How did people here learn GUIs

Janina Sajka janina at rednote.net
Sat Aug 6 19:15:46 UTC 2016


Sounds like Kody gui was built using a toolkit that doesn't support
atk/at-spi2.

If there's an api, you could build another interface, perhaps from the
cli.

Martin McCormick writes:
> 	The real problem is that chaos has been burned in to the
> Windows environment in that there is no standard output device
> which you must use to make your program work. This is much
> different from the Unix operating system in which the only way to
> insure that your program works across different platforms is to
> use the standard output device. When you do, everything from a
> raspberry PI to a main frame knows what to do when the program
> prints something to the screen.
> 
> 	The chaos of no standard output device infects programs
> that started out in Windows and have been ported over to
> unix-like systems. A good example is a popular video player
> called Kodi. It's useful when converting one video format into
> another so that it will play on more different devices.
> 
> 	It is the recommended player for use with a line of
> server devices that are meant to play cable or off-the-air TV
> signals on one's home network.
> 
> 	I can tell you for a fact that these devices are very
> accessible when one is using a Mac or Linux device to control the
> devices such as ask them to scan your cable or antenna feed for
> signals. The output is a somewhat cryptic listing of the various
> channels, their signal strength and quality and a short ID
> containing the service name such as CNN or the call letters of a
> TV station in the aria.
> 
> 	When you try, however, to watch one of the channels live,
> it's a no go right now. If you call up Kodi, the only button on
> the GUI screen that works is the "Close" button which is quite
> ironic.
> 
> 	Another line which says, "Kodi Entertainment Center"
> shows on the screen but one can not get anything else to happen
> as there are no more buttons at all. 
> 
> 	One has to be able to tell Kody various control options
> and there is simply nothing else to select.
> 
> 	I am not yet sure what is wrong but it's a poster child
> for the mark that Windows chaos has left on the software world.
> 
> 	I can tell you that if Kodi gets fixed, cable TV and
> modern digital reception will all become accessible from a
> command and control standpoint because pieces of the puzzle
> already fit together nicely.
> 
> 	As for getting a back door in to Windows functionality by
> using bash or any other shell/terminal, the lack of a predictable
> output method for a Windows application is the same old issue
> that has become the "standard" of Windows applications.
> 
> 	One positive thing I can say is that these cross-platform
> issues may bring us full circle in computing in which all
> operating systems will be forced to have and even require that
> there be a standards-based mechanism for getting data in to and
> out of applications. 
> 
> 	Several years ago, very smart but not very far-sighted
> people said that the GUI was everything one ever needed and it
> does simplify mundane tasks for many people but I remember a
> quote from a television series on human language in which someone
> said, "Draw me a picture that says that it is not raining."
> 
> 	In unix, we know it is possible to have the best of both
> worlds. Most of the wizardry of such programs as JAWS and
> Window-Eyes is invested in trying to tease output redirection out
> of a system that seems to do it's best to confound this process.
> 
> Martin
> 
> Janina Sajka <janina at rednote.net> writes:
> > One might hope for this, but I suspect there's a builtin problem with
> > Windows screen readers. Are any of them any good with text output in the
> > terminal? I haven't tried recently myself, but I don't see as there's
> > been any reason for them to get any better this way.
> > 
> > Decades ago we had pretty powerful screen readers for DOS, and we
> > certainly have a very powerful screen reader on Linux consoles in
> > Speakup. But, without something similarly capable, I don't see how cli
> > based apps are going to attract blind users on Windows. Sad, actually.
> > 
> > Janina
> 
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-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina at asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina at rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures	http://www.w3.org/wai/apa




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