I have been using Ubuntu Mate since the 16.04 and am a totally blind user. I run the LTS versions as it is important that accessibility is always working. 16.04 had great accessibility, and all I can say about the new 18.04 when I checked it out on someone’s computer is, the accessibility blows me away. I came to Ubuntu Mate from Windows 10 and had been involved with helping test accessibility on that platform. The degree to which the team of Ubuntu Mate cares about accessibility, and the fact that you want it to work well for visually impaired users, is totally evident from your hard work on this distribution. The Brisk menu works well and the whole system is useable. There are a few small issues, but they are so small in comparison that in the end it hasn’t effected my use of the OS. I sincerely hope that you continue to focus on accessibility in the future. Ubuntu Mate is very quickly becoming an alternative OS that visually impaired users can switch to! Keep up the great work!
Thanks,
Brandon
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I’m another totally-blind user who is on Ubuntu-Mate 18.04, and am quite happy with the accessibility (for users who are blind or visually-impaired) of this distribution. From first boot of the live medium to eyes-free installation, then to everyday use, it just works. Mostly true… The welcome widget, software boutique, and and mate tweak tool need some accessibility work.
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@Dave_Hunt, there is currently some work being done on mate-tweak to improve accessibility. The Welcome app and the Software Boutique seem to still need some more love on this area, though.
Let me know if there are specific pain points you have and I can make sure it reaches the appropriate parties.
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Hi,
Yes, I agree with you completely.
Have you looked at 18.10 daily builds? I was just wondering if those
contained any new accessibility improvements.
Sincerely,
Brandon Tyson
Not quite yet. 18.10 is currently being used as the platform to develop many of these improvements, but they are not yet being packaged up for it.
All in due time. A lot of the accessibility improvements could be candidates for updates to 18.04.1, coming up next month.
Hi,
That’s really cool to hear.
I didn’t realize that the .1 releases (18.04.1 in this instance) can
include accessibility improvements.
Specifically, someone brought it to my attention that the version of
Speech-Dispatcher-espeak-ng included in 18.04 does not read < and >
symbols when the punctuation level is set to read all punctuation,
which is a concern for those involved with coding and similar things,
and I was told that this has since been fixed. Do you know if this is
a potential fix for 18.04.1 by chance?
Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to any input you
may have on this.
Sincerely,
Brandon Tyson
@brandongold98 - Since it is a bug fix, then it’s possible to include it. What we need is a Launchpad bug so that it can be tracked, and then release the fix for 18.10 first. Then it can be backported to 18.04 for inclusion in 18.04.1.
When I start Software Boutique, the window's title is spoken by orca. When I try to use orca's Flat Review Mode, orca will speak nothing but the window title. When navigating with the cursoring keys, nothing is spoken. When using the tab key to move among page elements, I occasionally hear "push button", "0", and "software centers" as the name on one of the buttons. Pressing any of these results in more unspoken pages. Since Welcome seems to have similar troubles, though more buttons seem to be labeled, I suspect common issues with webkit. There seems to be no way to activate the text cursor. The programs, Epiphany Browser and Evince have enabled a text cursor toggle on the 'f7' key. when this is toggled on, more of the webkit widgit content becomes readable. Would universally enabling the text cursor in Ubuntu Mate webkit content pose a problem for users who don't need accessibility?
On 06/05/2018 07:36 PM, Victor Kareh wrote:
Let me know if there are specific pain points you have and I can make sure it reaches the appropriate parties.
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Watching Destination Linux with Martin over on YouTube, it’s obvious that UM is dedicated to providing top notch accessibility options.
Brandon and Dave, great to see you both here as part of the UM community!
GM
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@brandongold98 not sure if your familiar with Sonar OS ?
It’s a bit conceptual but I am sure you are in for treat if you got help getting in-touch with the developer in the US.