orca(1) User Commands orca(1)
NAME
orca - a screen reader / magnifier
SYNOPSIS
orca [--gui-setup] [--text-setup] [--no-setup] [--disable=options] [--enable=options] [--user-prefs-dir] [--help] [--version] [--quit]
DESCRIPTION
orca is a screen reader for people with visual impairments, and provides alternative access to the desktop by making use of speech synthe-
sis, braille, and magnification support on the platform.
In addition, orca only provides access to applications/toolkits that support the assistive technology service provide interface (AT-SPI),
which include GTK, Mozilla, Firefox, Evolution, OpenOffice, StarOffice, Java/Swing, etc.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-s, --gui-setup, --setup
When starting orca bring up the GUI configuration dialog.
-t, --text-setup
When starting orca initiate the text-based configuration.
-n, --no-setup
When starting orca force the application to be started without configuration, even though it might have needed it. This is useful when
starting orca via something like gdm.
-u, --user-prefs-dir=directory
When starting orca, specify the directory as an alternate directory for the user preferences.
-e, --enable=speech|braille-monitor|magnifier|main-window
When starting orca, force the enabling of the supplied options.
-d, --disable=speech|braille-monitor|magnifier|main-window
When starting orca, force the disabling of the supplied options.
-?, -h, --help
Show the help message of this release of the orca program.
-v, --version
Return the orca version number.
-q, --quit
Quit orca.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
In order for the "Accessible GNOME Desktop" to be accessible to users who are blind or have low vision, users will need to employ an assis-
tive technology (AT) that exposes the graphical desktop information encoded in the GNOME Accessibility Framework.
Customers with blind employees/students need to have the ability to adapt and customize their assistive technology solutions - both to
improve the efficiency of their blind users (to help make up for disadvantages inherent in not being able to "see" the entire screen imme-
diately at a glace), and also to "work around" poorly designed and not particularly accessible applications that their blind users need to
use.
orca is an extensible assistive technology that provides end-user access to applications and toolkits that support the GNOME Accessibility
Framework. It has been designed with direct continual feedback from its disability user community.
orca uses a "scripting" approach to easily allow customization per application and provides the ability for each user to further customize
their AT environment based on their own preferences. The "scripting" approach of orca provides a much more adaptable and compelling assis-
tive technology solution than existing AT for the JDS desktop.
Functionally orca does 4 major things:
1. Present information to the user via speech synthesis (text-to-speech), or refreshable braille (hardware connected to serial or USB
port), or a magnified image on the user's display.
2. Acquire information from the applications and desktop graphical display via the GNOME Accessibility Framework.
3. Track events occurring in the applications and desktop graphical display via the GNOME Accessibility Framework.
4. Intercept and optionally consume user input events from the system keyboard and the buttons on a refreshable braille display. Based on
the input, orca will either pass the event on to the application for normal processing, execute orca-specific commands (such as reading
the next line in the display or panning the braille display), or perform operations on application objects (such as clicking buttons or
modifying text areas).
orca will also:
o be a collection of building blocks that comprise screen reading and magnification technology, including use of text-to-speech, braille
input/output, magnification logic, screen reading logic, keyboard and mouse interception modules, and event coalescing.
o be developed with the standard GNOME build environment.
o support multiple braille displays.
o support the gnome-speech module for text-to-speech.
o intercept keyboard & mouse events through the GNOME Accessibility Framework and other supported X mechanisms.
o support the gnome-mag module to provide end-user magnification of the screen between 2 and 16 times magnification in integer incre-
ments.
o render its own graphical user interface using GTK+ widgets.
o provide a scripting mechanism, giving it the ability to customize how each application on the JDS desktop is handled by orca.
o provide further customization on a per-user basis.
orca provides a set of its own keyboard commands. Note that you can always enter orca's "learn mode" while running orca by pressing
Insert+F1. When in learn mode, orca will intercept all keyboard and braille input events and will tell you what the effect of them would
be. To exit learn mode, press the escape key.
o Commands for adjusting speech parameters
- Insert-right arrow
increase speech rate
- Insert-left arrow
decrease speech rate
- Insert-up arrow
raise the pitch
- Insert-down arrow
decrease the pitch
o Flat review commands
- Numpad-7 move the flat review cursor to the previous line, and read it.
- Numpad-8 read the current line.
- Numpad-9 move the flat review cursor to the next line, and read it.
- Numpad-4 move the flat review cursor to the previous word, and read it.
- Numpad-5 read the current word.
- Numpad-6 move the flat review cursor to the next word, and read it.
- Numpad-1 move the flat review cursor to the previous character, and read it.
- Numpad-2 read the current character.
- Numpad-3 move the flat review cursor to the next character, and read it.
- Numpad-slash perform a left mouse click at the location of the flat review cursor.
- Numpad-star perform a right mouse click at the location of the flat review cursor.
Note: the above commands apply when working with objects as well as when working with text. For example, if the flat review cursor were
positioned on a menu bar, pressing the read current line command would speak the names of all visible menus. Similarly, pressing read next
word would speak the object to the right of the flat review cursor on the same line, or move flat review to the next line if no more
objects were found.
o Miscellaneous functions
- Insert-F1
enter learn mode (press escape to exit)
- Insert-f
speak font and attribute information for the current character.
- Insert-space
launch the orca Configuration dialog.
- Insert-Control-space
reload user settings and reinitialize services as necessary.
- Insert-s
toggle speech on and off
- Insert-F11
toggle the reading of tables, either by single cell, or whole row.
-Insert-q
quit orca.
o Commands for debugging
- Insert-F3 report information on the currently active script.
- Insert-F4 cycle through orca's various debug levels.
- Insert-F5 prints a debug listing of all known applications to the console where orca is running.
- Insert-F7 prints debug information about the ancestry of the object with focus.
- Insert-F8 prints debug information about the application with focus.
Note, in order for the last three commands to be of use, orca needs to be started from a virtual console or via gnome-terminal. Output is
sent to the console only (i.e., it is not sent to speech or braille).
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 Application exited successfully
1 Application exited with error
2 orca cannot parse its command line options.
FILES
The following files are used by this application:
/usr/bin/orca orca executable
~/.orca/user-settings.py user's personal configuration settings for orca
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Availability |SUNWgnome-a11y-orca |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Interface stability |Volatile |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
SEE ALSO
attributes(5)
orca online reference manual.
Latest version of the GNOME Accessibility Guide for your platform.
Latest version of the GNOME Desktop User Guide for your platform.5
NOTES
Written by Rich Burridge, Sun Microsystems Inc., 2006, 2007.
SunOS 5.11 12 Nov 2007 orca(1)