6 ms·

This is wrong. Accessibility software uses the at-spi protocol and this work with kde, gnome and in both x11 and wayland. There are some minor issues with Wayl

by ognarb 3y ago

This is wrong. Accessibility software uses the at-spi protocol and this work with kde, gnome and in both x11 and wayland. There are some minor issues with Wayland but most of it works. I don't know what talon is doing as it seems proprietary, but the issue might be there.

SCdF 3y ago
To be completely clear I am not a Linux programmer, and I don't have the bandwidth I think to become one, this is my secondhand understanding of the situation. Here is a bit of a discussion though on this topic: - a summary of the situation: https://github.com/splondike/wayland-accessibility-notes/blob/main/README.md https://github.com/splondike/wayland-accessibility-notes/blo... - talon-required features and their current compatibility: https://github.com/splondike/wayland-accessibility-notes/blob/main/talon-requirements.md https://github.com/splondike/wayland-accessibility-notes/blo...
- Alupis 3y ago
  Keep in mind a lot of the belly aching you read is from people miffed their X11 application needs to be updated. Basically people complaining about needing to do work to modernize. All the things will eventually be just fine. X11 is a walking zombie.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    > people miffed their X11 application needs to be updated. Yes, users are very understandably miffed that things which were working are suddenly broken and somebody now has to fix it in order to return to the status quo. > things will eventually be just fine Wayland is 15 years old. At this rate it will be due for replacement before it's feature complete.
    - jorvi 3y ago
      > Yes, users are very understandably miffed that things which were working are suddenly broken and somebody now has to fix it in order to return to the status quo. You are misunderstanding. You can continue to keep using applications in X11-mode for as long as those applications maintain that code path. But many of the niceties Wayland provides, X11 won't get because it is virtually unmaintained. Or said another way, X11 is already broken and getting slightly more broken every day. And before you get angry at X11 going unmaintained, would you have expected Apple to support Carbon ad-infinitum? Look at the backwards-compatibility and new-framework-adoption-rate woes Windows has to deal with because Win32 exists and devs are lazy / expensive.
      - Alupis 3y ago
        Making it worse, the X11 developer team has publicly stated several times X11 is beyond fixing. That's why the X11 team de facto abandoned X11 and created Wayland in the first place. X11 is a complete dead end. All applications need to eventually update. Put pressure on app developers to get to it...
        Brian_K_White 3y ago
        xorg can be an unfixable mess, and wayland can still be unfit for purpose as a replacement. Both can be true at the same time. btw, I already said something wrong, because, which wayland? It's not a thing.
        jorvi 3y ago
        I mean, if you want accessibility support, generally straying outside of big/default projects ends up being a struggle. Like, you can complain about missing deep accessibility support in something like Bpswm or Ratpoison, but is that really fair? I'm guessing accessibility support is/will be pretty good on both Mutter (Gnome) and Kwin (KDE). Wlroots-based probably will be too with the community attention it is getting. Stray beyond that and you'll be on your own.
        danShumway 3y ago
    - dylan-m 3y ago
      > things which were working are suddenly broken … > Wayland is 15 years old. So, it's not very sudden, then, is it? So much of what people see as wrong in Wayland is about slow-moving applications and driver vendors refusing to adapt; waiting until their software is actually broken before they do anything. We've had more than a decade knowing full well what is coming. I sympathize that an application you rely on is caught up in that. Nobody wanted that situation. But X11 has had a pretty good life. And unless Talon on Linux is suddenly abandoned, I really doubt those developers are going to keep hitching their wagon to X11. At some point, (probably soon now that distributors are getting serious about it), they will take a look at what's new and they will make it work with Wayland. With that said, I don't think you have to worry for a while. I doubt apps are ever going to stop working in X11 altogether. You might end up with a different desktop at some point if you're using GNOME or KDE, but that's all.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
        To an end user it could easily be sudden; you install a new version of Fedora and oops your screenshot tool no longer works, and better hope the only accessibility tools you needed were built in to GNOME. > And unless Talon on Linux is suddenly abandoned, I really doubt those developers are going to keep hitching their wagon to X11. At some point, (probably soon now that distributors are getting serious about it), they will take a look at what's new and they will make it work with Wayland. That's assuming that they can make it work with Wayland, which appears rather unlikely since the API surface doesn't exist. As you say, Wayland has had more than a decade but most of that time was spent loudly proclaiming that such functionality was a security problem and had no legitimate usecases so here we are. > With that said, I don't think you have to worry for a while. I doubt apps are ever going to stop working in X11 altogether. I certainly hope I can keep using X until Wayland actually reaches feature parity, but I'm already seeing pressure on both sides; waydroid is the first[0] application to outright refuse to support X, while Asahi Linux was loudest about not wanting to support Xorg but they're hardly the only ones. I suspect I'm going to end up with a 3-layer system comprised of cage[1] running xwayland running my real graphical environment with some applications in their own little cage windows. It's a little annoying but as a break-glass option it seems to function with only slightly more papercuts than X11 programs on Xorg:\ [0] Well, first that I've noticed at least. [1] https://www.hjdskes.nl/projects/cage/ https://www.hjdskes.nl/projects/cage/
danShumway 3y ago
Is there documentation about how to get started with at-spi somewhere that I just haven't been able to find online? https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/accessibility/atk/at-spi/start https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/accessibility/atk/at-spi/st... exists, but is fairly unapproachable and it's not clear to me as a developer where I would start if I was trying to either build an application that hooked into at-spi or to set up automated tests for at-spi events on my own software. The common advice is always "use a graphical toolkit", but let's say I'm stepping outside of a toolkit like GTK and I'm building something smaller, or let's say that I want to build a toy screenreader of my own. I've had an awful time trying to find documentation about this stuff.
- nolist_policy 3y ago
  Here[1] is a good introduction. And here[2] are links to the library and dbus[3] reference documentation. [1] https://en.trycht.cz/2023/12/15/down-and-down-exploring-the-implementation-of-the-accessibility-subsystem https://en.trycht.cz/2023/12/15/down-and-down-exploring-the-... [2] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/at-spi2-core/-/blob/main/README.md https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/at-spi2-core/-/blob/main/READ... [3] https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/at-spi2-core/devel-docs/xml-interfaces.html https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/at-spi2-core/devel-docs...
  - danShumway 3y ago
    Genuinely thanks, I was familiar with the second two links but the first link in particular is useful. I've been trying to get a handle around the inner workings of Linux accessibility in my spare time for a while, so I'm grateful for more resources. So this is not meant to be dismissive of you, I really do appreciate it, but also wow this is still pretty anemic documentation compared to most other tech fields. I kind of wonder if this is also a chicken-and-egg problem because the way the healthy documentation springs up around projects is enough people use the projects that they run into issues, they start documenting best practices... and in areas like Linux accessibility where (as I understand it) there are often like 10-20 people total working on the technologies behind it at any given time, that community isn't going to exist and we're going to get tutorials that say stuff like: > Of course, there are much more interfaces to use or implement for specific objects, like the Text interface for text controls, Table interface for tables, etc., but the principles of these interfaces are the same, just a normal DBus programming with all it entails. So there aren't going to be a ton of people doing interesting things in that field or digging into how stuff works, which means it's not going to have people available to help make the field more approachable. But again, I do appreciate the resources you did find.
DonnerWolfBach 3y ago
I am not an expert, but at-spi doesn't solve the problem here as it was already discussed in the slack for the talon software. Basically "Accessibility software uses the at-spi protocol" seems to be an over-generalization. The important bits: > if you only say "accessibility" you may get the response "but at-spi2 works independent of x11 or wayland" the problem with at-spi2 is that it's opt-in by the application, so some programs just don't show up at all. the coverage of at-spi2 in video games is basically zero, for and > [...] wayland's stance on tools like talon is 'no' [...] I may also need to switch back to windows if X11 support is dropped "too far" before wayland is there in the accessibility aspect.

by ognarb 3y ago

SCdF 3y ago

To be completely clear I am not a Linux programmer, and I don't have the bandwidth I think to become one, this is my secondhand understanding of the situation. Here is a bit of a discussion though on this topic: - a summary of the situation: https://github.com/splondike/wayland-accessibility-notes/blob/main/README.md https://github.com/splondike/wayland-accessibility-notes/blo... - talon-required features and their current compatibility: https://github.com/splondike/wayland-accessibility-notes/blob/main/talon-requirements.md https://github.com/splondike/wayland-accessibility-notes/blo...

Alupis 3y ago
Keep in mind a lot of the belly aching you read is from people miffed their X11 application needs to be updated. Basically people complaining about needing to do work to modernize. All the things will eventually be just fine. X11 is a walking zombie.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > people miffed their X11 application needs to be updated. Yes, users are very understandably miffed that things which were working are suddenly broken and somebody now has to fix it in order to return to the status quo. > things will eventually be just fine Wayland is 15 years old. At this rate it will be due for replacement before it's feature complete.
  - jorvi 3y ago
    > Yes, users are very understandably miffed that things which were working are suddenly broken and somebody now has to fix it in order to return to the status quo. You are misunderstanding. You can continue to keep using applications in X11-mode for as long as those applications maintain that code path. But many of the niceties Wayland provides, X11 won't get because it is virtually unmaintained. Or said another way, X11 is already broken and getting slightly more broken every day. And before you get angry at X11 going unmaintained, would you have expected Apple to support Carbon ad-infinitum? Look at the backwards-compatibility and new-framework-adoption-rate woes Windows has to deal with because Win32 exists and devs are lazy / expensive.
    - Alupis 3y ago
      Making it worse, the X11 developer team has publicly stated several times X11 is beyond fixing. That's why the X11 team de facto abandoned X11 and created Wayland in the first place. X11 is a complete dead end. All applications need to eventually update. Put pressure on app developers to get to it...
      - Brian_K_White 3y ago
        xorg can be an unfixable mess, and wayland can still be unfit for purpose as a replacement. Both can be true at the same time. btw, I already said something wrong, because, which wayland? It's not a thing.
        jorvi 3y ago
        I mean, if you want accessibility support, generally straying outside of big/default projects ends up being a struggle. Like, you can complain about missing deep accessibility support in something like Bpswm or Ratpoison, but is that really fair? I'm guessing accessibility support is/will be pretty good on both Mutter (Gnome) and Kwin (KDE). Wlroots-based probably will be too with the community attention it is getting. Stray beyond that and you'll be on your own.
      - danShumway 3y ago
  - dylan-m 3y ago
    > things which were working are suddenly broken … > Wayland is 15 years old. So, it's not very sudden, then, is it? So much of what people see as wrong in Wayland is about slow-moving applications and driver vendors refusing to adapt; waiting until their software is actually broken before they do anything. We've had more than a decade knowing full well what is coming. I sympathize that an application you rely on is caught up in that. Nobody wanted that situation. But X11 has had a pretty good life. And unless Talon on Linux is suddenly abandoned, I really doubt those developers are going to keep hitching their wagon to X11. At some point, (probably soon now that distributors are getting serious about it), they will take a look at what's new and they will make it work with Wayland. With that said, I don't think you have to worry for a while. I doubt apps are ever going to stop working in X11 altogether. You might end up with a different desktop at some point if you're using GNOME or KDE, but that's all.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
      To an end user it could easily be sudden; you install a new version of Fedora and oops your screenshot tool no longer works, and better hope the only accessibility tools you needed were built in to GNOME. > And unless Talon on Linux is suddenly abandoned, I really doubt those developers are going to keep hitching their wagon to X11. At some point, (probably soon now that distributors are getting serious about it), they will take a look at what's new and they will make it work with Wayland. That's assuming that they can make it work with Wayland, which appears rather unlikely since the API surface doesn't exist. As you say, Wayland has had more than a decade but most of that time was spent loudly proclaiming that such functionality was a security problem and had no legitimate usecases so here we are. > With that said, I don't think you have to worry for a while. I doubt apps are ever going to stop working in X11 altogether. I certainly hope I can keep using X until Wayland actually reaches feature parity, but I'm already seeing pressure on both sides; waydroid is the first[0] application to outright refuse to support X, while Asahi Linux was loudest about not wanting to support Xorg but they're hardly the only ones. I suspect I'm going to end up with a 3-layer system comprised of cage[1] running xwayland running my real graphical environment with some applications in their own little cage windows. It's a little annoying but as a break-glass option it seems to function with only slightly more papercuts than X11 programs on Xorg:\ [0] Well, first that I've noticed at least. [1] https://www.hjdskes.nl/projects/cage/ https://www.hjdskes.nl/projects/cage/

danShumway 3y ago

Is there documentation about how to get started with at-spi somewhere that I just haven't been able to find online? https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/accessibility/atk/at-spi/start https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/accessibility/atk/at-spi/st... exists, but is fairly unapproachable and it's not clear to me as a developer where I would start if I was trying to either build an application that hooked into at-spi or to set up automated tests for at-spi events on my own software. The common advice is always "use a graphical toolkit", but let's say I'm stepping outside of a toolkit like GTK and I'm building something smaller, or let's say that I want to build a toy screenreader of my own. I've had an awful time trying to find documentation about this stuff.

nolist_policy 3y ago
Here[1] is a good introduction. And here[2] are links to the library and dbus[3] reference documentation. [1] https://en.trycht.cz/2023/12/15/down-and-down-exploring-the-implementation-of-the-accessibility-subsystem https://en.trycht.cz/2023/12/15/down-and-down-exploring-the-... [2] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/at-spi2-core/-/blob/main/README.md https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/at-spi2-core/-/blob/main/READ... [3] https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/at-spi2-core/devel-docs/xml-interfaces.html https://gnome.pages.gitlab.gnome.org/at-spi2-core/devel-docs...
- danShumway 3y ago
  Genuinely thanks, I was familiar with the second two links but the first link in particular is useful. I've been trying to get a handle around the inner workings of Linux accessibility in my spare time for a while, so I'm grateful for more resources. So this is not meant to be dismissive of you, I really do appreciate it, but also wow this is still pretty anemic documentation compared to most other tech fields. I kind of wonder if this is also a chicken-and-egg problem because the way the healthy documentation springs up around projects is enough people use the projects that they run into issues, they start documenting best practices... and in areas like Linux accessibility where (as I understand it) there are often like 10-20 people total working on the technologies behind it at any given time, that community isn't going to exist and we're going to get tutorials that say stuff like: > Of course, there are much more interfaces to use or implement for specific objects, like the Text interface for text controls, Table interface for tables, etc., but the principles of these interfaces are the same, just a normal DBus programming with all it entails. So there aren't going to be a ton of people doing interesting things in that field or digging into how stuff works, which means it's not going to have people available to help make the field more approachable. But again, I do appreciate the resources you did find.

DonnerWolfBach 3y ago

I am not an expert, but at-spi doesn't solve the problem here as it was already discussed in the slack for the talon software. Basically "Accessibility software uses the at-spi protocol" seems to be an over-generalization. The important bits: > if you only say "accessibility" you may get the response "but at-spi2 works independent of x11 or wayland" the problem with at-spi2 is that it's opt-in by the application, so some programs just don't show up at all. the coverage of at-spi2 in video games is basically zero, for and > [...] wayland's stance on tools like talon is 'no' [...] I may also need to switch back to windows if X11 support is dropped "too far" before wayland is there in the accessibility aspect.