[duxhelp] Re: Fw: fossils:

  • From: "Peter Sullivan" <peter@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:15:39 -0500

Jack,

We do plan to work on HTML/XML importing issues.  What we don't cover during
this beta we'll get to in time.

However, we no longer will be updating (or even selling) or MS-DOS
translator.  It is more than enough work to maintain compatibility with
Windows 98.

Best Regards,

Peter 

-----Original Message-----
From: duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:duxhelp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Jack Maartman
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 4:29 PM
To: duxhelp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [duxhelp] Fw: fossils:

I sent this to to David on Friday instead of the list.  Let me know, if as I
imagine, modifications to translation tables are not on our agenda.  If I
can import all the new translation and format/hyphenation tables into the
build for dos, so much the better  The dos version is a good adjunct to
nfbtrans, especially for languages other than English, where 286/386 or even
xt machines are being used.  Original follows.
 
.
----- Original Message -----
From: Jack Maartman <mailto:jmaartman@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: David Holladay <mailto:david@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 8:06 PM
Subject: fossils:

Hi all, especially Peter, and Joe should he monitor once and a while:
 
Joe was good enough to give me a version of DBT for MS-dos, as part of my
research license.
 
Nobody seems to pay attention to dos anymore, although, I suspect in the
developing world it might be used a bit more than where computer power is
for the taking.
 
DBT purports to work transparently across platforms.  I, as one who still
loves and uses ms-dos, would like to use the dos version whenever possible,
to do any trouble-shooting, before running the final in windows.
 
I am using a rapidly degrading version of win 98.  My ISP sagely suggested
to me, that although I would probably never like windows, I would eventually
get used to it. I live in a very isolated rural community, running
Window-Eyes, which has never been as fully supported as JFW, in spite of the
good offices of Don Breda.  I suspect this is largely due to GWMicro's
indifference.  I am self-taught in windows, which means that I am missing
half the jargon. I learned enough jaws to tutor Dr. Abraham Nemeth in some
of the basics, and although JFW's mouse simulation does not appear to be as
intuitive as Wineyes' it still seems to work.
 
As a DBT beta-tester , I am chiefly interested in portability
cross-platform, and above all to determine DBT's limitations when importing
.html and .xml files.  There are a number of codes that appear simply to be
not supported, even though .dbt allows one to save in .sgml.  I am very
fortunate in having a shell account on a linux system, and I'd find an older
build for linux useful.  Another issue is how easily one can tweak languages
with translation tables, E.G. Arabic, Hebrew, and those based on cyrrilic
scripts into working, without having to use MS-Word patches. The version of
word I have is a pirate installed from a corrupt CD, and it barely performs.
 
Most of my multilingual material comes directly from .html files found on
the web. If these are written in UTF-8 DBT seems to do a reasonable import,
although often full of asterisks from any translation table that doesn't
understand the symbols be they .html entity references, or unrecognized
UTF-8 characters.  It will, however not recognize a plain text file in UTF-8
at all.
 
These matters may seem trivial or irrelevant at a glance.  One should,
however, bare in mind that the web is the richest source of information for
a braille reader, and I know from having a gross hearing loss that immediate
translation of such material to braille especially to be read using a
braille notetaker is almost simultaneous to real accessibility.  What I find
useful with Dos or linux systems is that you are put unceremoniously back at
a prompt, if things don't work as they should.
 
Cheers
 
zJack


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