[Lazarus] LCL not accessible for blind users

[Sven Barth]

Since the last time this topic came up the LCL was extended with the 
necessary basic (widgetset independant) code for accessibility handling. 
Currently only support for Mac OS X is implemented though. For further 
information please look here: 
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/LCL_Accessibility

Regarding the two conditions you mentioned:
I don't know whether condition one is/can be satisfied, but condition 
two would be the platform dependant implementation of the accessibility 
interface that is still missing yet as mentioned above for Windows (and 
Linux).

Regards,
Sven

On 05.08.2012 18:07, Luciano de Souza wrote:
> Hello all,
> LCL applications can't be used by blind users. It's a bad news for blind
> programmers, but specially for blind users. It's a severe restriction if
> we regard it can occurs in the workplace.
> Recently, I heard about a blind girls who couldn't access a desktop
> application. The developer makes an application wich returns a database
> query in a picture not readable for screen readers. The company doesn't
> have patience to search for another occupation for her. The consequence
> is that she will probably laid off.
> I don't know if the application was writen in Lazarus. It's an example
> on what can happen when applications were designed without
> accessibilities concerns. It seems to be a little bit dramatical, but
> being blind, I can make sure the consequences are usually so unsuitable.
> And why is not LCL accessible? As I couldn't use it because the lack of
> accessibility, I don't know if this is the single problem. But as far as
> I could realize, the problem are the labels. If I have a label "name"
> and an editbox to fill up this information, label is not read. The
> labels of buttons and those used in dialog messages are not read as well.
> I tried to understand why the screen readers don't read it. The answer,
> for Windows system, was:
>
> Two conditions need to be respected in order to provide information for
> screen readers. When using labels and editboxes in combination, it's
> necessary to set the mnemonic of label to point to the editbox. If I am
> right, it was done to set the property "control" of labels.
> Yes, it's important, but it's not sufficient. Screen readers query
> information by means of the windows event called wn_gettext. If LCL does
> not handle this event, it's not possible to provide information for
> screen readers.
> So my ask is: does LCL handle this event?
> I will do some tests in Linux to give you some feed back about
> accessibility.
> Regards,
> Luciano