{"id":26422984,"url":"https://github.com/c-loftus/orca-intro-guide","last_synced_at":"2025-03-18T02:37:06.305Z","repository":{"id":272991551,"uuid":"914953248","full_name":"C-Loftus/orca-intro-guide","owner":"C-Loftus","description":"A new user's guide for the Orca screen reader on Linux","archived":false,"fork":false,"pushed_at":"2025-02-26T05:22:12.000Z","size":384,"stargazers_count":3,"open_issues_count":0,"forks_count":0,"subscribers_count":2,"default_branch":"main","last_synced_at":"2025-03-10T15:13:53.016Z","etag":null,"topics":["a11y","accessibility","gnome","linux","orca","screenreader"],"latest_commit_sha":null,"homepage":"http://colton.place/orca-intro-guide/","language":"HTML","has_issues":true,"has_wiki":null,"has_pages":null,"mirror_url":null,"source_name":null,"license":null,"status":null,"scm":"git","pull_requests_enabled":true,"icon_url":"https://github.com/C-Loftus.png","metadata":{"files":{"readme":"README.md","changelog":null,"contributing":null,"funding":null,"license":null,"code_of_conduct":null,"threat_model":null,"audit":null,"citation":null,"codeowners":null,"security":null,"support":null,"governance":null,"roadmap":null,"authors":null,"dei":null,"publiccode":null,"codemeta":null}},"created_at":"2025-01-10T16:44:13.000Z","updated_at":"2025-03-08T21:47:42.000Z","dependencies_parsed_at":"2025-01-17T22:38:26.460Z","dependency_job_id":null,"html_url":"https://github.com/C-Loftus/orca-intro-guide","commit_stats":null,"previous_names":["c-loftus/orca-intro-guide"],"tags_count":0,"template":false,"template_full_name":null,"repository_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/C-Loftus%2Forca-intro-guide","tags_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/C-Loftus%2Forca-intro-guide/tags","releases_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/C-Loftus%2Forca-intro-guide/releases","manifests_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories/C-Loftus%2Forca-intro-guide/manifests","owner_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners/C-Loftus","download_url":"https://codeload.github.com/C-Loftus/orca-intro-guide/tar.gz/refs/heads/main","host":{"name":"GitHub","url":"https://github.com","kind":"github","repositories_count":244145104,"owners_count":20405578,"icon_url":"https://github.com/github.png","version":null,"created_at":"2022-05-30T11:31:42.601Z","updated_at":"2022-07-04T15:15:14.044Z","host_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub","repositories_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repositories","repository_names_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/repository_names","owners_url":"https://repos.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/hosts/GitHub/owners"}},"keywords":["a11y","accessibility","gnome","linux","orca","screenreader"],"created_at":"2025-03-18T02:37:05.449Z","updated_at":"2025-03-18T02:37:06.297Z","avatar_url":"https://github.com/C-Loftus.png","language":"HTML","readme":"# Orca Screen Reader Intro Guide\n\nThis document is the written version of a video tutorial which is soon to be made and is intended to provide new users of all abilities with a general intro on using the Orca screen reader.\n\nThis document was created by [Colton Loftus](https://github.com/C-Loftus) but is community driven; create an issue or PR on Github if you would like to make changes.\n\n## Cheatsheet\n\nA cheatsheet of many keyboard commands for Orca can be found [here](cheatsheet.md)\n\n## Linux Background\n\n- Use a modern, accessible Linux distribution like Ubuntu or Fedora for Orca.\n- Any distro using the Gnome desktop environment is generally a reasonable choice. \n    - Ubuntu and Fedora are both good defaults, but can sometimes have outdated orca versions in their repositories\n    - Using Debian backports, Arch Linux or NixOS can all work but may be more complicated to use\n- The MATE desktop environment is another option preferred by others\n\n## Voices\n\n- espeak-ng \n    - Orca's default voice\n    - Click [here](https://github.com/C-Loftus/orca-intro-guide/blob/main/voices/espeak.mp3) to listen to a demo. \n    - espeak-ng supports many different languages, but is commonly criticized as being too robotic\n- [Voxin](https://voxin.oralux.net/voice.php)\n    - Paid, proprietary voices. \n    - Many voices in many languages, many of which sound very good\n        - MacOS uses many of these voices, such as Samantha (the default VoiceOver voice)\n    - Each voice averages $20 but it is probably worth it if you can afford it\n    - Click [here](https://github.com/C-Loftus/orca-intro-guide/blob/main/voices/voxin/) to listen to multiple different voice demos\n- [rhvoice](https://rhvoice.org/)\n    - A free set of voices that is more natural than espeak\n    - Easy to install and works cross platform if desired\n- [piper](https://rhasspy.github.io/piper-samples/)\n    - A free set of voices that are quite realistic without needing to pay or have a GPU\n    - Generally too slow for screen reader use, but good for [generating audiobooks](https://github.com/C-Loftus/QuickPiperAudiobook) or other audio content outside of screen reader use\n    - Must be installed with [pied](https://github.com/Elleo/pied) which is sporadically maintained or use Orca's experimental `spiel` integration\n\n## Modes\n\n- Browse Mode\n    - Navigate the page with the keyboard\n    - Default way you navigate the desktop\n    - i.e. pressing up in a text box could move you to the previous element\n    - Toggled with `Orca` + A\n    - Essentially a form of structural navigation. \n    - Currently supported only in web browsers, but may one day be added to other apps like LibreOffice\n- Focus Mode\n    - Navigate inside of a focused element without moving outside of it\n    - Automatically enabled when moving focus into certain editable text boxes\n    - i.e. pressing up in a text box could move the cursor to the previous line in the same text box\n    - Toggled with `Orca` + A\n- Learn Mode\n    - Ignore all key presses and just echo out what they do\n    - Orca + H \n- Sleep Mode\n    - Don't speak when a particular application is focused\n    - i.e. don't duplicate speech when a self-speaking app is focused\n    - Toggle for a specific application with `Alt` + `ctrl` + `shift` + q\n- Structural Navigation vs Flat Review\n    - Not a mode difference technically, but structural navigation keys can be toggled with `Orca + Z`\n    - Structural navigation commands move around by the semantic tags of the a11y tree. \n    - Flat review goes through each line one a time without a structured hierarchy \n\n## Learning to Use Orca\n\n- Begin by learning navigation commands for your desktop environment\n- Workflows using the browser or electron applications like VSCode or Slack tend to have the best success\n- Orca mailing list tends to be the best place to ask questions\n\n### Downsides\n\n- Lack of accessibility support in many applications\n- There is no one central place for Linux accessibility discussions\n- May need to recompile to get latest Orca updates\n    - I have a written guide [here](https://gist.github.com/C-Loftus/5c71ebef18717a364e1ac2865a54e1e9), but dependencies may change over time\n- There is no plugin system like in NVDA\n    - You can [create scripts](#scripting-orca) and bundle them inside Orca but this is less straightforward\n\n### Useful Websites for Documentation\n\n* https://orca.gnome.org/\n* https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/index.html.en\n* https://emmabuntus.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Manual_Orca_20240711.pdf\n\n### Scripting Orca\n\n- Orca is written in Python and automatically runs the special file `~/.local/share/orca/orca-customizations.py` at startup\n    - This is intended for user code and settings\n    - It is possible to put any arbitrary Python code in this file and control Orca's behavior\n- Orca does not have a stable internal API so scripts may break over time\n\n### Talks \n\nUnfortunately there are not many videos regarding Orca. However, these are some that are relvant to Linux accessibility in general:\n\n* [Technical Linux a11y overview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RQBh7UmEps)\n* [Odilia Screen Reader overview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EPTDCmS7nA) (this is a new experimental Linux screen reader but it is useful for a general overview on how Linux screen readers are written)\n\n\u003c!-- ## Other Useful a11y content --\u003e\n\u003c!-- * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xseIsaxrlXo\n* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9psDfEFf9c --\u003e\n\u003c!-- * http://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/brailcom/speechd/blob/master/doc/ssip.html --\u003e","funding_links":[],"categories":[],"sub_categories":[],"project_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fc-loftus%2Forca-intro-guide","html_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/projects/github.com%2Fc-loftus%2Forca-intro-guide","lists_url":"https://awesome.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/projects/github.com%2Fc-loftus%2Forca-intro-guide/lists"}