[jawsscripts] Re: Jaws versus We thoughts, was silence in between Saying two messages
- From: Doug Lee <doug.lee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: jawsscripts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:25:28 -0400
To answer your questions with a sort of brief blanket response, mostly
to minimize its length: I am first and foremost a programmer. I
favor JAWS for several reasons. In no particular order, they include
familiarity, enjoyment of the interface, ability to converse with
developers and effect change occasionally, knowledge that JAWS is well
established in office and government settings, appreciation (most of
the time) of the company's priorities and feature implementations, and
belief that the company will continue to do what it can to make JAWS
serve the needs that exist. Some may note that I did not list
anything like "ease of programming in JAWS" among my reasons. I have
programmed by now in many languages, some procedural, some
object-oriented, and a few in categories unto themselves; and there
are more full-featured languages out there, even VBScript being one.
But I mostly program for purpose, even if it's also fun. <smile>
I do not consider myself bound to code only for JAWS, though I still
favor it as I indicated. I entered JAWS scripting as my job demanded,
and chances are I'll enter other arenas for the same reason if called
upon to do so. You point out that I and others do JAWS scripting as a
profession. As I see it, I program accessibility solutions as a
profession, which is a more broad-scope statement that encompasses
JAWS scripting. I have also written other things to the same end,
recently including a Perl program for translating a company-specific
report format into properly accessible HTML so blind employees could
navigate it effectively. My company, SSB, offers an entire platform
for helping developers of many applications in many languages make
things accessible, and not just to blind people but to people with
various disabilities. In short, things like a new scripting language
on the scene won't put us out, though it might alter the exact nature
of our work from time to time.
You also asked whether learning new languages is standard for
programmers. Probably, and I'd go farther and say it's getting more
and more standard for people in general to have to keep learning new
things to survive. This trend actually worries me, as I believe we
are approaching a time where information itself is created and its
transfer required more quickly than the human mind, as it now exists,
can handle. That, though, is definitely a train of thought beyond the
topic of this list. <grin>
On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 12:51:59AM +1000, Geoff Chapman wrote:
Oh Doug, firstly please man don't think that I thought your view in any way
an "emotional outburst," not at all. and personally I totally concur that
your postulated supply&Demand time/resource prioritization reasons for it
all, would definitely be part of the general overall equation.
As you so aptly point out, the difficulty is when one tries to assess
accurate weightings. nearly impossible probably to do accurately from the
outside.
The only pragmatic thing we can do I guess, is to observe/regret the
seeming lack of attention/courtesy phenominon, and it's likely continued
impact upon developers who are wanting better tools to fix problems,
especially if an alternative becomes a really viable option.
I also totally concur with your concluding remarks regarding GW's somewhat
late decision for an adoption of an integrated scripting model
as providing pretty solid evidence as to the foresight and wisdom of fs's
initial decision to provide a scripting paradigm for the necessary
customizations they probably knew they would just never be able to totally
provide adequately inhouse, from the outset.
I remember a conversation I had with doug geofray once way back somewhere in
the late 90's, where I felt flattered enough that he actually took the time
in an email to specificly ask me what it would take to persuade me
personally to buy windoweyes, and I told him then, a macro or scripting
facility for customization.
It will indeed be very interesting to see what scripting makes of window
eyes. particularly it's seemingly more open format that it has adopted,
which I presume will allow a wider range of programmers more used to writing
in alternate languages, to jump in to provide solutions, without having to
learn the caveats of the propriatory jaws scripting language.
For many of us here I guess now somewhat entrenched in all the caveats and
work-arounds using the propriatory jaws language, it will be also
interesting to se what it may do for fs's attention not only to what end
user big paying government customers need/want, but to developers like
yourselves, who really do know, and are constantly discovering through
realTime practical usage,
the tools that are needed to enhance the language to provide those end user
solutions that in the final analysis,
are going to be able to make those end user companies and thus customers
happy.
hmmm, this does raise some interesting questionbs to my mind however. Do
you guys who do jaws scripting professionally, feel that this new player in
the scene, may have some kind of effect upon your own work/income?
Will you feel it incumbent upon you to have to be able to work in both
arenas?
And, a technical question perhaps to jamal as he seems to have been playing
in both camps, Which of the languages that window eyes supports, would you
say would most closely resemble the style of the jaws scripting language?
or is learning multiple languages just sttandard fair for any professional
programmers anywayz.
Presumably though, window eyes will have it's own set of little quirky bits
and caveats and work-arounds, that a person wanting to provide adequate end
user solutions, would also have to become familiar with, to be compitent in
both fields. would that be correct?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Lee" <doug.lee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <jawsscripts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2008 6:34 AM
Subject: [jawsscripts] Re: silence in between Saying two messages
> I often want shorter pauses, so customizability of this would be
> interesting to me, though not a high priority. As for whether FS's
> failure to implement new scripting features being, or not being
> explained adequately by my supply-and-demand comparison, I can't say
> when the line is crossed between "We can't do it" and "We don't want
> to do it." I just want people to realize that the supply-and-demand
> issue is real and is part of the equation, like it or not. My message
> was not actually an emotional outburst, though it apparently looked
> like one to some.
>
> And finally, as to the effect of Window-Eyes' scriptability on JAWS,
> that will admittedly be interesting to see. The two products seem
> markedly different in feel, and this will probably remain true even if
> differences in functionality are reduced by this new power in WE. I
> think this WE update will have effects on JAWS and on its position in
> the market, though I can't say how fast. I also think this change in
> WE effectively proves that scriptability was, from day 1, the right
> design choice for JAWS because of the flexibility it added to the
> product. It is a feature often misinterpreted, though probably not so
> often by members of this list. <grin>
>
> On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 01:35:43AM +1000, Geoff Chapman wrote:
> hmm, regarding this silencing and pausing issue, and perhaps touching upon
> some
> of what jamal has talked about re sometimes getting
> distinct lack of communication/feedback
> from the fs company as regards user suggestions, - or at least not as
often
> as one might wish,
> (by the way I am afraid
> myself that I'd have to agree with jamal's view that I too see this as
> having
> regretably seemingly become rather an unfortunately entrenched pattern
with
> fs, and
> not something I necessarily feel that's sufficiently or adequately
accounted
> for by
> pure supply and demand time prioritization alone, - Another well known
> scripter whom I sent jamal's comments to for his input concurred, and
> sermized himself, that fs may not really turn this around until they
> actually begin
> to feel it's effects in their hip pockets,)
> Which they may soon with window eyes scripting on the horizon, so that
would
> be great,
> well, re pausing and indexing control,
> I myself have felt for a very long time, that I've wanted far greater user
> customization as to pause lengths after various punctuation marks,
> independently controllable from speech rate settings. of course initialy
> they should be dragged along with them in some kind of relative fashion,
as
> they are now, but, I've felt for a long time, that a really desirable
> customization feature, would be to be able to have this more user
> controllable upon
> demand. I've always thought compared to the old dectalk speech synth,
that
> eloquence just rabbited on far too quickly after it's punctuation marks,
> particularly ends of sentences,
> and
> sometimes of course, doesn't pause at all at various punctuation marks,
> if you have the mode set to
> things other than none,
> which should also be user customizable in my view.
> has anyone else ever thought this? I think for studying purposes, that
> after some punctuation marks, some users would greatly benefit from having
> just a tad more time gap between the finishing of one sentence or part of
a
> sentence let's say, and it's next bit, for brain processing of the
> information etc.
> I just wondered if I was the only one who ever had wished this?
>
> From: "David Farough" <David.Farough@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <jawsscripts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2008 4:43 AM
> Subject: [jawsscripts] Re: silence in between Saying two messages
>
>
> > I found that when I tested this using eloquence and the SAPI5 scansoft
> > synthe, that the silence was much longer using SAPI5 synthesizers.
> >
> > My eloquence time worked out to be slightly more than 2 seconds and the
> > Scansoft silences were closer to 20 seconds
> >
> > My eloquence speech rate is set to 90 and my scansoft rate is 13
> > which is approximately 65%.
> >
> > David Farough
> > Application Accessibility Coordinator/coordonateur de l'accessibilit?
> > Information Technology Services Directorate /
> > Direction des services d'information technologiques
> > Public Service Commission / Commission de la fonction publique
> > Email / Courriel: David.Farough@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Tel. / T?l: (613) 992-2779
> > >>> "Smith, Alice A. HQ DCO" <Alice.A.Smith@xxxxxxx> 02:19 PM Friday,
> > July 18, 2008 >>>
> > Sina,
> >
> > I wrote similar code using Delay. It works but I didn't time it with a
> > stopwatch.
> > How did you arrive at the factors of 28 for Rate and 6 for Silence?
> > How accurate is it?
> >
> > Alice
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: jawsscripts-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > [mailto:jawsscripts-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sina Sotudehnia
> > Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 1:17 PM
> > To: jawsscripts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: [jawsscripts] silence in between Saying two messages=20
> >
> > Hi friends,
> > I think the following can be a solution for=20
> >
> > Saying two messages with a specific period of silence in between
> >
> > I sent it for test and I was waiting to get feedback on test result
> > from
> > any one who is interesting. But I did not get any answer yet.=20
> >
> > I want to know does this one work on same way with different computer
> > speed and TTS as it works on my computer?
> >
> > In this program, (That is my first time Scripting in jaws), I am using
> > Pause
> >
> > function to provide two type of delay.
> >
> > One delay to provide enough time that is required to speech the first
> >
> > string, and second delay for requested silence time after reading the
> > first
> >
> > string.
> >
> > because the speed rate of voice is assigned by user, I get this value
> > by
> >
> > using the following function that return the current voice speech
> > rate:
> >
> > GetSettingInformation (V_RATE,VCTX_GLOBAL , MinRate, MaxRate)
> >
> > The first and second parameters are two Constant which are coming from
> >
> > hjconst.jsh" header file. (notice to, the "Include" statement before
> > start
> >
> > of script). and the third and forth parameters ar two variable which
> > get
> > the
> >
> > minimum and maximum of the speed rate of Voice Context or any things
> > that
> >
> > is requested by the two first parameters.
> >
> > after that I am finding the length of the first string. Then in a
> > formula
> >
> > all this values are combining together with silence time and two other
> >
> > constant numbers.
> >
> > The number 28 is for balancing the Rate and the number 6 is for
> > balancing
> >
> > the requested silence time.
> >
> > All of them make the total number of the time that we are using the
> > Pause
> >
> > function.
> >
> > As I said, the calculation is not very accurate but it works for the
> >
> > different string length. As you all know, it is easier to convert this
> >
> > script to a function. In this case the function has to include two
> >
> > parameters, FirstString and SilenceTime. and the return value, can be
> > an
> >
> > integer to show if the function end by itself or someone hit a key to
> > end it
> >
> > manually.
> >
> > the function "StopSpeech ()", is good for make any speech off before,
> > and
> >
> > after the using saystring command..
> >
> > Please let me know if it works for you. I Will be happy to get any
> >
> > feedback.
> >
> > ----------
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > include "hjconst.jsh"
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Script TestScripting ()
> >
> > var int count
> >
> > var int CurrentRate, int MinRate, int MaxRate, int StrLen, int
> > SilenceSecond
> >
> > var string FirstString, String secondString
> >
> > let SilenceSecond =3D 3
> >
> > let FirstString=3D"The Script Manager is a JAWS script editing program
> > with
> >
> > all the features necessary for you to create scripts"
> >
> > let secondString=3D"So, continue Talking."
> >
> > let CurrentRate=3DGetSettingInformation (V_RATE,VCTX_GLOBAL , MinRate,
> >
> > MaxRate)
> >
> > let StrLen=3DStringLength (FirstString)
> >
> > let count =3D (StrLen / CurrentRate +1) * 28 + SilenceSecond * 6
> >
> > StopSpeech ()
> >
> > saystring(FirstString)
> >
> > While (count > 0) && (not IsKeyWaiting ())
> >
> > Pause ()
> >
> > let count =3D count - 1
> >
> > EndWhile
> >
> > StopSpeech ()
> >
> > SayString (secondString)
> >
> > EndScript
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Sina Sotudehnia
> >
> > Independent Insurance Advisors Group
> >
> > Email: sina@xxxxxxxxxxx Web: www.IIAGROUP.CA
> >
> > Direct Tel: (416) 496-9300
> >
> > __________
> > View the list's information and change your settings at
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> >
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> >
> >
> > 100 Years Merits a Celebration!
> > http://www.psc-cfp.gc.ca/100/index-eng.htm
> > 100 ans, ?a m?rite une c?l?bration!
> > http://www.psc-cfp.gc.ca/100/index-fra.htm
> >
> >
> > __________
> > View the list's information and change your settings at
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> >
>
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>
> --
> Doug Lee, Senior Accessibility Programmer
> SSB BART Group - Accessibility-on-Demand
> mailto:doug.lee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.ssbbartgroup.com
> "While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done,
> it was done." --Helen Keller
> __________
> View the list's information and change your settings at
> //www.freelists.org/list/jawsscripts
>
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View the list's information and change your settings at
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--
Doug Lee, Senior Accessibility Programmer
SSB BART Group - Accessibility-on-Demand
mailto:doug.lee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.ssbbartgroup.com
"While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done,
it was done." --Helen Keller
__________
View the list's information and change your settings at
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