Orca is a flexible, extensible, and powerful assistive technology that provides end-user access to applications and toolkits that support the AT-SPI (e.g., the GNOME desktop). With early input from and continued engagement with its end users, Orca has been designed and implemented by the Sun Microsystems, Inc., Accessibility Program Office.
NOTE: Orca is currently a work in progress. As a result, this and other books in the Orca Documentation Series are under continuous modification and are also in various states of completeness.
This book provides a guide for the installation, configuration and use of Orca. It also includes details on how users can customize the keyboard and braille input mappings of Orca.
TODO: To be written. This currently contains just the most important stuff you need to know. In addition, you should always visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for the latest information and hints on using Orca.
You can run Orca in many ways:
Using the orca command from a terminal or virtual console. For many users, this is the easiest and most accessible way to launch Orca.
Via the "Run Application" dialog that you can bring up by pressing Alt+F2. In this dialog, type orca and press Return.
Via the "Orca Screen Reader and Magnifier" menu item available from the "Accessibility" submenu off of the "Applications" menu on some systems.
For GNOME 2.16 and later, via the "Assistive Technology Support" preferences dialog that you can launch from the "Preferences" menu on some systems. This will enable accessibility in your environment and tell Orca to automatically launch when you log in.
Via the "Startup Programs" tab in the "Sessions" dialog that you can launch from the "Preferences" menu on some systems. This will automatically launch Orca when you log in if you add orca as a startup program.
When you run the orca command from a terminal window, you have the following options:
Usage: orca [OPTION...] -?, --help Show this help message -v, --version 0.9.0 -s, --setup, --gui-setup Set up user preferences -t, --text-setup Set up user preferences (text version) -n, --no-setup Skip set up of user preferences If Orca has not been previously set up by the user, Orca will automatically launch the preferences set up unless the -n or --no-setup option is used. Report bugs to orca-list@gnome.org.
If you have not run Orca before, it will automatically query you for preferences, such as whether you want to use speech, braille, or magnification. These preferences are saved in ~/.orca/user-settings.py (see material in the following sections for more information).
NOTE: The GNOME accessibility environment requires accessibility to be enabled for your login session, which is not the default configuration. The first time you run Orca, Orca will detect this and will enable accessibility for you. In order for this to take effect, however, you still need to log out and log back in.
To get help while running Orca, you can press Insert+F1 to enter learn mode. In learn mode, you can type any key combination and Orca will tell you the effects of that key combination. To exit learn mode, press Escape.
To quit Orca, you can do any of the following:
Press Insert+Q
Enter killall -TERM orca in a terminal window. NOTE: if you enter killall -HUP orca in a terminal window, Orca will restart.
NOTE: the main shell script to start Orca, /usr/bin/orca, will detect failures in Orca and restart it if necessary. In addition, it will stop any existing Orca-related processes before starting Orca again. As such, if something bad seems to have happened with Orca, you can force it to clean up and restart by merely launching Orca again via any of the methods listed previously.
To be written. Include verbosity, speech rate, braille, braille monitor, orca modifier keys, voices, key/word echo, read table line, etc.
To configure Orca, you can do any of the following:
Run orca --setup
Press Insert+Space while Orca is running
When you configure Orca, it will create ~/.orca/user-settings.py. You can edit this file using a text editor, but be aware that it will be overwritten the next time you configure Orca. If you wish to have more persistent settings for Orca, you can create ~/.orca/orca-customizations.py. If this file exists (you need to create it if you want one), ~/.orca/user-settings.py will import it each time the settings are reloaded. You can force Orca to reload the settings by pressing Ctrl+Insert+Space.
The contents of a typical ~/.orca/user-settings.py look similar to the following:
# user-settings.py - custom Orca settings # Generated by orca. DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE!!! # If you want permanent customizations that will not # be overwritten, edit orca-customizations.py. # import re import time import orca.debug import orca.settings import orca.acss #orca.debug.debugLevel = orca.debug.LEVEL_OFF orca.debug.debugLevel = orca.debug.LEVEL_SEVERE #orca.debug.debugLevel = orca.debug.LEVEL_WARNING #orca.debug.debugLevel = orca.debug.LEVEL_INFO #orca.debug.debugLevel = orca.debug.LEVEL_CONFIGURATION #orca.debug.debugLevel = orca.debug.LEVEL_FINE #orca.debug.debugLevel = orca.debug.LEVEL_FINER #orca.debug.debugLevel = orca.debug.LEVEL_FINEST #orca.debug.debugLevel = orca.debug.LEVEL_ALL #orca.debug.eventDebugLevel = orca.debug.LEVEL_OFF #orca.debug.eventDebugFilter = None #orca.debug.eventDebugFilter = re.compile('[\S]*focus|[\S]*activ') #orca.debug.eventDebugFilter = re.compile('nomatch') #orca.debug.eventDebugFilter = re.compile('[\S]*:accessible-name') #orca.debug.debugFile = open(time.strftime('debug-%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M:%S.out'), 'w', 0) #orca.debug.debugFile = open('debug.out', 'w', 0) #orca.settings.useBonoboMain=False #orca.settings.debugEventQueue=True #orca.settings.gilSleepTime=0 if False: import sys import orca.util sys.settrace(orca.util.traceit) orca.debug.debugLevel = orca.debug.LEVEL_ALL orca.settings.orcaModifierKeys = ['Insert', 'KP_Insert'] orca.settings.enableSpeech = True orca.settings.speechServerFactory = 'orca.gnomespeechfactory' orca.settings.speechServerInfo = ['Fonix DECtalk GNOME Speech Driver', 'OAFIID:GNOME_Speech_SynthesisDriver_Dectalk:proto0.3'] orca.settings.voices = { 'default' : orca.acss.ACSS({'average-pitch': 5.0, 'family': {'locale': 'english', 'gender': None, 'name': 'Paul'}, 'gain': 9, 'rate': 85.0}), 'uppercase' : orca.acss.ACSS({'average-pitch': 6}), 'hyperlink' : orca.acss.ACSS({'average-pitch': 2}), } orca.settings.speechVerbosityLevel = orca.settings.VERBOSITY_LEVEL_VERBOSE orca.settings.readTableCellRow = True orca.settings.enableSpeechIndentation = False orca.settings.enableEchoByWord = True orca.settings.enableKeyEcho = True orca.settings.enablePrintableKeys = False orca.settings.enableModifierKeys = False orca.settings.enableLockingKeys = True orca.settings.enableFunctionKeys = False orca.settings.enableActionKeys = False orca.settings.enableBraille = False orca.settings.enableBrailleGrouping = False orca.settings.brailleVerbosityLevel = orca.settings.VERBOSITY_LEVEL_VERBOSE orca.settings.brailleRolenameStyle = orca.settings.BRAILLE_ROLENAME_STYLE_LONG orca.settings.enableBrailleMonitor = False orca.settings.enableMagnifier = False orca.settings.enableMagCursor = True orca.settings.enableMagCursorExplicitSize = False orca.settings.magCursorSize = 32 orca.settings.magCursorColor = '#000000' orca.settings.enableMagCrossHair = True orca.settings.enableMagCrossHairClip = False orca.settings.magCrossHairSize = 16 orca.settings.magZoomerLeft = 512 orca.settings.magZoomerRight = 1014 orca.settings.magZoomerTop = 0 orca.settings.magZoomerBottom = 758 orca.settings.magZoomFactor = 4 orca.settings.enableMagZoomerColorInversion = False orca.settings.magSmoothingMode = orca.settings.MAG_SMOOTHING_MODE_BILINEAR orca.settings.magMouseTrackingMode = orca.settings.MAG_MOUSE_TRACKING_MODE_CENTERED orca.settings.verbalizePunctuationStyle = orca.settings.PUNCTUATION_STYLE_MOST try: __import__("orca-customizations") except ImportError: pass
Orca defines keystrokes for the keypad and also makes special used of the Insert key as the Orca modifier key. Orca also provides an orcaModifierKeys customization setting to allow the user to override Insert as the Orca modifier key. This setting contains a list of key strings that represent the key to be used as the Orca modifier key. For example, the following example specifies that the keyboard Insert key (typically near the Delete key) and the keypad Insert key (typically the 0 key) are to both act as the Orca modifier key:
orca.settings.orcaModifierKeys = ["Insert", "KP_Insert"]
You can override this setting in your ~/.orca/orca-customizations.py module if you wish.