I've recently heard a lot about something called TeamTalk, which is some kind of voice conferencing software. The best analogy to describe it seems to be something similar to IRC, but you can talk into it. Maybe it’s better to describe it as something similar to CB radio for the internet. Well, either way, several people I follow on Twitter use a TeamTalk server to chat. Well, I thought I'd take a look at the client software and see whether I can use it, seeing as I'm a diehard Linux guy and I don't like anything that would force me into using Windows. I first heard of this software about 3 or 4 years ago, and there was no Linux client at that time, but I thought I'd go ahead and take a look again to see what if any developments had been made. This is the story of my trials and tribulations while trying to find usable Linux voice chat software that is accessible to blind and vision impaired users.
The TeamTalk Problem
I wasn't exactly sure where to find TeamTalk, since I have only seen it recently on Twitter along with an address to the server where people were talking. So I Googled and found it at https://www.bearware.dk. Unfortunately, I found, much to my dismay, that the site warns me that no Linux client software is available. Strangely enough, however, a Linux client does in fact exist right below the note that says that only a Windows client is available. So I downloaded the Linux client for AMD64, which is on the page where all the downloads are listed, and I unpacked the archive. The first thing I noticed is that the client and server both appear to be in the same archive, stored in individual folders. So I went into the client folder and opened the README file. If you are blind or vision impaired like I am and you use Linux, you can probably imagine my horror when I found out that the TeamTalk client application requires the QT libraries. In case you don't use Linux on a regular basis, or if you are blessed to be able to see the computer screen, I will explain the problem by saying that currently, and probably for at least the next year or two, [Orca][], which is the application that reads the screen and outputs it to speech or Braille, is only compatible with the GTK2 libraries, which contain the functions that [GNOME}[] applications use to draw windows, buttons, text, etc. If a QT or KDE application is opened, its window is opened on the screen and the application works normally, but it is completely ignored by [Orca][] and the underlying accessibility infrastructure that makes it speak. Furthermore, [Orca][] will refuse to speak as long as the application’s window has focus, so the window must either be closed or put into the background in order to get [Orca][] speaking again.
Ventrilo and Mangler
Enter Ventrilo, another voice chat client and server that I have heard that some blind and vision impaired people were using several years ago, and may still b using. If it works, and if it's still any good, I can recommend that other people either start or resume using it.
I found what seems to be a rather nice Ventrilo client in my apt repository called Mangler. The first thing I noticed about it is the fact that it uses GTK2 and all the accessibility goodness that comes with it, so I went ahead and installed it. But for now, I know of no one who has a Ventrilo server for me to test this application, so I don't yet know how well it will work.
I did go to the Mangler site, and found to my great horror, that the developers don't want us to use their software. They state several reasons for this, including the fact that Ventrilo is a proprietary and poorly implemented protocol, and that there are better protocols with lower latency. The Mangler developers recommend using Mumble instead. But I still want to take Mangler for a spin if I can find other people with whom to chat. Unfortunately, it would seem that Ventrilo has been abandoned for somewhat newer applications these days. Someone please correct me in the comments if I’m wrong.
Mumble and Its Big Problem
Given the fact that the Mangler developers are recommending that people use Mumble client and server instead of their Ventrilo client, I decided to take a quick look at it. But I found the same problem that I found with TeamTalk. Unfortunately, the Linux client requires QT, and there's no GTK2 interface at all. So until the accessibility infrastructure is reimplemented in such a way that QT applications are compatible with it, there is no way for someone who is blind or vision impaired to use Mumble on Linux.
Voice Chat Software and QT and Other Speech/Braille Unfriendly Libraries
I would really like to know what's up with voice chat and QT and other Braille and speech unfriendly toolkits. It seems that all the most popular voice conferencing software, with the exception of Mangler, requires QT, and no GTK2 interface is available. Even what seems to be the world's most popular voice chat application due to marketing hype, which I won’t name here and you will never catch me using, requires either QT or some obscure graphical library that is equally inaccessible to blind and vision impaired users, not to mention the fact that the Linux version of said application is hopelessly outdated. And don't tell me the story of the Pidgin plugin that's supposed to make it work. It's a dirty hack to say the least, and the main application still has to be running, taking up space on my desktop and being a window that if focused causes [Orca][] not to speak until I close or move away from it. So far, the only GTK2 voice software other than Mangler seems to be some of the SIP-based softphones, although I understand that Pidgin and possibly Empathy do support two-way voice communication for some of the protocols that they support. I don't think they support conference communication, however. Again, leave a correction in the comments if I’m wrong about this.