CSUN 2004 report (2/2)

[Koichi INOUE <inoue@...>]

井上です。
続きです。もうひとつあります。
# 二つに分けても20000バイト超えるとは。

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    o The third session Sun hosted was "Evolution and Mozilla
      Accessibility: e-mail, calendaring, and the web" - which described
      the features of these two applications in detail, as well as
      a bonus demo of the GAIM instant messaging client.  It was given by
      Peter Korn & Marc Mulcahy (along with a special guest appearance
      over the Internet by Bill Haneman), all of Sun's accessibility team.

      The session began with Evolution, which Peter described as a
      "look-alike" alternative to Microsoft Outlook (only without the
      viruses).  He described how Evolution will work with most existing
      mail and calendaring environments, supporting IMAP, POP, SMTP,
      and Authenticated SMTP servers; and that it specifically works with
      Sun Java System Calendaring & Messenging servers, with Lotus Notes
      servers, and with Microsoft Exchanges servers (this last one via a
      3rd party connector).  He also noted that Evolution will import mail
      from Eudora, UNIX mbox, MH, Maildir, Netscape, and Outlook Express
      mailboxes; and it supports multiple account management and Palm
      synchronization.

      Next, Peter noted some of the key features of Mozilla, including
      tabbed browsing support, the popup ad blocker, "find as you type"
      functionality for typing the contents of a hyperlink to select it,
      and the sophisticated junk mail filtering capabilities in the
      Mozilla e-mail application.  He then described the key accessibility
      features of both Evolution and Mozilla: keyboard operability of
      the user interface and in manipulation of content; support for the
      GNOME desktop theme, and support for the GNOME accessibility
      architecture and thereby interoperability with the Gnopernicus and
      GOK assistive technologies.

      Peter then gave a demo of Evolution, showing it on the Sun Java
      Desktop System with the Gnopernicus screen reader/magnifier.  He
      noted that assistive technology support in Evolution is still in
      the early stages, and that he was using a special build of Evolution
      with accessibility support that was in the process of being put back
      to the open source master cod repository.  Peter opened his e-mail in
      Evolution, read one of the messages, and composed a reply all while
      using Gnopernicus with speech and magnification.

      Exiting Evolution, Peter launched Mozilla and demonstrated access
      to the web through Gnopernicus on the Sun Java Desktop System.
      He noted that there were still a number of keyboard navigation issues
      that were being worked on for Mozilla accessibility, but nonetheless
      managed to successfully browse the Microsoft Web site.  In fact,
      he went to a page listing an example PowerPoint slide for education,
      and when he activated the link Mozilla downloaded the slideshow, which
      was then automatically opened in StarOffice.  Using Gnopernicus,
      Peter proceeded to read through the contents of the first slide, with
      Gnopernicus correctly indicating when the text he was reading on
      the slide was in boldface!

      At this point Marc Mulcahy came on stage for a discussion and
      demonstration GAIM, the open source GNOME instant messenger application
      (which also ships as part of the Sun Java Desktop System).  Peter noted
      that GAIM supports more instant messaging protocols than any other
      IM client, including AIM/ICQ & TOC from AOL, Yahoo Messenger, MSN,
      IRC, Jabber, Napster, Zephyr, and Gadu-Gadu.  He said that GAIM
      supports web proxying (to get outside a firewall), allows you to
      maintain buddy lists and be informed when your buddies are on-line,
      and provides rich sound events inform you when things happen (like your
      buddy goes on-line).

      In order to ensure that GAIM worked well with Gnopernicus and other
      assistive technologies, Marc made a few modifications to the GAIM
      source code, with were accepted back into the open source project.
      Thanks to these small changes, Marc then demonstrated how he uses GAIM
      for having IM conversations with Gnopernicus.  Not to be left out,
      Peter opened another GAIM session on another computer running the Sun
      Java Desktop System, this time using the GOK dynamic on-screen
      keyboard.  And to round out the IM chat session, they were joined by
      Bill Haneman from Dublin Ireland chatting over the Internet.  Peter
      invited people in the audience to interact with Bill through us,
      and as Marc and Peter entered their questions, Bill's responses were
      spoken to the room from Marc's computer via Gnopernicus.  Peter ended
      the session by noting that GAIM was more than a nice way to keep in
      touch with your friends - the GNOME development team actively uses
      instant messaging and the IRC service for all manner of engineering
      discussions.  GAIM accessibility is critical if developers with
      disabilities are to participate successfully in many open source
      projects.


      For more information about the Mozilla accessibility project
      in general, and Mozilla accessibility on UNIX platforms, please
      see the following web pages respectively:

       http://www.mozilla.org/projects/ui/accessibility/
       http://www.mozilla.org/projects/ui/accessibility/unix/



    o The fourth session Sun hosted was "GOK - the open source Dynamic
      On-screen Keyboard" - which went into depth on the on-screen keyboard
      developed by the University of Toronto Adaptive Technology Resource
      Center and which is a core part of the GNOME desktop starting with
      GNOME 2.4.  Jan Richards of University of Toronto ATRC gave the
      presentation, along with demonstrations by Peter Korn of Sun's
      accessibility team.

      Jan began the talk with an overview of GOK: it is an on-screen
      keyboard and more that utilizes the GNOME accessibility framework
      to provide a series of dynamic keyboards on screen for rapid
      access to applications and the desktop.  He stated that it was
      free software - using the LGPL library - designed for UNIX and
      UNIX-like operating systems, and that it had been fully translated
      into ~30 languages.  He said the mission of GOK is to "give the user
      access to all the functions of the UNIX and GNU/Linux desktop in the
      least number of steps."  He said that UToronto choose GNOME because
      it is one of the two popular desktops for UNIX and GNU/Linux, and
      that Sun Microsystems and the open source community have have built
      a powerful accessibility infrastructure into GNOME which is necessary
      for the advanced features of GOK.  He noted that KDE, the other
      popular desktop for UNIX and GNU/Linux systems, is presently working
      to support the same infrastructure in a future edition of that desktop.

      Jan then talked about the project's history, and GOK's philosophy.
      He said that work began in 2002 by a group of clinicians, students,
      programmers and visionaries with a lot of experience with users
      with motor impairments.  Their philosophy is to put the user first,
      and GOK is designed to enable clinicians to asses people with motor
      impairments who would then configure GOK to take best advantage of
      the motor function of that particular user.

      Jan showed a series of pictures of the GOK preferences dialog.  He
      show the Actions pane, and described how a clinician (or user) would
      define a set of actions a user could perform (with switches or a
      joystick) for an x or x,y axis movement.  He showed the Feedback pane,
      where a clinician (or user) would define the visual and/or auditory
      feedback to associate with various actions.  He showed the Access
      Methods pane, where the clinician (or user) would choose the
      method by which the user would generate input, and the actions
      (defined earlier) that trigger that input - including direct selection,
      dwell selection, and scanning (automatic, inverse, row/column,
      column/row, and single key scanning).  He showed the Appearance pane,
      where a clinician (or user) has great control of the visual appearance
      of the on-screen keyboard.  And finally he showed the Prediction pane,
      where a clinician (or user) can enable word completion and command
      prediction, as well as load an auxiliary word list for word completion.

      Jan described the GOK user experience, starting from a "main" keyboard
      with the buttons "Compose", "Window", "Mouse", "Launcher", "Activate",
      "GOK", "Menus", "Toolbars", and "UI Grab".  He said that additional
      dynamic keyboards come up as the user interacts with their
      desktop and applications.  Jan then described in detail each keyboard
      and its function.  He first described the static keyboards: the
      "Compose" keyboard - the basic alphanumeric hardware keyboard
      rendered as a window of buttons on the screen; the "Window" keyboard
      presenting buttons for moving the GOK window around on the screen
      or docking it to the top/bottom of the screen; the "Mouse" keyboard
      for moving and the clicking the mouse; the "Launcher" keyboard which
      is based on a user-editable XML file and lists applications a user
      can launch; and the "GOK" keyboard for getting help, opening the GOK
      preferences dialog, and exiting the application.  He then described
      the dynamic keyboards: the "Activate" keyboard which lists all of the
      running applications on the desktop for rapidly switching between
      them (much faster than scanning to ALT, then scanning to TAB, then
      scanning again to TAB, etc. to switch); the "Menus" keyboard which
      reaches into the running application and dynamically builds a keyboard
      of the menus for rapid selection; the "Toolbar" keyboard which likewise
      reaches into the running application and dynamically builds a keyboard
      of the toolbar for rapid selection; and the "UI Grab" keyboard which
      examines the topmost window and dynamically builds a keyboard with
      all of the "user interface elements" on it (the buttons, checkboxes,
      popup menus, editable text fields, etc.) for rapid access - especially
      useful in dialog boxes.  He noted that these dynamic keyboards
      know about the kinds of objects they are displaying, and optionally use
      color and other visual indicators to show the user the kind of object
      represented with each button on the keyboard.  Further, selecting
      a button representing an editable text field will not only bring
      focus to that text field, it will also bring up the "Compose" keyboard
      for immediate editing.

      At this point in the presentation, Jan invited Peter to give a live
      demonstration of GOK on the Sun Java Desktop System.  Peter began
      with GOK on the GNOME desktop and a TASH USB Mini-click single-switch
      device.  He observed that with any other on-screen keyboard running
      on Windows, launching applications is a lengthy and painful process
      of scanning to CTRL to latch it, then scanning to ESC to bring up
      the Start menu, then scanning repeatedly to down and right arrow
      to navigate the Start menu to finally get to the application you
      want to launch (he started this process on the GNOME desktop from
      the GOK "Compose" keyboard, then gave up in frustration).  He
      said that in GOK there is a better way: simply activate the GNOME
      menu panel from the "Activate" keyboard, choose the "Applications"
      menu from the "Menus" keyboard, and immediately select the application
      you want to run (or the submenu listing the application); dramatically
      faster!  Alternately of course, Peter noted that frequently launched
      applications could be placed in the "Launcher" menu; in fact that's
      what he did before this presentation to put GAIM and StarOffice there.

      Peter proceeded to launch the GNOME Text Editor application, and
      using the "Compose" keyboard, he wrote a sentence.  He then noted
      that if he wanted to edit this sentence, that on any other on-screen
      keyboard on any other platform he would have to slowly scan down
      to the arrow keys to slowly move character at a time (or latch
      the CTRL key to use the arrow keys to move a word at a time).
      But then he brought up the "Text-manipulation" keyboard, and
      demonstrated rapid selection by letter, word, line, and sentence,
      as well as immediate access to cut, copy, and paste functionality
      via the GNOME Accessibility architecture.  He then used the "Menus"
      keyboard to rapidly choose "Save" from the "File" menu, and the
      "UI Grab" keyboard to put the contents of that dialog onto a
      dynamic keyboard to quickly choose a directory, a filename, and
      the "OK" button.

      Peter then exited Text Editor, and brought up the GNOME Help system.
      Again comparing GOK to other on-screen keyboards for other platforms,
      he noted that the normal and tedious way to select hyperlinks is
      to repeatedly scan to the TAB key until the correct link is focused,
      and then scan to the SPACE key to select it (and repeat this
      process again and again until you find the help document you want).
      But then he showed how the GOK "UI Grab" keyboard would immediately
      extract all of the hyperlinks and put them on a keyboard dynamically,
      for immediate selection.  Going to the "Accessibility Guide" help
      document, he showed how the GNOME Help system displayed a table
      of contents in a tree-view pane on the left side of the window, and
      how GOK's "UI Grab" keyboard also listed that table of contents on
      the dynamic keyboard allowing him to rapidly go to Chapter 3.2 titled
      "Navigating the Desktop Background" in just three clicks of his
      single-switch device.

      Peter emphasized that this all works because of the GNOME
      Accessibility architecture, which is implemented across the entire
      GNOME desktop as well as in large applications like StarOffice and
      Mozilla and Java applications (all of which Sun is incorporating
      in the Sun Java Desktop System).  To underscore this point, Peter
      then launched StarOffice and used the GOK "Menu" keyboard to open
      a new text document.  Noting how difficult it usually is for a
      single switch user to navigate a complex dialogs like Character
      Font and Style dialogs, he used the "Toolbar" GOK keyboard to
      put the character attribute settings "Bold", "Italic", and
      "Underline" (among others) onto a keyboard, and in three clicks
      each quickly selected them.  He then proceeded to enter text from
      the "Compose" keyboard that was italicized, boldface, and underlined!

      Having demonstrated GOK at length with single switch, Peter then
      changed the Access Method to "Dwell selection", placed a reflective
      dot onto his forehead, and used a Madentec Tracker to operate GOK.
      He re-launched the GNOME Help application and followed a few
      hyperlinks, all simply by moving his head.


      For more information about GOK and about the GNOME Accessibility
      architecture, please see the following web pages respectively:

       http://www.gok.ca
       http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap