[Accessibility] Accessibility features in Wayland - feedback request

[Samuel Thibault]

Hello,

Peter Hutterer, le ven. 31 oct. 2014 10:24:37 +1000, a ecrit:
> As you may be aware, the input stack in Wayland is quite different to the
> one in X. most notably we're working on libinput as a shared input stack to
> be used between compositor. Most of the baseline is done, one of the things
> we're now looking into is accessibility, but this is where we lack feedback
> to decide what needs to be done and how.
> 
> If you or someone you know require specific accessibility features, please
> let me know, I'd like to discuss with you why you need it, how that need is
> currently being addressed and whether we can improve on that. I'm
> specifically looking to get a grasp on the various requirements within the
> input stack, so anything from braille input devices to debouncing keys to
> button locking.

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to have gotten answers at the time :/

All I know of I had written on

https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Accessibility/Input/?updated

AIUI, putting this generically, we need accessibility tools to be able
to

- steal some input events, either globally or for a given device.

  For instance, Orca wants to globally catch presses on the capslock key
  on any keyboard, to use it as an "orca key" for its own shortcuts. It
  also needs to be able to synthesize capslock presses to get capslock
  behavior when double-pressing capslock.

  Another instance is using a given touchpad as a positioning device,
  which requires consuming all input events from it, and getting
  absolute coordinates.

- synthesize input events.

  As mentioned above for Orca, but also for various kinds of Assistive
  Technologies which provide alternative ways of typing on the keyboard,
  of moving the mouse etc.

Implementing these kinds of features within libinput itself could make
sense, but in practice I don't think people will manage to do it (I
guess libinput is C only? Most AT tools nowadays are pythonic), while an
interface to steal/inject events would allow to development them on the
side.

Samuel