Welcome to Orca

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1. About Orca

Orca is a free, open source, flexible, and extensible screen reader that provides access to the graphical desktop via user-customizable combinations of speech and/or braille.

Orca works with applications and toolkits that support the assistive technology service provider interface (AT-SPI), which is the primary assistive technology infrastructure for Unix-like environments like Linux, OpenBSD or Solaris. Applications and toolkits supporting the AT-SPI include the GNOME GTK+ toolkit, the Java platform's Swing toolkit, SWT, OpenOffice/LibreOffice, Mozilla, and WebKitGtk. AT-SPI support for the KDE Qt toolkit is currently being pursued.

Thanks to the generous contributions of volunteers on the GNOME Translation Teams, Orca has been translated into many of the world's languages, with support for additional languages being added every day.

Here's some nice things users have to say about Orca:

• "I LOVE YOU GYS :)" - Sorry to bother you guys but I wanted to commend you and your team on the wonderful job that you do keeping this project together. I am a blind computer science major who uses this software on a daily basis. Without this screenreader I would not be able to perform my profession and dreams, which is to one day to help develop the next gen screenreader for the blind computer user. What makes this project even better is the fact that it is freeeeeeee! wow. The donation of your time is wellllll appriciated by me as well as many other visually impaired linux users.

• "Orca works great" - I've carefully tracked the performance of Orca vs it's strongest competitor for over a year now (that would be JAWS). I just want to say congratulations! While JAWS still holds a small lead, Orca has closed the gap rapidly. I know what it's like to be a developer - you hear all about the bugs, but when your code "just works", you never hear from users. Well, your program is working very well for me. Thanks.

Please join and participate on the Orca mailing list: it's a helpful, kind, and productive environment composed of users and developers. The mailing list archives also contain a great history of discussions. We try to capture the information on this WIKI, but we encourage you to search the archives for more information.

Operating system distributors -- please read the Smoke Test for information on verifying Orca works well with your distribution.

2. Audio Guides

Darragh Ó Héiligh started the movement for making audio tutorials introducing new users to gnu/linux with orca. He has not only produced several tutorials of his own, but has provided a home at lalrecordings.com for other users to contribute their own audio tutorials on a variety of computer and technology related subjects. The linux section contains several useful audio guides including:

* Installing and using the Vinux distribution (a gnu/linux release oriented towards users of accessible technology)

* Installing and using the Ubuntu distribution. (one of many common linux distributions including the gnome desktop and orca)

* Disabling Pulse audio in Ubuntu. (Some recent development versions of Ubuntu have presented users minor technical bugs in audio support; this guide walks users through correcting these problems should they occur)

* Using pigeon with orca. (the default gnome instant messenger client)

Visitors to the site can make suggestions for new tutorials they would like to find and members may submit their own recordings for display through the lalrecordings website. Check the site for the newest up-to-date information.

Other members have also produced their own audio guides concerning various topics related to orca.

Krishnakant has begun to undertake an extensive tutorial introducing users to the basics of orca's screen reading capabilities and some general features of gnome's built-in accessibility. The current files may be found at his site http://kk.hipatia.net/public/orca-tutorials/. These guides provide a wealth of information to newcomers to gnu/linux and computer accessibility in general.

Michael Whapples has produced instructional materials walking users through the installation of GRML with the use of the speakup screen-reader and the download and configuration of the gnome desktop and orca. Currently, only the installation of GRML has been recorded as an audio guide; textual instructions have been provided for obtaining and configuring the graphical gnome desktop.

Also, Ashley Cox has produced an audio tutorial concerning the installation of the Vinux distribution.

A note to Windows users. Most guides are produced in .mp3 format. To listen to the few produced in .ogg, you might need to download and install a compatible codec for the Windows Media Player or use an alternate listening program such as VLC.

3. Download/Installation

Please also refer to the Download/Installation page for detailed information on various distributions as well as installing Orca directly from source.

4. Configuration/Use

Please also refer to the Configuration/Use page for detailed information. Storm Dragon's blog also contains useful tips on using Orca.

5. Accessible Applications

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6. How Can I Help?

There's a bunch you can do! Please refer to the How Can I Help page for detailed information.

7. More Information

• Frequently Asked Questions: FAQ

• Mailing list: [email protected] (Archives). There is a Spanish language list for GNU/Linux users who are blind: [email protected] and another one for Orca users: [email protected]. More information about this list can be found at the wiki Tiflolinux page. There is also a portuguese language mailing list about orca and GNU/Linux in general, [email protected], and a website, linuxacessivel.org with some tutorials and documentation. For helping and improve / get support on Ubuntu Accessibility please join to Ubuntu Accessibility mailing list. See the previous postings on the Ubuntu Accessibility archives. For helping and improving Debian Accessibility please join to Debian Accessibility mailing list. For OpenSolaris, please join the OpenSolaris accessibility list.

• Bug database: GNOME Bug Tracking System (Bugzilla) (current bug list ) Report a new bug

• Design documents: User Experience Specification

• Dive Into Python, Mark Pilgrim

• Python in a Nutshell, Alex Martelli

• Python Pocket Reference, Mark Lutz

CategoryAccessibility CategoryAccessibility