| Description | |
| =========== | |
| This driver lets use a Graphical User Interface as BrlTTY device: | |
| it behaves just like a real braille device, its cost excepted :) | |
| It is mostly intended for sighted developers who don't have access to a real | |
| device, but still want to have an idea of the accessiblity of their application. | |
| How to run basically | |
| ==================== | |
| Assuming you're under X, first launch brltty: | |
| $ brltty -b xw -x as -A auth=none | |
| Then you can launch a BrlAPI application: | |
| $ ~/brltty/Programs/apitest | |
| or you can launch text applications in AT-SPI terminals like gnome-terminal. | |
| More details can be found on http://brl.thefreecat.org/text-apps-a11y-test.html | |
| You may give several parameters to the driver: | |
| $ brltty -b xw -t identity -B tkparms="-geometry -0+0 -display :1",lines=2,cols=20,model=bare | |
| will set a 20x2 braille display appear in the upper right corner of the | |
| :1 display, without any navigation key. There is also the vs model which | |
| will show up most of VisioBraille device's keys. | |
| You should configure your window manager not to let the BRLTTY window get | |
| keyboard focus, so as to be able to simulate keypresses by pressing buttons. | |
| Redirecting the output | |
| ====================== | |
| The output of this virtual braille device can be shown on another computer, by | |
| redirecting the X output. Let's say you will run brltty on "mycomputer", with | |
| the output on "othercomputer". First you have to let mycomputer connect to | |
| othercomputer's X server: | |
| othercomputer$ xhost +mycomputer | |
| And then you can start brltty on mycomputer: | |
| mycomputer$ DISPLAY=othercomputer:0 brltty -b xw -B input=on | |
| More fine-grain access control can be achieved by using xauth. | |
| Another way, which might be easier depending on your configuration, is to | |
| forward X through ssh: | |
| othercomputer$ ssh -X mycomputer | |
| mycomputer$ brltty -b xw -B input=on | |
| The input=on option makes the keypresses in the device window get simulated | |
| on mycomputer, just like a real braille device. | |
| *** Don't set input=on without using DISPLAY with a different display, | |
| because otherwise emulated keypresses will just loop ! *** | |
| Braille cells | |
| ============= | |
| If you want braille display as well, you'll need the ClearlyU font | |
| (included in recent xfonts-base packages) and a UTF-8 locale for | |
| characters: if your usual locale is en_US, launch brltty with a | |
| prepended LC_CTYPE: | |
| LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 brltty ... | |
| On windows, you need to copy the file UBraille.ttf into the C:\Windows\Fonts\ | |
| folder. It can be found in this directory as well as in the Fonts\ top-level | |
| folder of BRLTTY's Windows installed files hierarchy. |