Kristian Lyngstøl wrote: > On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 8:36 PM, Willie Walker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Having said all that, we have a task for "GNOME Outreach Program: >> Accessibility" for someone to get paid to help take the magnification >> solution beyond where we are now. If someone is interested in this, >> please let us know! >> > > I'm unsure of what the plans forward for gnome-mag is. It has been my > understanding that it is mostly in maintenance mode? > > Before I go further into this, I'd like to sum up my understanding of > the magnification-related technologies involved (only listing > magnification-related tasks). > > Orca: > - Collects data on what's going on. Mouse movement. Window focus. > Cursor movement, etc. > - Controls Gnome-mag (soon to be over DBus?) > > Gnome-mag: > - Just does magnification. > - Can be composite manager, but doesn't require it. > - Uses XRender > - Conflicts with other composite managers (like Compiz). > - Has performance issues in may situations. > > Compiz: > - Must be a composite manager. > - Provides various plugins for accessibility, including "magnifier" and > "ezoom" > - Currently requires OpenGL, plans exist for other rendering engines > (including XRender). * > - NOT the default Gnome window manager > - Flexible; adapting plugins or even the core for a11y is easily > accomplished. > - The hardware (driver) requirements seem to be the major blocker for > this to really take off. > > Metacity: > - Default Gnome window manager and also composite manager > > > With regards to Compiz, there is working going on which will make > Compiz less hardware dependant and generally better all around, > including for a11y. This is a long term effort though. > > That leaves us with a gnome-mag which, in it's current state, would be > by and large useless due to performance issues. I've read Carlo's idea > about having the composite manager draw into an off screen window > belonging to an other application, but I'm not sure I'm buying it. > Might as well just tell the composite manager to magnify to the right > place to begin with. > > However, making textures/window content available between applications > is also something that I know there is a lot of interest in. And some > work exist (Compatible video players can give Compiz direct access to > their textures through the Video plugin). > > Depending on Compiz entirely is going to be hard to sell. I am also > unfamiliar with Metacity code. I still believe that the integration > between Orca and eZoom should be finished similar to how it was > discussed during the Accessibility Summit, but that still leaves > Gnome-mag and metacity. > > I'm honestly not sure what should be done about gnome-mag. Obviously > the compositor in Metacity also complicates things, as metacity does > not currently offer any magnification, thus it basically just kills > performance for gnome-mag without giving much back. > > Having gnome-mag interact with Compiz isn't really had, but then I > believe we might as well just skip Gnome-mag all together. It's > straight forward to make or adjust a Compiz plugin or two to act > exactly like Gnome-mag. > > This introduces some code duplication though, which I see as the major > selling point for gnome-mag staying alive. So let's look at what > exactly Gnome-mag does, help me fill in the blanks as I have very > limited gnome-mag experience. > > - Allow external control (from orca?) > - One area zoomed, an other not zoomed. > - Mark the position of the mouse > > Having gnome-mag control these functions but the compositor actually > performing them seems feasable to me. This would allow gnome-mag to > retain a lot of it's logic, but the compositor to do the actual work. > This way, gnome-mag could also fall back to it's own xrender method > without a significant code duplication, and the experience should be > consistent across different composited window managers. I'm still not > quite convinced this is the way to go though.... It seems too much > like we're just striving to keep gnome-mag alive. It would, with a > composite manager, basically just filter and relay messages from Orca > or other controlling programs. > > If significant work is to be done on gnome-mag, I believe we need to > rethink it's place. And what to do with Metacity. There obviously > needs to be SOME sort of interaction between a composite manager and > whatever is responsible for triggering or controlling magnification. > I'm not sure how much magnification-code would be acceptable in > metacity either, or if it's even suited for it at all. > > So I guess I'm not any closer to answering my own question: What > exactly should be done with magnification? >
My 2 cents: I say move forward with composite magnification. Create dbus api for compiz if that makes the most sense. Let's move forward. cheers, D _______________________________________________ gnome-accessibility-list mailing list gnome-accessibility-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-list
