GOK

Special note: if you are a GOK user, or wish to help out with the project we need to hear from you! Please send us an email.

GOK is award winning software that provides text entry and graphical user interface interaction using only switches and/or mouse devices.

GOK is an on-screen keyboard that provides access to the GNOME desktop via dynamically generated keyboards, and text entry via one of the provided alphanumeric keyboards, or a dynamic keyboard created based on the users current system keyboard driver, or even a user made keyboard.

GOK keyboards are created in two ways. Dynamic keyboards are created (while GOK is running) to provide access to the desktop and application GUIs. Premade keyboards are specified using fairly simple xml (“.kbd”) files. Current keyboards include:

launcher.kbd
move-resize.kbd
gok-controls.kbd
main.kbd
numberpad.kbd
text-operations.kbd
hide.kbd
quit.kbd
valuator.kbd
Keyboard.kbd
mouse.kbd
qwerty.kbd

GOK allows the creation of new ways of operating the gok keyboards via xml “access method” files (“.xam”) files. These files also provide the description of the user interface for the access method’s settings. Current access methods include:

automatic-scanning.xam
dwell-selection.xam
singlekey-automatic-scanning.xam
singlekey-inverse-scanning.xam
directed.xam
inverse-scanning.xam
direct-selection.xam

Started in late 2001, GOK was created at the ATRC (University of Toronto) with funding from Sun Microsystems. GOK’s current strength is in minimal gesture (e.g. 1 switch) access.

GOK needs help! There is a list of enhancement requests that we welcome anyone to help out with. GOK has lot of room for improvement including a need for easier configuration, visual slickness, as well as refactoring and bug fixing. For a critical review please read Henrik’s GOK review.

GOK gnome site: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gap/AT/GOK/index.html

GOK gnome wiki site: http://live.gnome.org/Gok