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.