[brailleblaster] Re: Thoughts on the Specification

  • From: Chris von See <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 11:36:53 -0800

You can open an HTML java in the default browser from Java 1.6 using the java.awt.Desktop.browse() method, so all you need is something that maps functions in the program to their corresponding HTML pages. 


Cheers
Chris


On Dec 10, 2010, at 10:34 AM, qubit wrote:
I agree that docs should be in html, as they need to be available outside 
brailleblaster, perhaps in a menu.
--le

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Whapples" <mwhapples@xxxxxxx>
To: <brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 11:35 AM
Subject: [brailleblaster] Re: Thoughts on the Specification
My point was, I have not had the need to read daisy documents, I haven't read a daisy document therefore I have nothing to read such documents. Now there are two solutions should BrailleBlaster documents be only in daisy: I need to go and find out about a daisy reader get it and learn how to use it (quite a bit of work just to read some help). Now as you point out by having BrailleBlaster I would have something to read daisy documents, however you 
possibly end up with a circular problem, I have a problem with
BrailleBlaster therefore want to read help, but to read help I need to use 
BrailleBlaster which is what I would have the problem with.
Using HTML would be using the browser the user uses to browse the internet, therefore they would be familiar with how to use the software to read help 
and all platforms would have a viewer by default.

I am not saying don't include a daisy version of help, but I feel the
default help people would refer to would be in html.

Michael Whapples
On 10 Dec 2010, at 16:26, John J. Boyer wrote:
Well, I've read lots of Daisy documents, both in raw form and in braille translations. Using BrailleBlaster you would be able to navigate through a Daisy document without even knowing it was such. It would be just like using any other word processor to read a document, except that it would 
be hopefully more accessible.
What I would like to see is BrailleBlaster being used to create the help documents. These could then be translated to html using xslt or evet to 
pdf, using other tools.

John B.

On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 04:12:35PM +0000, Michael Whapples wrote:
I would say the HTML version is necessary, daisy is in my mind a marginal format. What I mean by this is that even as someone who probably falls in the group of people daisy was aimed at I have never read a daisy document therefore this would impose a heavy learning curve for me just to read 
BrailleBlaster's help if no HTML version was included.
As I remember this was discussed before on this list and the outcome of 
that was HTML would be the format for the help documents.

Michael Whapples
On 10 Dec 2010, at 16:16, Alex Jurgensen wrote:


Hi John B.,
I also agree with you as far as distributing Braille Blaster's help with 
the applciation. However, I suggest that we also provide an HTML
version, packaged as the operating system's help system requires, in 
addition to a DAISY formatd coy.
This would allow us to take advantage of the built-in help systems found 
on the various platforms and would require very little work on our
behalf.

Just my thoughts.

Regards,
Alex,


On 2010-12-10, at 7:58 AM, John J. Boyer wrote:



Another thing I don't like is putting the help online. I think it
should
be part of the BrfailleBlaster distribution and should be in the form 
of
simple Daisy xml files. These can be edited and even created in the Daisy view and translated into braille and embossed. The only advantage to opening them in the default browser would be that users could follow 
links to other sites. The tutorials are already supposed to be
distributed with BrailleBlaster, so why not the entire help. The user will be able to follow links to other parts of the documents, so there 
will be no problem with an active table of contents.

John B.

On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 07:19:09AM -0800, John Gardner wrote:
So the spec needs to be trifurcated with separate pieces for the three 
OS?
Maybe John B should accumulate a list of UI items that need to be
different,
and then I'll write up a new draft with these changes.



John G





From: brailleblaster-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:brailleblaster-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alex
Jurgensen
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 9:26 PM
To: brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [brailleblaster] Re: Thoughts on the Specification



Hi John G.,
As I have said before, in my opinion, there is a fine line when it 
comes to
creating a user experience that users will be familiar with.
Would it not be better then to do the recent items item differently 
for the
different platforms.



We will already have to make several changes to the UI, if we are
going to
account for differences on the various platforms.



If the work on customizing the UI experiences for the different
platforms is
carried out, would it not be easy to incorporate the recent items menu structure into the changes we make while creating the various UIs? 



Let me know what you think.



Regards,

Alex,





On 2010-12-09, at 9:04 PM, John Gardner wrote:
Hmmm, this is the way it is specified now. And there are certainly 
Windows
aps that put recent documents into a sub-menu, including ViewPlus IVEO software. I don't think that consistency with the majority of Windows 
aps
for this usage is particularly important, so unless I hear a good
reason to
change, I propose to leave this spec as-is.



John G





From: brailleblaster-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:brailleblaster-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alex
Jurgensen
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 8:58 PM
To: brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [brailleblaster] Re: Thoughts on the Specification



Hi John,
Native Mac apps seem to put recent documents in a menu item called 
"Open
Recent" that comes after the "Open" menu item.



I am not sure about Linux.



Regards,

Alex,





On 2010-12-09, at 5:09 PM, John Gardner wrote:
Hello all, sorry I've been pretty quiet lately. But I guess I still 
need to
take responsibility for the spec. You are right that the spec doesn't mention context menus. It does give a menu item for recent documents, 
but
your proposal to include it at the end of the file menu is indeed the 
common
way to do it in Windows. I'm happy to change that if it's also the 
way it's
done in Mac and Linux aps.  Advice please.
I apparently missed the conversations about context menus. I'm also 
happy
to expand the spec to include context menus too.  Do we have a
consensus on
what should go there?

John


-----Original Message-----
From: brailleblaster-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:brailleblaster-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of qubit
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 9:02 AM
To: brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [brailleblaster] Re: Thoughts on the Specification

Yes, JohnG and Yuemei -- are you there???
Who owns the spec? JohnG was the original author. Is he also the 
one to
update it or did he hand it off to JohnB?
I agree about the context menus. On windows that would go without 
saying as
context menus are pervasive and very useful. In windows, there is a 
"recent

documents" option in the global start menu, but it lists almost
everything
anywhere that is either a document or music or video.
Brailleblaster's
recent documents option could be limited only to the docs that have 
been
edited by brailleblaster, right?
An alternative is to just tack the recent brailleblaster documents at 
the
end of the file menu, like what happens in many windows apps I have 
seen.
Is this also prevalent on linux or mac? What will go in the recent 
documents?
Another point: what should happen when a document has been transcribed 
but
edited in the braille window by the user? Are those changes marked in 
such
a way that a retranslation of the file won't undo it? What if the 
daisy
document has changed and there needs to be a retranslation?  Just
wondering.

I need to review the spec.
--le
The idea of putting me
John and Mike,
----- Original Message -----
From: "John J. Boyer" <john.boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 5:29 AM
Subject: [brailleblaster] Re: Thoughts on the Specification
I guess I've revealed my ignorance of GUIs. I'm really a command-line 
guy and find GUIs difficult to understand. But I'm learning.
After thinkikng things over I came to about the same conclusions. The top window should have a title bar, the menus and the status bar. The braille and Daisy windows would be child windows. Switching from one document to another would replace these windows. The print and emboss previews would be dialog boxes. The "Welcome screens" would also be 
dialog boxes. I think the specification might be reworded to make
things
clearer.
The specification is quite detailed about the keystrokes to be used. These may have to be modified to conform to the usage of different platforms. I think this is something that we should provide for now, 
like internationalization. Putting it in later could be much more
work.
How might this be done? I think SWT provides for specifying keystrokes 
for functions.
The specification says there will be an item inn the file menu for opening a list of recent documents. I think this would be acceptable 
in
Windows.
I like the idea of a "context" menu for different views. Perhaps this 
should be added to the specification.
What happened to the ViewPlus people? Wehaven't heard from them for a 
loing time.

John

On Thu, Dec 09, 2010 at 09:59:06AM +0000, Michael Whapples wrote:




Hello,
I don't think having the Braille and daisy views as top level windows
with there own menus would be very natural. Firstly it doesn't really 

fit with any other GUI application I can think of, normally they
either
modify available menu options depending on the current view or they 
grey
out unavailable options. So as greyed out options are fairly "normal" 
to
encounter I don't see why they would be confusing. Then there is the
case of platforms where menus aren't actually in the window but get
placed by applications in a system menu bar like in Mac OSX (NOTE: SWT 

will automatically handle this for you). As an example of the Mac

situation, in safari the web browser, even when I go to its
preferences

all menu options are still there but ones which are irrelevant to
preferences (eg. the option to show/hide the status bar) are greyed 
out.



Also the idea of two top level windows being present in one
application
at the same time just seems odd to me, I couldn't imagine it would 
look
right (it would probably look like two separate applications). Then 
what
happens when there are more documents opened, your description seems 
to
give me more top level windows and more clutter of the desktop. Then 

there is the situation of "I am working on a document in
BrailleBlaster,
I have finished on that document so I close the document but keeping
BrailleBlaster open as I want to work on another document", what do I 

encounter at the point when BrailleBlaster has no open documents?
Having
the document views as child elements of a "BrailleBlaster appliccation
top level window" I would be left with an empty BrailleBlaster window
containing only the menus and toolbars (IE. no sub windows), allowing 
me
to go to the menu and choose open document or new or whatever task I
want to do. Also with my idea of the view, multiple documents would 
just
lead to more sub views, the desktop only ever has one BrailleBlaster 
top

level window.



Now one thing which might be desired is a shortcut pop-up menu
specific

to each view. What I mean is one of those context menus which are

activated by right clicking the mouse of a UI element (use the

applications key or may be shift+f10 and on Mac with voiceover
vo+shift+m). In these context menus only the options relevant to that 

element would be shown.



Michael Whapples

On 09/12/10 04:55, John J. Boyer wrote:

This sounds good. My understanding was that the Daisy and Braille
windows would each have their own menus. The specification doesn't say
so explicitly, but it seemed reasonable, since some things would be
possible in one window and some things in another. If the Daisy and
Braille windows are embedded in a top window with the menus, status 
bar
and toolbar, the grayed-out options could be confusing and frustrating 

for the user. Is this actually the way it will be?
So the print and embosser previews are basically big dialog boxes. I
don't remember anyone saying they should be open continually. They are 

opened when needed.



I don't think BrailleBlsster should display multiple documents

simultaneously, since it already has two views for each document.
Rather, when a user switched to another document these view would be 

changed for that document.
The Daisy and Braille windows should prbably be called views instead, 

especially if they don't contain their own menus.



John



On Wed, Dec 08, 2010 at 08:45:53PM +0000, Michael Whapples wrote:
We seem to be getting a whole jumble of things here. A window is a 
very
generic thing. A dialog is a type of window, normally used to show
messages or let users select options. A dialog is not embedded in the
top level window but can be such that it prevents the user going back 
to
the main window. A dialog might not cover the main application top 
level

window. Then there are child windows (they may have another name)
which
usually is embedded into the top level window. These may be used for
multiple documents (eg. MS Word has been known to work like this I 
don't
know about their latest version). Finally then there are what I am 

calling a top level window, these don't have any other window
containing

them.



My feeling is:
* BrailleBlaster will have a top level window containing the menus and 

such like which are common to all situations.
* The daisy viewer and Braille viewers will be child windows or may be
even panes within a child window or may be this will all work on the 
tab

idea. Anyway the main idea is these will be embedded into the top
level

window.
* Print and preview will be dialog boxes as these are both actions 
(IE.

I go to print/emboss a document or I go and view how it will be

printed). I see no reason why print preview would need to be open

continually.



Michael Whapples

On 08/12/10 20:13, John J. Boyer wrote:
I've never actually looked at a print preview window. Has anyone seen 

an

embosser preview window? I would think that programs would handle
preview by opening a temporary window that either hides the existing 

window or minimizes them.



John



On Wed, Dec 08, 2010 at 12:27:33PM -0600, qubit wrote:
Regarding What happens to the windows when a print preview is active: 

I wonder if opening a new window is a good idea.
I am growing to like one feature in eclipse's UI: eclipse will cycle 

through
all the various windows if you hold control and type F7 repeatedly.
It has a lot of rather busy windows. I wonder what it looks like to a 

sighted person.
As for print preview, I have no idea what to do if you are embossing a
document. The image in the braille window doesn't necessarily look 

like

the
output of the device. Do the various embossers provide any kind of 

API

for

knowing what the braille will look like?
Also, if viewing it on screen, you are further limited by the display 

capabilities.
Interesting question. But do you really want there to be a hard coded
window for print preview, print and emboss? Couldn't it just be like 

most
apps that put a command for print and emboss and print preview in the 

file

menu? That could bring up a dialog.

Just wondering.

--le



----- Original Message -----

From: "John J. Boyer"<john.boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

To:<brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 9:24 AM

Subject: [brailleblaster] Thoughts on the Specification
I have just reread the specification carefully. It certainly hangs
together better for me than at the beginning. Here are some thoughts.
There is a menu item for opening a list of recent documents. These
documents should be on the menu, just below the exit choice, as they 

are

ikn most word processors.
The ability to open recent documents means that the users will want 

MDI.

Fortunately, this is not hard to implement.
We may need a third window for each document for print and embosser
previews. What happens to the Daisy and Braille windows when a preview 

is chosen? Are they minimized?



John



--

John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer

Abilitiessoft, Inc.

http://www.abilitiessoft.com

Madison, Wisconsin USA

Developing software for people with disabilities








--
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities









Alex Jurgensen,

VoiceOver Trainer,

ASquared21@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



Visit us on the web at: www.vipbc.org <http://www.vipbc.org/>





Alex Jurgensen,

VoiceOver Trainer,

ASquared21@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx



Visit us on the web at: www.vipbc.org <http://www.vipbc.org/>





--
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities




Alex Jurgensen,
VoiceOver Trainer,
ASquared21@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Visit us on the web at: www.vipbc.org





--
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities

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