreach

Link

Status

Comments

2006 Marco Fioretti posting

http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/52819

 

 

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya Master of Accessibility and Interoperability of ISS Program

http://www.technosite.es/masterUOC/index.html

 

 

Help, Service and Support

Funding

Funding

Link

Status

Comments

SARAI FLOSS Fellowships

http://www.sarai.net/fellowships/floss

 

 

Other Resources

Resources

Link

Status

Comments

UNESCO Free & Open Source Software Portal

http://www.unesco-ci.org/cgi-bin/portals/foss/page.cgi?d=1

 

 

Planet-Accessibility Blog Feeds

http://www.planet-a11y.net

 

 

OSS Watch team blog - Accessibility Category

http://osswatch.jiscinvolve.org/category/accessibility/

 

 

Project Possibility on Google Code

http://code.google.com/hosting/search?q=projects%40projectpossibility&filter=0&start=10

 

 

AbilityNet

http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/

 

 

AEGIS Project

http://www.aegis-project.eu/

 

 

Raising the Floor

http://raisingthefloor.net/