BrailleSupport

Revision 4 as of 2006-10-18 19:52:09

Clear message

Summary

Provide Braille support that Just Works.

Rationale

Synthetic speech output works quite well by default on Ubuntu via Orca and Festival or Speakup and eSpeak. Some visually impaired users prefer to use Braille, and sometimes speech output is not an option.

Use cases

  • Irina is a blind Ubuntu user who uses both speech output and braille, but she has had some trouble configuring her braille device.
  • Arthur is deefblind and therefore relies completely on braille for computer interaction. Entering several commands on the command line to get brltty running is not a good solution for him.

Scope

Provide simple and independent use of braille devices on the Live CD and through the install.

Design

  • Add a Braille option to the F5 Live menu.
  • Design a simple setup system for Braille devices. USB ones can generally be auto-detected, but serial devices require configuration (can any bluetooth devices be auto-configured?).
  • Make Orca and/or speakup do the right thing when braille has been configured.

Implementation

  • The user boots and presses: F5, 6, Enter, Enter; the CD boots
  • If he has a USB device it boots directly in to Gnome and just works
  • If not, the boot process stops at some point before GDM and prompts the user for information:
    • Serial port to use, device type, and then auto-configures
    • The process would be described on a website
    • Because careless configuration of serial devices can be problematic (cause data loss on devices) there needs to be clear warnings for anyone who may have selected this option by mistake (this is aimed at the default Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu CDs): You are about to configure a serial braille device. Press Esc to cancel. A serial device warning would also go on the website.

Unresolved issues

  • Simple configuration of bluetooth devices. Can they be auto-detected?

BoF agenda and discussion


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