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I wasn't really aware of the sad state of #accessibility with #GTK4 and #Gnome in upcoming #Debian 12 #bookworm.

https://bugs.debian.org/1034248

#visuallyImpaired and #blind users are probably disappointed. Let's hope, those users can use #MATE for now and things will improve before the release of Debian 13 #trixie.

#1034248 - release-notes: Document that GTK4 apps are not accessible with screen reader - Debian Bug report logs

bugs.debian.org
#Accessibility #debian #blind #gnome #GTK4 #visuallyimpaired #MATE #bookworm #trixie
in reply to Debacle

Emmanuele Bassi
Emmanuele Bassi
• •
It would actually help a lot more if people contributed into improving the stack after 15 years of neglect…
in reply to Emmanuele Bassi

Johannes Brakensiek
Johannes Brakensiek
• •
@ebassi Both bug reports are missing what‘s the cause for Orca failing. Is there some kind of project that lists issues to get #a11y on par again?
#a11y @Emmanuele Bassi
in reply to Johannes Brakensiek

Emmanuele Bassi
Emmanuele Bassi
• •
@lazarus GTK4 in 4.8 was missing a way for implementing accessibility in out of tree code bases, like libadwaita and custom app widgets; the main bulk was fixed in GTK 4.10 (but that doesn't help frozen Debian), and the last missing interface for text, which will fix the terminal's accessibility, will be available in GTK 4.12, in September.

Things would of course go faster if there was more than one person (not me, in this case) working on the accessibility stack.
@Johannes Brakensiek
in reply to Emmanuele Bassi

Emmanuele Bassi
Emmanuele Bassi
• •
@lazarus The main reason why MATE would work better is that it's still stuck with the old accessibility API, which is a mess that hasn't been really touched in 15 years; so it's more a case of things running on inertia.
@Johannes Brakensiek
Unknown parent

Emmanuele Bassi
Emmanuele Bassi
• •
@lazarus That's a lot of money; the GNOME Foundation couldn't find anybody willing to donate that kind of money—which is, incidentally, why I am not able to work for the Foundation any more, after working full time for two years on GTK, and writing the new accessibility implementation over 9 months.
@Johannes Brakensiek
in reply to Emmanuele Bassi

Emmanuele Bassi
Emmanuele Bassi
• •
@lazarus In practice, aside from money, it's also a matter of finding people with enough domain knowledge; there aren't many of those available.
@Johannes Brakensiek
in reply to Debacle

mimi89999
mimi89999
• •
Shouldn't the Debian 12 release be postponed until that is fixed?
in reply to mimi89999

Emmanuele Bassi
Emmanuele Bassi
• •

@mimi89999 Won't help much: bare minimum, it would require bumping GTK and its dependencies during a freeze; otherwise, it'll have to wait until after GTK 4.12 is released, in September, and a bunch of apps and libraries have been updated to include more accessibility information.

As I said in another reply, what would help is actually helping out with the accessibility stack; it's not like MATE or Xfce are better: they are just stuck, so they look like they work.

@mimi89999
in reply to Emmanuele Bassi

Emmanuele Bassi
Emmanuele Bassi
• •
@mimi89999 to be fair, a bunch of people relying on the accessibility stack have their custom set up, and they barely upgrade because things tend to break when very, very few people work on something.
@mimi89999
in reply to Emmanuele Bassi

Johannes Brakensiek
Johannes Brakensiek
• •

@ebassi Thank you for elaborting. That sounds quite sensible too me. And seems either way it is a good thing to spread the news about ways to support @gnome financally.

Only by now (I just searched for it) I found individuals from Germany are able to do tax deductible donations via Way Holland Stiftung. I did not know about this before and I think it‘s very important information for people over here: https://wauland.de/de/donate/gnome/ #gnome #donations #fundraising

Spenden zu GNOME - Wau Holland Stiftung

Wau Holland Stiftung
wauland.de
#gnome #fundraising #donations @Emmanuele Bassi @GNOME
in reply to Johannes Brakensiek

Johannes Brakensiek
Johannes Brakensiek
• •
@ebassi @gnome I should also mention @wauland here. Having such a legal entity is very important because other entities supporting the same goals are able to transfer their donations.
@Emmanuele Bassi @GNOME @wauland
Unknown parent

Emmanuele Bassi
Emmanuele Bassi
• •
@lazarus @wauland @gnome you probably want to ask the GNOME foundation for that
@GNOME @Johannes Brakensiek @wauland
in reply to Johannes Brakensiek

Johannes Brakensiek
Johannes Brakensiek
• •
@ebassi Ok, reading their reports I see that @wauland is collecting money for @gnome, but is not transferring it. That does not sound very helpful.
@Emmanuele Bassi @GNOME @wauland
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