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A11y Slackers Gitter Channel Archive 22nd of March 2016

What fresh hell is THIS now? - Patrick Lauke
  1. zakim-robot
    Mar 22 07:46
    [afercia] @cordelia thanks very much and enjoy CSUN :)
  2. jpdevries
    Mar 22 12:03

    wow. congrats Wordpress. https://twitter.com/joedolson/status/711946035690516480

    Sigh, Meanwhile the CMS I contribute to (MODX) is raising $50,000 to invest in not contirbuting back to its own core https://a11y.modx.com

  3. powrsurg
    Mar 22 13:28
    Seems like a lot of money to re-work an interface
  4. powrsurg
    Mar 22 13:30
    Fixing contrast, keyboard navigation, and focus indication stuff shouldn't be that hard or costly. Adding keyboard controls and proper focus management (elements go back to the right spot) could be time consuming.
  5. powrsurg
    Mar 22 13:34
    well, fixing contrast may be an issue if you try to keep things on brand and your brand's colors are not a good combination.
  6. jpdevries
    Mar 22 14:32

    @powrsurg it is pretty sad that the money isn’t going towards the core, or the next major version of the product. 2.x was built with ExtJS 3, which is outdated and inaccessible in nature. What is really bad is that it doesn’t make any enhancements to the core, it makes a ‘a11y theme’. Idea being that “those users” that need it will install and use it.

    Frankly this is ridiculous. There are people and there are users and any given person can be several users through out the day. When I switch from my desktop to my mobile device, I become a different user. Am I supposed to switch themes each time I do that?

  7. jpdevries
    Mar 22 14:34
    I submitted a PR that makes the default theme less not-mobile friendly, but of course since the a11y theme branched off from the default theme, those enhancements don’t get pulled into the a11y theme. So if you want contrast and keyboard support, a11y theme. If you want mobile viewport support, default. Madness. modxcms/revolution#12776
  8. jpdevries @jpdevries </rant>
  9. powrsurg
    Mar 22 14:41
    First, I am not familiar with that system so I don't know its model. If it is a service that everyone gets then yes, it needs to be in core and pushed out right away. If it's something that people must install on their own server than I think it should go into a next-level version, with the ability to install an a11y theme in the interim.
  10. powrsurg
    Mar 22 14:44
    People really have a hard time even imagining someone with disabilities using a mobile device.
  11. powrsurg
    Mar 22 14:45
    I showed my co-worker how to use VoiceOver on iOS and it overwhelmed him. But I think that's mostly due to the speed that VO uses by default -- which I think is good for real users but for devs that are unaccustomed to it they're surprised.
  12. jpdevries
    Mar 22 14:45
    @powrsurg it is an opensource PHP CMS, so ya it needs to be a11y. The “next version” has been stalled and held back for some time. My opnion is who cares about 2.x, it’ll never be truly accessible no matter what we do, let’s make the next version WCAG 2.0 AA compliant.
  13. jpdevries
    Mar 22 14:46
    I use VoiceOver on iOS for road trips sometimes, but I’ve also been working on using the Web Audio API to allow blog posts to be read aloud (without a screen reader). Ex: (notice the this post can be read aloud link) http://markup.tips/htmlftw
  14. powrsurg
    Mar 22 14:48
    There are agencies that it takes them forever to get approval to do the testing and resources to move to new versions. Like it would take us a lot to move from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8 (where Drupal 8 is more accessible by default). But it is easier for us to patch up problems in 7 that we can do quickly. That being said, if I was going to raise resources for improving a11y I would absolutely put them first into getting the core software updated before back/side-porting fixes.
  15. powrsurg
    Mar 22 14:49
    The Web Audio API actually works in iOS? I thought that was only done decently well in Chrome
  16. jpdevries
    Mar 22 14:49
    oh it is still terrible on iOS unfortunately… it tries and fails. Reads way too fast
  17. powrsurg
    Mar 22 14:50
    It seems we're going to get text-to-speech in most browsers a lot faster than speech-to-text (which only seems to work in Chrome and Firefox for Firefox OS)
  18. jpdevries
    Mar 22 14:51
    Firefox claims to support the Web Audio API but I haven’t been able to get it to work
  19. powrsurg
    Mar 22 14:55
    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10839212/audio.html (note that the speech to text only works in Chrome, also that version I was experimenting with dropping the default bit rate to 128 kbps to lower the recording's file size)
  20. powrsurg
    Mar 22 14:55
    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10839212/audio2.html I believe has the original quality audio, but no speech recognition
  21. jpdevries
    Mar 22 14:56
    nice!
  22. powrsurg
    Mar 22 15:07
    It's funny, when Microsoft was looking for feedback on a11y I had brought up how I wished that speech to text was possible long before I learned that such a thing was actually a thing already. They never corrected me on the call which disappointed me when I learned about it.
  23. jpdevries
    Mar 22 15:09
    I don’t understand how Microsoft gets away with shipping Windows without a screen reader...
  24. powrsurg
    Mar 22 15:15
    It includes one. It's just not popular
  25. powrsurg
    Mar 22 15:15
    Narrator
  26. jasonday
    Mar 22 15:15
    @powrsurg - I've never liked Drupal's versioning. Large monolithic releases that have a sketchy upgrade path.
  27. jpdevries
    Mar 22 15:16
    @powrsurg ah, didn’t know that
  28. powrsurg
    Mar 22 15:17
    It seems like Drupal's release and maintenance schedule have gotten out of hand. I tried to find an EOL date for 7 and all they had is a thread where they realize they should have already put 7 into LTS and scheduled to end it around the release of 9 (which I would expect in 2020 or later at the rate they're going)
  29. powrsurg
    Mar 22 15:18
    @jpdevries I think I tested in Narrator once -- right after hearing MS say they were aiming to improve it since I guess it was really bad at launch.
  30. jpdevries
    Mar 22 15:18
    MODX 1.0 (Evolution) won’t die. The LLC (owners of the project) made it EOL years ago I believe but the community picked it up and has been keeping it going. For whatever reason, it is particularly popular in countries like Russia
  31. powrsurg
    Mar 22 15:21
    Asia seems to never want to let anything die.
  32. powrsurg
    Mar 22 15:21
    China is the leading country for ie6
  33. jpdevries
    Mar 22 15:23
    ...and IE8 I assume
  34. sophieschoice
    Mar 22 15:24
    Ah, MODx! I loooooove MODx
  35. jpdevries
    Mar 22 15:25
    woohoo! we got a fan!
  36. sophieschoice
    Mar 22 15:25
    I especially like that extra's in MODx won't add weird, invalid code to your site like some plugins for Wordpress can do
  37. jpdevries
    Mar 22 15:25
    creative freedom FTW
  38. sophieschoice
    Mar 22 15:25
    @jpdevries haha :D
  39. sophieschoice
    Mar 22 15:26
    yeah, functionality and lay-out is totally seperated, which is great
  40. jpdevries
    Mar 22 15:29
    @sophieschoice I’ve used it excusively since 2011. I’ve gone from being a freelance site builder, to contracting for MODX LLC, to working for MODX LLC full time, to teaming up with modmore (premium appstore for MODX). I just moved out to the Netherlands on a work Visa where I’ll be working at Sterc agency with Sterc and modmore on trying to get some mometum going on the next major version of MODX, which will be called MODX Next. (used to be called MODX 3.0 but now 3.0 is just 2.x + composer)
  41. sophieschoice
    Mar 22 15:31
    wow, exciting :D
  42. jpdevries
    Mar 22 15:31
    ya it i super exciting!
  43. jpdevries
    Mar 22 15:31
    @powrsurg sorry. had to do it. http://f.cl.ly/items/1o2b2A1K310h241j1r2g/Image%202016-03-22%20at%203.30.15%20PM.png
  44. sophieschoice
    Mar 22 15:31
    will it have a lot of new features?
  45. jpdevries
    Mar 22 15:32
    complete re-write, although I personally am focusing on the front end (dashboard manager interface). I’m not too sure what the project leaders have in mind but Jason has published a few posts on medium https://medium.com/@drumshaman/keeping-modx-relevant-part-one-42dc6632f86b#.nr4ppxhux
  46. powrsurg
    Mar 22 15:33
    @jpdevries you just made me really sad :(
  47. jpdevries
    Mar 22 15:33
    lol i made myself sad too
  48. powrsurg
    Mar 22 15:33
    I ie8 you :p
  49. jpdevries
    Mar 22 15:33
    lol
  50. powrsurg
    Mar 22 20:12
    anyone ever see http://www.purple.us/ ?
  51. zakim-robot
    Mar 22 20:44
    [juryjowns] My mom uses http://www.sorensonvrs.com/. She says she likes it more than purple (which she tried a few years ago).
  52. zakim-robot
    Mar 22 20:45
    [juryjowns] Also, I’m new here… Hi everyone!
  53. MichielBijl @MichielBijl waves at juryjowns