PDF version of this manual.

Introduction

This document is structured as follows:

launching a live session in accessibility mode

the Whisker menu

accessibility apps

visual and audio aids

sound management functions

accessibility utilities

mouse emulation functions

Launching the system in Live mode

This manual briefly introduces the first accessibility functions for the blind and partially sighted persons, that are now available in Emmabuntüs.

When you arrive on the Emmabuntüs GRUB main installation menu, you first see a list of options with their respective shortcuts in square brackets.
For example, pressing the I key will take you directly to the Italian sub-menu, and pressing Backspace will take you back to the main menu.
After the various language options there is now the Speech Synthesis On/Off option, whose shortcut is the letter S.

When you press the S key to activate this function, you will hear an audio indication that is none other than the letter S in Morse code (3 short beeps).

If you press the S key again, you will deactivate this voice synthesis function and you will hear the Morse code of O (3 long beeps).

We can then use the G shortcut to go to the English language sub-menu.

You will then hear an audio indication corresponding to the letter G in Morse code.

Finally, we’re going to use the T shortcut to try out Emmabuntüs in a live session and in accessibility mode. Here, too, you will be given audio information in the form of a familiar little melody.

Opening the accessibility interface

Now we wait for the system to load completely, and when it does the new feature will open an accessibility window to allow blind and partially-sighted people to configure immediately the various accessibility functions.

The system will read the text at the top of the window to tell blind and partially-sighted users the shortcuts they can use in this interface.

Thereafter, this window will not be opened again unless the user explicitly requests it to change its configuration via the applications menu or the Alt Super A shortcut.

The lower part of this window is divided into two zones: the first, entitled Audio, is dedicated to blind users, while the second, entitled Visual, is reserved for visually impaired users.

Accessibility interface for the visually impaired

The first function that a blind person will need to activate is the Orca screen reader. To do this, as the voice synthesizer explained, all you have to do is press the O key. When the user presses this key, the system informs them in audio mode and, depending on their visual acuity, they will be able to see that the box preceding the Activate Orca option is ticked.

In principle, the default options are standard and should suit everyone, but people can always change them to suit their own needs. For example, you can untick the Internet Status Information option if you don’t want the system to inform you about your connection status each time you start up the system. Or the status of potential updates.

If the blind person wants to know the status of the functions in this window, they can press the S key to hear the system read out the value of each option. Then, if they are happy with all the settings, all they have to do is press Enter to confirm the configuration.

Accessibility interface for the visually impaired

This part, called Visual, is dedicated to the visually impaired. This area will allow them to configure additional accessibility functions dedicated to the visually impaired. Actions here are performed using the mouse, and if the user feels the need, they can immediately activate the Compiz magnifier to improve the visibility of this window. To do this, use the ALT Super C shortcut.

The change in appearance of the two buttons at the top right of the window indicates that Compiz has been launched:

You can then zoom in using the shortcut Control Up Arrow, and zoom out using the shortcut Control Down Arrow.

The first thing a visually impaired person needs to do is activate the Compiz function, because even if it is in action at the moment, it will no longer be the case when you leave this window.

Then the user can change the appearance of the cursor by choosing Maya-Orange, for example, and increase its size to 50. Be careful not to press the Enter key at this point, otherwise the window will close immediately. You can reopen it with the ALT Super A shortcut, but it’s best to do everything at once.

You can also change the theme [ HighContrast ] to get a contrast more suited to the visually impaired, choose another font [ Luciole ] from a list of fonts selected specifically for the visually impaired, and possibly change the contrast of the icons.

When you are finished, simply press the Activate button and your configuration will be taken into account.

Finally, there are four buttons at the bottom left of the interface that give you access to either visual or auditory aids. If you press the Visual Shortcuts button, a Firefox window will open and you will be able to read the list of accessibility shortcuts present in Emmabuntüs or in the system.

Users can of course navigate easily through this list, and it should be noted that selections are made here in line mode, rather than column mode, which is often the case with PDF readers installed on free or proprietary systems.

You can also ask Orca to read this list by pressing the Key Pad Plus key.

Blind users can use the audio mode by pressing the I key to open the accessibility manual or the H key for the list of shortcuts.

An ebook-speaker window then opens and reads the information to the user.

You can stop reading by pressing the S key, use the Up or Down arrow keys to navigate from one chapter to the next and the Enter key to resume reading.

Finally, use the Q key to close the player.

Closing the accessibility interface

To conclude this chapter, a number of configuration-related accessibility functions are available directly from this interface. These include the two detailed configuration buttons for Orca and Compiz:

When the user has finished configuring the interface, they can click on either Activate or Decline, depending on what they want, and blind users can use the corresponding Enter or Q keys.

The configuration window is then closed by the system and, as we have activated Orca, it informs us that it has been successfully launched by announcing that the screen reader is activated.

The Compiz magnifying glass

If Compiz is running, visually impaired users can use the magnifying glass by repeatedly pressing Control Up Arrow to increase the zoom and then, for example, open the applications menu using the button at the very top left of the screen.

In this zoom configuration, the Whisker menu occupies the full height of the screen.

Sound volume

A number of keyboard shortcuts have been added in this accessibility version, particularly for listening. One of them, for example, is the Alt Shift Up Arrow shortcut, which will increase the volume by 10%, and the system will immediately inform us in audio mode of this action on the volume strength.

This is thanks to the audio information function that we have activated in the interface to make it easier for blind people to use the machine.

If the user does not wish to have this audio information, they can return to the configuration interface and untick this option. In our example, by pressing the Alt Shift Up Arrow shortcut again, the sound volume will be increased by 10%, but the user will no longer have the audio information relating to the execution of this command.

And to shut down the system, simply use the Alt S shortcut.

In order not to confuse old users too much, the Whisker menu remains unchanged when the system is not in accessibility mode, and presents its classic category grouping together accessibility applications, some of which will be detailed later in this document, whereas the Accessibility Configuration panel was detailed earlier when the live session was opened.

This is true when neither Orca nor Compiz is activated. However, if one of these two functions is active, the system switches to accessibility mode and the Whisker menu will now present three new categories relating specifically to accessibility functions.

The visual and audio aids category :

The category of functions relating to sound volume :

and finally the utilities category, which will be described in more detail later in this document:

Accessibility software

Configuring accessibility

The Accessibility configuration panel can be accessed by navigating to :

Menu → Accessibility → Accessibility configuration

or simply by using the keyboard shortcut Alt Super A

This window is used to configure Orca and Compiz settings, and is detailed above when the system is first started.

Orca screen reader

Orca is a free and open-source, flexible, extensible screen reader from the GNOME project for individuals who are blind or visually impaired. Using various combinations of speech synthesis and braille, Orca helps provide access to applications and toolkits that support AT-SPI (e.g., the GNOME desktop, Mozilla Firefox/Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice and GTK, Qt and Java Swing/SWT applications).

Orca is used to read aloud the user interface on the screen or to read it in Braille with a refreshable display.

The Orca Settings Manager can be opened by typing the shortcut Alt Super S :

This window proposes 8 tabs for adjusting Orca’s many parameters:

General :

Allows you to adjust a number of general settings, such as time and date formats, and to save and reload your user profile.

Voice :

gives access to the system’s voice settings. Among other things, you can adjust the type, language, speed, pitch and volume of the voice.

Text-to-speech :

Allows you to define the voice synthesis, verbosity, punctuation level and various spoken context options

Braille :

defines the interface parameters with the Braille reader. Not currently activated by default in Emmabuntüs

Echo:

Determines whether keyboard events are echoed.

Keyboard shortcuts :

defines all the keyboard shortcuts available in Orca

Pronunciation :

modifies or corrects the way certain words are pronounced.

For example, if the word echo is mispronounced, it can be replaced by eko.

Text attributes :

defines which text attributes will be read by Orca

Compiz screen graphic accessibility function

Compiz is a free composite window manager for the X server desktop environment, and in particular for Linux distributions. Compiz provides visual effects to improve the user-friendliness of graphical environments. It includes accessibility options that may be of interest to the visually impaired.

You can open the Compiz accessibility settings manager by typing the shortcut Alt Super Z :

This manager includes 8 categories that allow you to create very sophisticated graphic effects, but we will limit ourselves here to the Accessibility category, which offers the following options:

ADD Helper, which makes it easier to concentrate by darkening everything except the active window

Show Pointer, which increases the visibility of the pointer

Options for adjusting opacity, brightness and saturation

Enhanced desktop zoom for the visually impaired

Color filter options

Negative screen or window option

The option to highlight the word being read by the screen reader

Shortcuts for the magnification box

Opacity shortcuts

Zoom shortcuts

Firefox the Internet navigator

Firefox, the well-known web browser embedded in Emmabuntüs, can also be used to read aloud the content of the page displayed.

For example, we’ll open Firefox using, for example, the shortcut Super W and go to the emmabuntus.org/accessibilite page.

Firefox displays the requested page normally.

Now use the shortcut Control Alt R to ask Firefox to switch to easy reading mode. Firefox then changes the presentation of the page and Orca begins to read the page aloud. You can stop the reading by using the Escape key.

Then press N to start reading in a more comfortable mode that omits anything that is not essential to understanding the text.

On the left there is a listen button to stop or restart playback, arrows to go back to the previous sentence or jump to the next, and a slider to change the playback speed. As Orca tends to speak over the Firefox reader, you can use the Insert S shortcut to stop it.

Within this voice management dialog, a drop-down menu allows you to choose your reading language:

We note that with this theme, Firefox reader highlights the sentence it is reading.

Finally, the Aa button can be used to change the appearance of the text and switch to a different background, as in this case to the dark theme instead of the default sepia.

Emmabuntüs includes another Firefox extension: Read Aloud – which is only available with an Internet connection.

First we’ll open the Emmabuntüs page on Wikipedia in English, then we’ll launch the Read Aloud function using the Alt P shortcut.

This time you’ll notice that the speech synthesis omits certain non-essential parts of the text, such as references to notes or brackets and even mentions of links, which greatly improves the listening comfort during the reading.

Note: you can jump to the next paragraph using the ALT Up Arrow keys or return to the previous paragraph using ALT Down Arrow.

What’s more, this speech synthesis is of better quality than the Svox Pico synthesis that comes as standard with Emmabuntüs, and it adapts to the language in which the page being visited is written.

For example, if we open the same Wikipedia article but in Greek :

You will hear the page read out in perfect Greek, at least for those who understand the language.

This feature is particularly interesting because it allows you to read Internet pages in languages that – by default – are not embedded in the Emmabuntüs voice synthesizer. You can even try out Russian or Chinese and you’ll hear that it works very well!

A final feature of this extension, which unfortunately cannot be accessed with a simple keyboard shortcut, is the visual highlighting of text. Before activating it, first switch off the Orca synthesizer with the Insert S shortcut, then press the Read Aloud icon in the Firefox toolbar. A sub-window will then open displaying the paragraph being read in overexposure:

Here too you can use the Alt Up or Down Arrow shortcuts to go back to the previous paragraph or jump to the next.

To exit Firefox, the classic Alt F4 will do just fine.

Kiwix offline encyclopedia reader

Kiwix is an open-source software package for offline access to certain educational content on the Web. Kiwix uses zim files, which by default must reside in the /usr/share/Documentation_emmabuntus/Documents/zim/ directory.

By default, only the French-language Ékopédia encyclopedia is available.

This application uses the Kiwix server version with Firefox to access accessibility functions, and is launched from the Applications Menu, Accessibility category, or directly using the Alt Super K shortcut:

This action launches a script which in turn starts the Kiwix server and then opens Firefox directly on the only zim file found, and Orca starts reading aloud the content of this Ékopédia welcome page.
You can stop Orca reading by pressing the Escape key.

At the top of this window are three buttons and the search box:

Shortcuts to these functions have been introduced to help the visually impaired. Here, for example, is Alt Shift S to access the search box. Type the letters C O L I B in this field, and a list of articles will open up. Use the Down Arrow key to scroll down to the title you want, and of course Orca will inform you at every stage of the article you have selected:

Here we go down to select the Colibris association item, and press Enter :

Back to the Kiwix top bar.

The button on the left takes you to the Kiwix welcome page,
shortcut is Alt Shift W

The middle button takes you to the home page of the encyclopaedia,
in this case Ékopédia, shortcut is Alt Shift N

The right button is used to load a random page,

shortcut is Alt Shift D

If there are several zim files in the Kiwix default folder, the launch script will start Firefox on the Kiwix main page and the user will be able to choose their encyclopedia using the Tab key and Orca will inform us aloud about the contents of each box encountered:

eBook-speaker ePub book reader in audio mode

The eBook-speaker program reads aloud e-books, other text formats and even scanned documents using text-to-speech software.

By default, the eSpeak tool is used for text-to-speech. The eBook-speaker program can also scan a document itself using the scanimage application.

When eBook-speaker is launched, for example using the Alt Super B shortcut, it first displays a file manager terminal window to let you navigate down to the file you want to read:

You can use the Down Arrow key to go to the next folder or Up Arrow to go back to the previous one.

The Right Arrow take you down into the selected folder.

The Left Arrow move you up into the parent folder:

When your ePub file is selected press Enter to start reading it.
Here, too, you can use the Up or Down arrows to navigate through the chapters and Enter to start playback of the selected chapter.

Orca will, of course, tell you out loud what’s happening on the screen, but you can use the Escape key to stop it:

The program then reads the text aloud, displaying the line being read at the bottom of the window and indicating the number of lines read and the number of lines remaining to be read.

The Space bar stop and restart the reading.

At the end of a chapter the program automatically moves on to the next chapter and when the book is finished it returns to the parent folder.

You can use the Q shortcut to quit this application.

Calibre ePub book reader in visual mode

calibre (with a lower-case c) is an open-source digital library management program for converting, cataloging, editing and displaying digital books in the main formats available.

Its main functions are digital library management, converting digital books into various formats, modifying book code, synchronizing with reading devices, downloading articles from the web and converting them into digital books, viewing books, and online access to a collection of books via the content server.

TuxTyping learning to use the keyboard

Tux Typing is a free and open source typing tutor created especially for children. It features several different types of game play, with a variety of difficulty levels. It is designed to be fun and to improve words per minute speed of typists.

A training mode helps you learn the basics of typing. There are also two games: the first involves making fish fall from the sky with a letter or word written on them. When the player presses the corresponding key or types the appropriate word, Tux moves into position to eat the fish. The second game is similar, but the aim is to stop comets falling on a city. When a comet falls on the city, the shield is removed, and if the city is hit again without the shield, it disappears. If it is hit by a comet while the city is destroyed, points will be deducted. In both games, different languages can be selected as word sources.

Elograf voice dictation

Elograf is dictation software that uses offline voice recognition. It is important to note that during dictation, no information is sent outside the system.

This function is launched with the Alt Super E shortcut.

An icon in the shape of a microphone, unfortunately not very visible, has been created in the dashboard to indicate that this function is active.

You can then, for example, open the Geany text editor, using the Alt Super G shortcut, and all you have to do is say a sentence into the microphone for it to be written in the Geany window, modulo errors of interpretation.

Evince

Evince is a P D F file reader. To use it in accessibility mode, Orca must of course be active and the file must not be a pdf-image.

To launch it, use the shortcut Control Super E

Remember: the Super key is also known as the Windows key

To open a file, press Control O and navigate the file system to find the file you want to read, then press Enter to open it.

Evince opens and displays this P D F file with the list of paragraphs in the side panel

This side panel can be closed by pressing the F9 function key.

You can use the F8 function key to read either the window header or the first page of the document.

Then use the F7 key to switch to navigation mode with the sweeping cursor, also known as the caret.

To read a single character, use the Right Arrow key, and the Left Arrow key to go backwards.

Similarly, use the Control Right Arrow shortcuts to read a word and Control Left Arrow to go back one word.

To read the whole document, use the KP Plus key. You can stop playback by pressing the Space bar and resume at the same point by pressing KP Plus again.

Daisy reader

Files in DAISY (Digital Accessible Information SYstem) format are often described as “digital talking books”. Many people have DAISY books on CDs, which are ordinary discs but cannot be played on standard stereo systems. DAISY audio-books listen like other audio-books on CD, but users can also search, bookmark, navigate from line to line and control speech speed without causing distortion.

The Daisy player is available in two versions. A CD-ROM drive and a Daisy format file residing on the system’s hard disk.

Daisy Disk reader

Open the Whisker applications menu and in the Accessibility category choose Daisy Disk Drive to open a book on your hard drive:

If there is only one file in Daisy format in its directory on the hard disk, the player will open it immediately. All these operations are of course also announced aloud.

In our case we have several files in Daisy book format and the utility will first open a window so that you can select one of these files:

Simply navigate this window using the Up and Down arrows, then when the book you want is selected, press the O key to open it.

The reader begins by reading the information about the book and then the contents of the book itself. Note that this time it is a human voice that is heard, not Orca’s synthetic voice. This is the voice of the person who was recorded reading the book aloud.

Because Orca is active, it sometimes tends to interfere with the voice reading the book, but the Escape key can be used to stop it.

To stop or resume Daisy reading, use the Space key, and here too the Up Arrow and Down Arrow keys are used to move around the structure of the book. For example, you can scroll down to chapter 2 and press Enter to start reading there.

The list of all the commands available in this utility can be consulted in the detailed shortcuts document.

To exit the Daisy player before the end of the book, press the Q key. In the case of multiple Daisy files, the selection window will reopen and you can either select another book or use the Q key to exit the Daisy player definitively.

Note that when you reopen a book that is not yet finished, playback resumes exactly where you left off.

Daisy CD-ROM reader

This time we choose the Daisy CD-ROM Drive utility from the applications menu.

The Daisy utility will test whether there is a disc in the drive, and then whether this disc is in the correct Daisy CD-ROM format. Here too, the operations are announced aloud.

If everything is OK, the player will open the book directly and we will find ourselves in the situation described in the previous paragraph, i.e. all we have to do now is listen and, if necessary, navigate through the structure of the book.

Gnome calculator

The Gnome calculator can be launched using the Control Super C shortcut.

On a desktop computer with a keyboard that includes a numeric keypad, the numeric lock will be automatically activated to enable the visually impaired to use it immediately, without having to press another key.

All you have to do is enter the operations using this numeric keypad, bearing in mind that the multiplication sign is the asterisk and the division sign is the slash.

For example, if you type the sequence: 1 2 3 * 4 8 / 3 the calculator will perform the operations 123 multiplied by 48 and the intermediate result divided by 3.

Press the Enter key on the alphabetic keypad to display the result, and Orca will automatically read the result.

Pressing the Enter key again recalls the previous operation, which is also read by Orca:

Note: Pressing the Enter key on the numeric keypad has the same effects, except that does Orca does not read the result nor the previous operation when pressed a second time.

To clear the entry area use the Escape key and to clear the history use the Control Escape combination.

Refer to the full version of the list of shortcuts for all the operations available in this utility.

To exit, press Alt F4, and note that the digital lock will return to the state it was in when this tool was launched.

Ocrizer, an O C R scanner

Ocrizer is a utility that lets you scan a document, then perform an O C R optical character recognition on it and finally open the LibreOffice Writer application to display the recognized text.

To launch this utility you can either use the Alt Super R shortcut or go to

Menu → Accessibility then click on Scan and OCRize :

In the following example, we have connected a scanner printer to our system and placed the test page from the printer itself on the scanner glass:

When the utility is launched, the first message appears at the top right of the screen:

And then the following messages :

Finally, OpenOffice Writer opens, displaying the text that the Ocrizer utility has managed to extract from the digitized page:

NatBraille, a Braille transcriber

NatBraille is a free Braille transcription and de-transcription software package developed at LIRIS laboratory.

It has been designed to enable a novice user to produce transcriptions quickly and easily without needing to know Braille.

NAT can be used to transcribe and format :

literary texts in full or abbreviated Braille

mathematical content

chemistry

NAT can de-transcribe Braille texts containing literary expressions into full Braille and mathematics.

NAT can also emboss documents, manage the abbreviated rules to be applied (partial abbreviated rules are possible when learning them in class) and the Braille cut-off.

The software offers a wide range of options and settings to suit a very wide audience. It has an interactive de-transcription editor for use in class and a simple editor for editing transcriptions.

The current version handles : Documents in text format

LibreOffice documents

Unaltered Microsoft Word documents (doc and docx) if LibreOffice
is installed on your machine

Simple HTML documents that comply with standards

Text documents in Braille for reverse transcription (Braille to black).

To access the NatBraille window, go to :

Menu → Accessibility → NatBraille GUI

Unfortunately, NatBraille starts with a French display. To turn it into English the first time, navigate to Menu → Options or use the Control O shortcut :

In the Options window, select the Accessibilité tab, then English in the language drop dow list, and thern press the Enregistrer (Record) button :

Then you have to quit NatBraille, using Control F4 shortcut for example, and re-open it.

The main window now displays almost all the texts in English.

In this window , simply use the Control E shortcut to enter the source file in black, the Control S shortcut to enter the destination file in Braille and the Control T shortcut to start transcription.

At the end of the transcription operation, an editing window opens and you can edit the xml code located in the left-hand panel of this window.

If you have an embosser, which is not the case here, you can go to File → Emboss or use the Control E shortcut to start the operation:

Visual and audio aids

We have seen that the help functions are accessible via the Whisker menu, Accessibility Help category, but they can also be invoked via keyboard shortcuts.

For example :

Audio help for accessibility, Alt Super H

Visual help for accessibility, Alt Super V

Audio help for shortcuts, compact version, Control Super S

Visual help for shortcuts compact version, Control Super V

Audio help for shortcuts full version, Control Alt Super S

Visual help for shortcuts full version, Control Alt Super V

Sound management functions

Audio output functions

These functions control the level of the sound output, whether from the speakers or headphones. The most common functions are :

Increase volume by 10%, Alt Shift Up Arrow

Decreases the volume by 10%, Alt Shift Down Arrow

Mute output volume, Alt Shift Left Arrow

Activates output volume, Alt Shift Right Arrow

Audio input functions

These functions control the level of the input sound, i.e. that of the microphone.

Increase volume by 10%, Alt Super Up Arrow

Decreases the volume by 10%, Alt Super Down Arrow

Closes the microphone, Alt Super Left Arrow

Opens the microphone, Alt Super Right Arrow

Accessibility utilities

Internet connection test

Launch this function using the Alt Super X shortcut to find out whether or not the Internet is active.

The system indicates in audio mode whether the Internet is active or not.

This command is useful when the Internet Status Information option is disabled in the Accessibility control panel.

Function key test

Use the Alt Super M shortcut to launch this function.

In audio mode, the system indicates whether :

Caps Lock is activated or not

Numeric keypad lock is on or off

Scroll lock is on or off

In addition, the system warns us that if we launch Orca’s learning mode, we must first unlock the numeric keypad, otherwise we won’t be able to use its help.

System updates

Launch this function using the Alt Super U shortcut.

This utility will test whether or not the system is up to date and inform us in audio mode.

If updates are available, a terminal is automatically opened to launch them without the user having to enter his password.

And naturally, the system will inform us of the success of the operation.

Nmtui Wifi configuration

You can launch this function with the Alt Super N shortcut

This utility lets you easily configure your computer’s connection to the Internet.

In our example, we are going to activate a new connection.

Down arrow to go to the Activate a connection line, then Enter

Up or Down arrow to select the network, then Enter

Finally, enter the password for this network and press the Enter key to complete the settings.

Screen capture

You ca launch this function with the shortcut Alt Super Y

To help visually impaired or blind people remotely, we suggest using the free imgbb.com website.

The Emmabuntüs distribution is preset to use the Emmabuntüs account on the imgbb.com site, enabling the collective to help people using this version without changes. The end user does not need to worry about this.

The following paragraph explains how to create a personalized imgbb account for associations or individuals who want to deploy adapted Emmabuntüs distributions to visually impaired or blind people and manage their support directly.

So, for the strict purposes of this document and by way of example, we have created the Emmacces account on the imgbb.com website.

In order to automate the screen capture and its upload to this account, we first need to edit the config_imgbb file located in the folder :

/home/<user>/.config/emmabuntus

and enter the following three values:

api_key=”123abcdef456dead789″

expiration_delay=”3600″

delay_capture=”4″

where api_key is the key retrieved from the api.imgbb.com page, expiration_delay is the number of seconds after which the image will be destroyed on the imgbb.com site and delay_capture is the waiting time before the capture is made, for example to allow the user to position the cursor where they wish.

So in our example, by pressing Alt Super Y, the system will automatically take a screen capture and send it to the emmaccess.imgbb.com page.

and if we are in audio mode, we will hear the system say in succession :

screen shot in 4 seconds

screen shot now

screen shot sent to server

screen shot sent successfully

and looking at emmaccess.imgbb.com

you can see on this page that the image has arrived there.

Remote control with D W Agent

This function enables the computer to be remotely controlled to help a user facing some difficulties.

To launch this function, use the Alt Super W shortcut.

A terminal window will open with three options :

press the key 2 to continue :

The user must now communicate this information to the carer, but there is a difficulty if the user is blind. To get round this problem, we’re going to use the automatic sending of a screen capture: Alt Super Y

The supporting person will be able to see on the imgbb site that the capture has safely arrived, and by double-clicking on the image she will be able to read all the details on how to connect: to the remote system :

Ventoy bootable USB key creator

This utility allows you to create a bootable U S B flash drive (a.k.a U S B key) on which you will be able later on to add ISO files.

To launch it, once you have inserted a U S B key in your system, use the Control Super K shortcut and you will see it run in a Terminal window:

Here Ventoy has found a USB flash drive, but it’s not formatted correctly.

To continue, press Y or any other key (space bar, for example).

As the operation will destroy the current contents of the drive, the system asks you to confirm that you agree.

Here we’ll type Y again and the script will run, with Orca keeping us informed of the progress of the operation:

Press any key to exit.

If we now run this utility again, the script informs us that the key is up to date:

Mouse emulation functions

In the accessibility functions panel, you can activate mouse emulation.

The drop down list propose 3 choices :

By default, this emulation is disabled, but you can select the Numeric Keypad option or the Mouse Tweaks option, then click the Enable button:

Mouse Tweaks

The hover click works as follows: as soon as the mouse stops moving for a couple of seconds over a clickable object, the pointer aspect changes rapidly, and the previously selected action is performed.

This function will be useful for people who can move the mouse but cannot press its buttons to perform a traditional click.

When this function is active, a small window opens up on the screen and lets you choose the next action to be taken: single click, double click, press and hold (for drag and drop to follow) and finally right click.

In this short example, we move the mouse down over the Secondary Click option. After a short moment, the pointer changes aspect and a mouse click is simulated, which is equivalent to selecting the Secondary Click. This action will be performed the next time the mouse stops moving.

Then, if we move the mouse over the Documents icon in the Thunar window

We hold the mouse still, and after a brief moment, a right-click will be emulated and the context menu corresponding to this folder will open

Note that as soon as an action is performed, the next option will always automatically revert to a Single Click.

To exit this operating mode, return to the accessibility functions panel and deactivate mouse emulation.

Numeric keypad

There is another solution for people who cannot use a mouse but are able to press a keyboard button: mouse emulation using the numeric keypad.

To achieve this, go to the accessibility functions panel and select the Numeric Keypad option in the mouse emulation field, then click on the Activate button:

In this configuration, you can move the cursor around the screen and emulate mouse clicks using certain keys on the numeric keypad, which is also disabled in this mode.

Below is an example of the possibilities of a numeric keypad where the keys are used to move the pointer or emulate right or left clicks:

Mouse movements :

4 → left

6 → right

8 → up

2 → down

7 → NW

9 → NE

3 → SE

1 → SW

And finally the two clicks :

key 5 → left click

key + → right click

If you hold down a movement key, you’ll notice that the movement is accelerated, and even if the pointer moves orthogonally or diagonally, you can cover the whole screen fairly quickly.