[Accessibility-ia2] Relations to move to previous/next paragraphs

Oliver-Rainer Wittmann - Software Engineer - Sun Microsystems Oliver-Rainer.Wittmann at Sun.COM
Fri Dec 19 03:51:39 PST 2008


Hi all,

regarding OpenOffice.org text documents I have made the same experience 
as Willie. All paragraphs are in certain FLOWS relations regarding its 
context.
I have implemented these FLOWS relations for OpenOffice.org Writer late 
in year 2005, see OpenOffice.org issue 27138 -
http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=27138 - while Oliver 
Braun adjusted the Accessibility-Bridge accordingly at the beginning of 
2006.


Best regards, Oliver.

Willie Walker wrote:
> Hi All:
> 
> In Orca, we use the FLOWS relations to help us with announcing text 
> selections and for doing "say all" operations.  As such, we basically 
> depend upon the FLOWS relations to help us with the reading order.
> 
> I'm confused by all of this discussion, however, because when I look at 
> the paragraphs in an OpenOffice document, they all have the appropriate 
> FLOWS relations.  In addition, if I insert a table between paragraphs, 
> the cells in the table also become part of the FLOWS relations and 
> everything seems to flow in terms of a natural reading order.
> 
> Will
> 
> Malte Timmermann wrote:
>> The question "How much of a burden would it be" is for Oliver, because
>> he would have to do it ;)
>>
>> But I see one issue with this:
>>
>> Right now, we use this relation only when one paragraph is split to
>> multiple pages.
>>
>> So the relation (also) tells you that it's basically the same paragraph,
>> even if multiple objects for it exist..
>>
>> When we would use flows from/to for every paragraph, you wouldn't be
>> able to figure out the difference between the normal case and the
>> special case.
>>
>> On the other hand, I don't know if any AT makes use of this information,
>> and/or if it's really needed.
>>
>> Also cc-ing Peter and Will, because we defined this behavior ages ago
>> with Peter, and Will knows best how Orca would handle it.
>>
>> Any ideas/comments on this?
>>
>> Malte.
>>
>> Pete Brunet wrote, On 12/16/08 02:08:
>>> Malte, How much of a burden would it be to provide flows from/to
>>> relation between all the objects.  Today the AT has to go out to the
>>> document object to make the connection between paragraphs.  Please see
>>> Mick's comment in item 8 of the minutes for the prior IA2 meeting at
>>> http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Accessibility/IAccessible2/Minutes/20081202 
>>>
>>>
>>>  
>>> *Pete Brunet*
>>>                                                                          
>>> IBM Accessibility Architecture and Development
>>> 11501 Burnet Road, MS 9022E004, Austin, TX 78758
>>> Voice: (512) 286-5485, Cell: (512) 689-4155
>>> Ionosphere: WS4G
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> From:     Malte Timmermann <Malte.Timmermann at Sun.COM>
>>> To:     Pete Brunet/Austin/IBM at IBMUS
>>> Cc:     Accessibility-ia2 at lists.freestandards.org
>>> Date:     11/19/2008 11:05 AM
>>> Subject:     Re: [Accessibility-ia2] Relations to move to previous/next
>>> paragraphs
>>> Sent by:     Malte.Timmermann at Sun.COM
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> When I suggested the "prev/next" stuff in that CSUN meeting, I was not
>>> sure about the concrete name, but "flows from/to" was exactly what I
>>> meant. I didn't want to define an additional one.
>>>
>>> For the implementation:
>>> IIRC, our (OOo Accessibility API) intention was to help AT to follow the
>>> text flow correctly, when ONE paragraph flows to multiple pages,
>>> optionally divided by some header/footer:
>>>
>>> <PARAGRAPH-XY - only some part of it on page n>
>>> <optional: page footer>
>>> <optional: page header>
>>> <PARAGRAPH-XY - on page n+1, rest of the SAME paragraph on prev page...>
>>>
>>> The intention was to then connect the two paragraphs via flows from/to.
>>>
>>> There was no intention to connect all paragraphs this way in reading
>>> oder, and also not to do anything special in the table scenario
>>> described below...
>>>
>>> Malte.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Pete Brunet wrote, On 11/19/08 03:01 AM:
>>>> At the CSUN F2F earlier this year we discussed the issue of an AT 
>>>> easily
>>>> getting access to the previous and next paragraphs.  Today the AT 
>>>> has to
>>>> go to the parent and then to the previous or next child.  It was
>>>> suggested that maybe IA2 needs new "preceeded by" and "followed by"
>>>> relations.  There are already the flows from/to relations.  Is there 
>>>> any
>>>> reason why flows from/to can't be used to link all paragraphs?
>>>>
>>>> Xing Li (Syphony a11y development) provided the following scenario 
>>>> where
>>>> a table is inserted between two paragraphs
>>>>     Paragraph A
>>>>     Table T
>>>>     Paragraph B
>>>> and asked what the relations would be in that scenario and if
>>>> flow-from/to is a must for all paragraphs.
>>>>
>>>> *Pete Brunet*
>>>>                                                                          
>>>> IBM Accessibility Architecture and Development
>>>> 11501 Burnet Road, MS 9022E004, Austin, TX 78758
>>>> Voice: (512) 286-5485, Cell: (512) 689-4155
>>>> Ionosphere: WS4G
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Accessibility-ia2 mailing list
>>>> Accessibility-ia2 at lists.linux-foundation.org
>>>> https://lists.linux-foundation.org/mailman/listinfo/accessibility-ia2
>>>
> 


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Oliver-Rainer Wittmann (od) - OpenOffice.org Writer
OpenOffice.org Engineering at Sun: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS


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