Gary
Cramblitt
For Users with Disabilities
This section of the documentation discusses accessibility features in &kspread;
for users with disabilities. Some of these features apply to &tde; as a whole and are controlled from
&kcontrolcenter;. Some apply to all &koffice; applications,
and some are specific to &kspread;.
Installing the tdeaccessibility Module
tdeaccessibility
Most of the features described in this chapter are enabled by installing the
tdeaccessibility module.
The tdeaccessibility module is part of the &tde; project
http://www.kde.org. The tdeaccessibility
package can be obtained from &kde-ftp;, the
main ftp site of the &tde; project.
Many distributions offer precompiled binaries on their ftp sites. Please check your distribution's web sites for more information.
More information about &tde; accessibility can be obtained by
visiting http://accessibility.kde.org/.
Visual Impairments
Visual Impairments
&kspread; is not usable by totally blind users. It is hoped that
a general screen reader for the blind will be available in future versions of &tde;.
Theming
Theming
For low-sighted or light allergic users, several features are available in the &kcontrolcenter;
Appearance & ThemesTheme Manager,
like high contrast color themes. If you are light allergic, the
HighContrastDark or HighContrastLight themes
may be helpful. If you have difficulty reading small fonts or seeing small icons, the
HighContrastDark-big or HighContrastLight-big
themes will increase the size of text, buttons, and icons. You may also customize
background, colors, fonts, and icons from the same dialog. A set of monochrome icons
is available.
If you choose one of the Big themes, you may discover that
some windows are too large to fit your monitor. Purchasing a larger monitor will be helpful.
You can drag the portions of the window not visible into the visible area by
holding down the &Alt; key and dragging with the &LMB; anywhere
within the screen. If you have trouble operating a mouse, you can also move screens by pressing
&Alt;F3. In
the dropdown Windows Operations Menu, choose
Move.
Move the screen with the arrow keys and press &Esc; to finish the move.
&kmagnifier;
magnifier
The tdeaccessibility module includes a screen magnifier
application called &kmagnifier;.
If it is installed, you can run it from
K-ButtonUtilities
KMag (Screen Magnifier).
Text-to-Speech
Text-to-Speech
TTS
The tdeaccessibility module includes a Text-to-Speech
component called KTTS. If KTTS is installed, you can configure &kspread; to
speak the text that is under the mouse pointer or speak the text of each
screen widget as it receives focus. Before using this feature, first configure
KTTS. See The KTTS Handbook for details.
To turn on the TTS feature in &kspread;,
select SettingsConfigure
&kspread;... from the menubar.
This will display a dialog box.
Clicking on TTS will allow you to change
the following.
Speak widget under mouse pointer
When checked, &kspread; will speak the text of each widget
as the mouse pointer moves over the widget.
Speak widget with focus
When checked, &kspread; will speak the text of each widget
as it receives focus.
Speak tool tips
When checked, &kspread; will speak the popup tool tip
for each widget in addition to the text of the widget.
Speak Whats This
When checked, &kspread; will speak the Whats This help
for each widget in addition to the text of the widget.
Say whether disabled
When checked, &kspread; will speak the word "disabled"
if the widget is currently disabled (grayed).
Speak accelerators
When checked, &kspread; will speak the accelerator
of the widget in addition to the text of the widget.
Accelerators are the underlined letters you see in the text of the
widget. For example, in the main menu, the
Quit menu item
has the "Q" underlined. You can choose it by pressing Q.
To speak the accelerator, check this option and enter the
word you want to speak before the accelerator in the
Prefaced by the word box. In this
example shown above, &kspread; will speak "Accelerator Q".
Polling interval
This option determines how often &kspread; will
check for a change in the widget under the mouse pointer or
a new focused widget. You should leave this option on the
default setting.
If the TTS option does not appear
on this screen, you do not have the KTTS component installed
in your system.
Not all widgets are spoken. For example,
the items on the main menubar are not spoken.
Motor Impairments and Mouseless Operation
Motor Impairments
Mouseless Operation
KMouseTool
If you can operate a mouse, but have trouble clicking, the
KMouseTool application may help. Run it from
K-ButtonUtilities
KMouseTool (Automatik Mouse Click).
XAccess Features
XAccess
Sticky Keys
Slow Keys
Bounce Keys
The &kcontrolcenter; offers several keyboard features collectively called XAccess.
They include:
Sticky Keys
This feature permits operation of meta keys, such as
&Alt;, &Ctrl;, and &Shift; without having to hold the keys down. It is useful
when you can only use one finger or one hand to operate the keyboard.
With Sticky Keys on, press and release a &Alt;, &Ctrl;, or &Shift; key, then
press another key. The result is as if you pressed both keys at once.
Press the &Alt;, &Ctrl;, or &Shift; key again to turn off the sticky key.
Activate this feature in
K-Button&kcontrolcenter;
Regional & AccessibilityAccessibility
Modifier Keys.
Slow Keys
This feature is useful if you have hand tremors or difficulty
accurately pressing keys. It prevents
inadvertent key presses by requiring that a key be held down for a minimum
time before it is accepted. Activate this feature in
K-Button&kcontrolcenter;
Regional & AccessibilityAccessibility
Keyboard Filters.
Bounce Keys
This feature is also useful if you have hand tremors. It prevents
inadvertent repeated key presses by preventing another keystroke for
a certain amount of time. Activate this feature in
K-Button&kcontrolcenter;
Regional & AccessibilityAccessibility
Keyboard Filters.
Mouse Emulation
Mouse Emulation
Mouse Emulation permits you to move and click the mouse using the keyboard.
Press &Alt;F12 to activate it. Use the arrow keys
to move the mouse pointer to the desired location, and press spacebar
to "click" the mouse. Unfortunately, you cannot use Mouse Emulation to perform
&RMB; clicks or dragging.
Mouse Navigation
Mouse Navigation
This feature permits you to emulate the mouse using the numeric keypad
of your keyboard. To activate it, go to
K-Button&kcontrolcenter;
PeripheralsMouse
Mouse Navigation.
Check the Move pointer with keyboard (using the num pad) box. When you do this, the other settings will become enabled, and you can customize the keyboard pointer behavior further, if required.
The various keys on the number pad move in the direction you would expect. Note that you can move diagonally as well as up, down, left and right. The 5 key emulates a click to a pointer button, typically &LMB;. You change which button is emulated by using the / key (which makes it &LMB;),
* key (which makes it middle mouse button) and - (which makes it &RMB;).
Using the + emulates a doubleclick to the selected pointer button. You can use the
0 key to emulate holding down the selected pointer button (for easy dragging),
and then use the . to emulate releasing the selected pointer button.
Keyboard shortcuts
Use the Menu key to pop up the context
menu. On most keyboards, the Menu key is on the righthand
side of the keyboard between the &Windows; and &Ctrl;
keys. It has a menu icon on it.
Resizing panels
If you have activated two or more views of a spreadsheet,
you can move the sizing bar between the views by pressing F8. A sizing icon appears
overtop the sizing bar. Use the arrow keys to move the bar up or down, or left or right.
Press F8 again or &Esc; when finished sizing.
Setting focus to widgets
Normally, one can use the 	 and &Shift;	
to move focus from one widget to the next in any application. However, in &kspread;,
pressing 	 does not move the focus; instead it moves the cell selection forwards.
You can set focus to any widget that can receive focus by
pressing &Alt;F8. A small lettered box appears
overtop each widget on the screen that can receive focus.
Press the letter to move focus to the corresponding widget. Press
&Alt;F8 again or &Esc;
to abandon moving the focus.