1090288 - Add the screen reader simulator accessibility add-on to the default WebIDE toolbox.

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(DevTools Graveyard :: WebIDE, defect)

Description

[Yura Zenevich [:yzen] (please use "needinfo")]

When Gaia profile was ran with Firefox for Nightly, Screen reader simulator was automatically included in its build. This was the best way to try the screen reader without actually having the device or building with speech synthesis.

Given that WebIDE is the prime tool right now to debug/develop for Gaia, it would be great to be able to access it as part of its toolbox.

Comment 1

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

Alex and Jan, what do you think is the right solution for features that were part of these Gaia in Nightly add-ons?

Comment 2

[Jan Keromnes [:janx]]

Maybe it's possible to have these extensions in B2G Desktop / Mulet? That seems like the best way to support the features in the simulator without having to redo them.

Comment 3

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

We would ship a new tool only if it is useful for devices, which doesn't seem to be the case. (WebIDE doesn't ship desktop/simulator specifics. It is agnostic to working on simulator or devices)
Also, if that tool is important and isn't simulator specific, you should promote it directly within firefox and make it remotable, so that it will automagically work everywhere (firefox desktop, simulator and device).

Otherwise, gaia build system looks like a good placeholder for such tool for now.
Mulet won't change much, you just have to build a DEBUG=1 profile to have the addon working on mulet.
(I haven't verified, but it is supposed to work. If not, that something to fix in mulet)

Also, WebIDE may not be the best environment to contribute to gaia itself.
WebIDE is the best environment to work on new apps and debug devices.
On desktop, Mulet is most likely going to be the simpliest and best, self-containted way to work on gaia.

I would suggest marking this bug as WONTFIX in favor of bug 1090296.

Comment 4

[Paul Rouget [:paul]]

(In reply to Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau] from comment #3)
> Also, WebIDE may not be the best environment to contribute to gaia itself.

Well, maybe we want to get there, and to get there, we might need such addon.

Comment 5

[Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau]]

(In reply to Paul Rouget [:paul] (slow to respond. Ping me on IRC) from comment #4)
> (In reply to Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau] from comment #3)
> > Also, WebIDE may not be the best environment to contribute to gaia itself.
> 
> Well, maybe we want to get there, and to get there, we might need such addon.

There is a long way before it can be as smooth as Mulet, without much additional value.

Comment 6

[Yura Zenevich [:yzen] (please use "needinfo")]

(In reply to Paul Rouget [:paul] (slow to respond. Ping me on IRC) from comment #4)
> (In reply to Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau] from comment #3)
> > Also, WebIDE may not be the best environment to contribute to gaia itself.
> 
> Well, maybe we want to get there, and to get there, we might need such addon.

I would also suggest that the tool would be useful to 3rd party app developers to test their apps and how well they work with the screen reader.

Comment 7

[Yura Zenevich [:yzen] (please use "needinfo")]

(In reply to Jan Keromnes [:janx] from comment #2)
> Maybe it's possible to have these extensions in B2G Desktop / Mulet? That
> seems like the best way to support the features in the simulator without
> having to redo them.

The screen reader simulator addon is just an extension (additional tab) for the dev tools panel. It's not specific to B2G or Gaia. It can be installed on Firefox Nightly too.

Comment 8

[Yura Zenevich [:yzen] (please use "needinfo")]

(In reply to Alexandre Poirot [:ochameau] from comment #3)
> We would ship a new tool only if it is useful for devices, which doesn't
> seem to be the case. 

Yes however we are putting a barrier for anyone new or without the device who wants to take on an accessibility bug.

> Mulet won't change much, you just have to build a DEBUG=1 profile to have
> the addon working on mulet.
> (I haven't verified, but it is supposed to work. If not, that something to
> fix in mulet)
OK

Comment 9

[Eitan Isaacson [:eeejay]]

As gaia is moving away from Firefox and relying on remote tools we are stuck with no good a11y dev tools. Besides the screen reader simulator, we also used the DOM Inspector extension that had an a11y tree.

I would love to see an a11y tree view in devtools, but I wonder who the audience would be besides myself.

Comment 10

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

It should be possible to rewrite this add-on to support remote targets over the DevTools protocol.

You would likely need a new actor to support accessibility to do this.

Once bug 977443 lands, it should be possible for the add-on to inject it's own actor into a FxOS device, simulator, or any other runtime, and then communicate with it.

Comment 11

[J. Ryan Stinnett [:jryans] (Use needinfo, replies may be slow)]

This sounds B2G specific, so I'm assuming it no longer makes sense to work on.