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Date:      Sat, 1 Jul 2000 23:35:39 -0700
From:      Guy Harris <gharris@flashcom.net>
To:        Mike Walker <walker@usc.edu>
Cc:        Pascal Hofstee <daeron@wit401305.student.utwente.nl>, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: "Sticky" Keys ?
Message-ID:  <20000701233539.C340@quadrajet.flashcom.com>

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> You want accessx for X-windows.  Solaris, Compaq/Digital, and SGI
> provide it, but I didn't see anything at www.xfree86.org
> Searching around the web found a version for Linux
> http://slappy.cs.uiuc.edu/fall98/Linux/download.html

AccessX appears to have been developed, at least in part, by the Trace
Research and Development Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The page at

	http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/x_win_access/x_access.htm

says, in the audience question section:

	Audience: Will AccessX be in X11R6? 

	Will:

	AccessX was developed by Digital, Trace, and SUN and we did it
	for X11R5.  Digital and SUN will be releasing it with the next
	version of their operating systems which include the X11R5
	server.  DACX has worked closely with Silicon Graphics, who are
	working to develop the XKB extension for X11R6.  It is a much
	larger extension that deals with the keyboard and is a logical
	place to put the AccessX code.  So for X11R6, AccessX will be a
	part of a larger extension called XKB.  The answer is yes it
	will be there but it will be a different name.

	Earl:

	One additional item.  The fact that the underlying is changing,
	AccessX to XKB, the user interface will still be the same, so to
	use the R5 version on a SUN or DEC and when you transition to R6
	version of the window server, the user interface will look the
	same, the interaction will be the same.  So you won't have to
	change how you interact with the systems.

XKB is part of X11R6.1 and later, so I infer that the low-level X server
support for sticky keys is built into recent versions of XFree86.

I don't know whether the UI stuff to control it is part of X11R6.x, or
of XFree86, though.

The Linux AccessX page you cite has a tarball of "the pristine source"
for their package, which appears to contain a Tcl script which may be
their control application, plus some C and C++ source; that page seems
to imply that there are features over and above the XKB-based features
of the Digital/Trace/Sun AccessX project, e.g.:

	o Video Mode Changing lets users change their video screen mode
	  on demand. 
	o Control Panel allows the user to apply the settings before
	  saving, save the user's settings, tab through the panel (for
	  those who cannot use a mouse), give the user the option to
	  restore the to the default settings, and more.
	o Soon, the AccessX package will also include screen
	  magnification. 

(I don't know whether the Video Mode Changing lets you change resolution
on the fly without changing your desktop - in which case it'd probably
be of interest even to people *without* limited vision - or not; it may
just be an interface to the video-mode changing extensions of XFree86).


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