Investigate into Linux Orca screen reader

[isidorn]

Should work nicely with Electron 7, might need --force-renderer-accessibility flag passed.

Reference: #88893

fyi @jvesouza @webczat @ndarilek

[jvesouza]

Version: 1.43.0-insider
Commit: 8d17dc1
Date: 2020-02-10T10:04:08.445Z
Electron: 7.1.11
Chrome: 78.0.3904.130
Node.js: 12.8.1
V8: 7.8.279.23-electron.0
OS: Linux x64 5.5.2-arch1-1

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I couldn't find in the file explorer a simple way to identify the name of the folder being displayed.
I can navigate the files with the arrows, expand, colapse and open folders without problems.

To identify the name of the displayed folder I use an orca feature called flat review mode. It works, but it is not in my opinion very natural.

[webczat]

and there are some slowdowns like when closing editors. but note that both of that could be chromium related and it is even possible they are already fixed. I do not usually experience such things in actual google chrome, but it is version 80 (stable) or 81 (unstable).

[jvesouza]

It would be great if VSCode could adopt version 8 or perhaps version 9 of electron since they use more recent versions of chromium.

…

On 2/11/20 10:07 AM, Michał Zegan wrote: and there are some slowdowns like when closing editors. but note that both of that could be chromium related and it is even possible they are already fixed. I do not usually experience such things in actual google chrome, but it is version 80 (stable) or 81 (unstable). — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#90446?email_source=notifications&email_token=AAPRNEUGVROCXCQ7PPUIRSTRCKPJBA5CNFSM4KS7QFK2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOELMK4HY#issuecomment-584625695>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAPRNERPEGTD2S4KO63IPRLRCKPJBANCNFSM4KS7QFKQ>.

[isidorn]

I just tried our Orca on Linux with VS Code (with the flag --force-renderer-accessibility) and I have some questions for you:

1. When you focus on the Editor is the text nicely being read out when you navigate left, right, up? It is not being read out for me, only when I do some editing the edited characters get read out. Do I have to setup Orca specially or what am I missing here?
2. Is it possible to configure Orca that it just display what it reads and that it does not read it out? This is just easier for me, since I use NVDA and VoiceOver like that
3. Reading in other parts of the UX outside the Editor seems to work fine

We always try to update the use the later chromium and electron version. However Electron usually has some issues that are blockers so it takes quite some time before we test, fix and make sure an Electron version is working fine. Thus we do want to use Electron 8 and 9, but that will happen in one of the following milestones.

As for the name of the explorer: you can focus on the title area of the explorer via Shift + tab to read that out. Or you could Ctrl + R to browse through recent workspaces, just press up and the current one should be read out.

For the slowdownes: if you also see this in previous Chrome versions than that is probbly the same issue and should be fixed once we adopt to later Electron.

[webczat]

Hmm if you enable accessibility in editor settings it should work fine provided you are on electron 7. on 6 it has some issues because it didn't read when pressing up/down arrows.
But you have to enable it explicitly in addition to adding the --force-renderer-accessibility flag.
Things work fine except that sometimes it seems to join adjacent lines when reading by up/down arrows. not quite sure how it is possible and what it is about, try editing xml files.

[isidorn]

I have accessibility enabled via vscode setting, i am on electron 7, and I have passed the --force-renderer-accessibility when launching vscode from the command line.
Looking at the docs here https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca/Chromium
I seem to be missing having ACCESSIBILITY_ENABLED=1 in my environment.
Trying it out...

[ndarilek]

Also note that you have to be on Orca master. The version shipped with your distro packages likely won't work.

[webczat]

oh sorry, forgot about that detail. :) yes, it needs to be orca master. not necessarily latest commit, but definitely would be the best.

[isidorn]

@ndarilek @webczat ok thanks. I was just trying the orca that I have as part of my Ubuntu 18.04.
Let me search for how to get latest orca. If you have some pointers let me know :)