instructions for doing an eyes-free install of chromevox on Linux

[Chris Brannon]

It's not directly relevant to Speakup, but I suspect that a lot of the
people on this list will be interested.
Reposted from the chromevox discussion group:

It seems that there is now a very easy way to install ChromeVox under
Linux without sighted help.
Basically, download the following file:
http://the-brannons.com/kgejglhpjiefppelpmljglcjbhoiplfn.json
And put it in a particular directory.
I'm running chromium, and for me, that directory is
/usr/lib/chromium-browser/extensions. If I were running chrome instead,
it would be /opt/google/chrome/extensions.
I'm running chromium on Gentoo, and I have no idea whether these paths
are distro specific. You may also need to create the extensions/
directory. I had to do that.
Once the file is copied, just start chromium or chrome, and
chromevox *should* start talking!
I don't know if this can be used for older versions of chrome /
chromium. For what it's worth, chromium 29.0.1547.32 is installed here.
In any case, I'm finally able to do an eyes-free install of chromevox
under Linux!

Thanks to "floppym" for showing me how to do this.

-- Chris

[Janina Sajka]

Wow, works on Fedora 19. Thanks, Chris.

I also had to create the extensions directory. For good measure I
chown'd the file root:root as well.

I used yum to install chrome 28 (stable) itself. I was able to do this
because I had the Google .repo file on archive from an installation
someone at Google helped me do some years ago. I imagine a little Google
search would turn up the downloadable location of that repo file. But,
with that file inhand, installation was a breeze.

Thanks for the json file. It worked like a charm!

Janina

Post by Chris Brannon
It's not directly relevant to Speakup, but I suspect that a lot of the
people on this list will be interested.
It seems that there is now a very easy way to install ChromeVox under
Linux without sighted help.
http://the-brannons.com/kgejglhpjiefppelpmljglcjbhoiplfn.json
And put it in a particular directory.
I'm running chromium, and for me, that directory is
/usr/lib/chromium-browser/extensions. If I were running chrome instead,
it would be /opt/google/chrome/extensions.
I'm running chromium on Gentoo, and I have no idea whether these paths
are distro specific. You may also need to create the extensions/
directory. I had to do that.
Once the file is copied, just start chromium or chrome, and
chromevox *should* start talking!
I don't know if this can be used for older versions of chrome /
chromium. For what it's worth, chromium 29.0.1547.32 is installed here.
In any case, I'm finally able to do an eyes-free install of chromevox
under Linux!
Thanks to "floppym" for showing me how to do this.
-- Chris
_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup

--
Janina Sajka, Phone: [phone]
sip:***@asterisk.rednote.net
Email: ***@rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup: http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair, Protocols & Formats http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
Indie UI http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/

[Janina Sajka]

Now that I've worked with this for awhile, I'm reminded there was one
additional step when a Google person set this up for me some years ago.

Because Chrome is self-voicing with Chrome Vox, Orca (and
Speech-Dispatcher/Espeak) should be disabled while Chrome has focus.

I regret I don't know how to set that up. May have to take this to the
Orca list, unless someone here knows?

Janina

Post by Janina Sajka
Wow, works on Fedora 19. Thanks, Chris.
I also had to create the extensions directory. For good measure I
chown'd the file root:root as well.
I used yum to install chrome 28 (stable) itself. I was able to do this
because I had the Google .repo file on archive from an installation
someone at Google helped me do some years ago. I imagine a little Google
search would turn up the downloadable location of that repo file. But,
with that file inhand, installation was a breeze.
Thanks for the json file. It worked like a charm!
Janina

Post by Chris Brannon
It's not directly relevant to Speakup, but I suspect that a lot of the
people on this list will be interested.
It seems that there is now a very easy way to install ChromeVox under
Linux without sighted help.
http://the-brannons.com/kgejglhpjiefppelpmljglcjbhoiplfn.json
And put it in a particular directory.
I'm running chromium, and for me, that directory is
/usr/lib/chromium-browser/extensions. If I were running chrome instead,
it would be /opt/google/chrome/extensions.
I'm running chromium on Gentoo, and I have no idea whether these paths
are distro specific. You may also need to create the extensions/
directory. I had to do that.
Once the file is copied, just start chromium or chrome, and
chromevox *should* start talking!
I don't know if this can be used for older versions of chrome /
chromium. For what it's worth, chromium 29.0.1547.32 is installed here.
In any case, I'm finally able to do an eyes-free install of chromevox
under Linux!
Thanks to "floppym" for showing me how to do this.
-- Chris
_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup

--
Janina Sajka, Phone: [phone]
Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup: http://a11y.org
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair, Protocols & Formats http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
Indie UI http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/
_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup

--
Janina Sajka, Phone: [phone]
sip:***@asterisk.rednote.net
Email: ***@rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup: http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair, Protocols & Formats http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
Indie UI http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/

[Deedra Waters]

in our case, chromevox uses speech-dispatcher/espeak so no need for that
here. it depends on the tts you're having it use.


Janina Sajka wrote
| Now that I've worked with this for awhile, I'm reminded there was one
| additional step when a Google person set this up for me some years ago.
|
| Because Chrome is self-voicing with Chrome Vox, Orca (and
| Speech-Dispatcher/Espeak) should be disabled while Chrome has focus.
|
| I regret I don't know how to set that up. May have to take this to the
| Orca list, unless someone here knows?
|
| Janina
|
| Janina Sajka writes:
| > Wow, works on Fedora 19. Thanks, Chris.
| >
| > I also had to create the extensions directory. For good measure I
| > chown'd the file root:root as well.
| >
| > I used yum to install chrome 28 (stable) itself. I was able to do this
| > because I had the Google .repo file on archive from an installation
| > someone at Google helped me do some years ago. I imagine a little Google
| > search would turn up the downloadable location of that repo file. But,
| > with that file inhand, installation was a breeze.
| >
| > Thanks for the json file. It worked like a charm!
| >
| > Janina
| >
| > Chris Brannon writes:
| > > It's not directly relevant to Speakup, but I suspect that a lot of the
| > > people on this list will be interested.
| > > Reposted from the chromevox discussion group:
| > >
| > > It seems that there is now a very easy way to install ChromeVox under
| > > Linux without sighted help.
| > > Basically, download the following file:
| > > http://the-brannons.com/kgejglhpjiefppelpmljglcjbhoiplfn.json
| > > And put it in a particular directory.
| > > I'm running chromium, and for me, that directory is
| > > /usr/lib/chromium-browser/extensions. If I were running chrome instead,
| > > it would be /opt/google/chrome/extensions.
| > > I'm running chromium on Gentoo, and I have no idea whether these paths
| > > are distro specific. You may also need to create the extensions/
| > > directory. I had to do that.
| > > Once the file is copied, just start chromium or chrome, and
| > > chromevox *should* start talking!
| > > I don't know if this can be used for older versions of chrome /
| > > chromium. For what it's worth, chromium 29.0.1547.32 is installed here.
| > > In any case, I'm finally able to do an eyes-free install of chromevox
| > > under Linux!
| > >
| > > Thanks to "floppym" for showing me how to do this.
| > >
| > > -- Chris
| > > _______________________________________________
| > > Speakup mailing list
| > > ***@linux-speakup.org
| > > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
| >
| > --
| >
| > Janina Sajka, Phone: [phone]
| > sip:***@asterisk.rednote.net
| > Email: ***@rednote.net
| >
| > Linux Foundation Fellow
| > Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup: http://a11y.org
| >
| > The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
| > Chair, Protocols & Formats http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
| > Indie UI http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/
| >
| > _______________________________________________
| > Speakup mailing list
| > ***@linux-speakup.org
| > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
|
| --
|
| Janina Sajka, Phone: [phone]
| sip:***@asterisk.rednote.net
| Email: ***@rednote.net
|
| Linux Foundation Fellow
| Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup: http://a11y.org
|
| The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
| Chair, Protocols & Formats http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
| Indie UI http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/
|
| _______________________________________________
| Speakup mailing list
| ***@linux-speakup.org
| http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
|
---end quoted text---

[Chris Brannon]

Post by Janina Sajka
Because Chrome is self-voicing with Chrome Vox, Orca (and
Speech-Dispatcher/Espeak) should be disabled while Chrome has focus.

The easiest solution is to disable Orca temporarily.
AFAIK, there's no way to silence Speech Dispatcher. If you're using it
as the output method for chromevox, you wouldn't want to do that anyway.
I think there might be a way to customize Orca so that Orca is disabled
when self-voicing apps like chromevox have focus. If there is, don't
use it right now. Chromevox does not (yet) speak some browser dialogs.
These can be read with Orca, however. Just enable it temporarily to
read them. Yes, it's annoying!

Here's my current setup.
I run chromium + chromevox under a lightweight window manager,
ratpoison. Chromevox uses Speech Dispatcher with eSpeak for speech.
Yes, I'm not taking the perfectly sound advice I just gave in the
previous paragraph, since I'm running without a desktop environment, and
hence, without Orca.

HTH,
-- Chris

[Jason White]

Post by Chris Brannon
I think there might be a way to customize Orca so that Orca is disabled
when self-voicing apps like chromevox have focus. If there is, don't
use it right now. Chromevox does not (yet) speak some browser dialogs.
These can be read with Orca, however. Just enable it temporarily to
read them. Yes, it's annoying!

As I understand it, all browser dialogues and menus are spoken with ChromeVox
under Chrome OS, but the code that does this isn't enabled in the standard
Linux builds of Chromium. I don't know what would be required to fix this.

[Doug Smith]

I just wanted to ask this. I have never used it, but I wonder if crome os itself is accessible.



Thanks.

[Kyle]

ChromeOS is indeed accessible. I have a Chromebook, and it works fairly
well. I'm not sure I'll ever get used to everything being in the browser
though. I still like desktop apps <smiles>
~Kyle
http://kyle.tk/

[Doug Smith]

Thanks. I wondered about that.



You learn something new every day.