Hmmmh. I'd like to see Jaws behave itself when it encounters the
ribbon in other non-microsoft applications that incorporate the
ribbon. Apparently, there are lots of developers out there who are
crazy about the ribbon interface and consider themselves as being
"hip"; "up with the times"; modern, when they put it in their apps
using something like c-sharp and the windows forms features of visual
studio dot net. I have yet to encounter an application that was not
made by microsoft whose ribbon interface was accessible. Has anyone
experienced anything to the contrary? It is appalling to me that this
should be so three years after the interface has been around. I am
sick and tired of having to use outdated methods of interfacing with
software because A.T. vendors can't keep up. How many years was
Windows out before we could migrate to it from DOS? I think it was
like 1996 or something before something truly viable came out as a
screen reader and that was already after windows 3.1, 3.11 and Windows
95 had come out. Look at Apple's macIntosh computers. A
little-remembered factoid for you guys not old enough to have messed
with pc's in the mid 80's is that Apple computers were among the first
to be usable by a blind person. There was something called an Echo2
which was a speaker that plugged into something else called an Apple
II E computer. This worked as a speech synthesizer and then you'd run
a program called Bex (Oh, lord but that was a horrible program and the
speech output was just horrrid! Horrid!) but, you could write
documents and such with it. Us kids thought we were regular geeks
using it! When apple released the MacIntosh, however, noone cared to
make it accessible. No blind person could use it until Apple
themselves coded a built-in screen reader. Nobody else cared to
tackle it even though it's one of the most user-friendly operating
systems ever to hit the market.
Perhaps the ribbon interface other developers can code into the system
is dependent on UIA and it's hard to use because Jaws poorly supports
it. I hope this also is something that changes in Jaws 12. Pardon my
rant.
Have a nice day and thanks for the post.
alex M
On 8/3/10, Delaunay Christophe <christophe.delaunay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hi,
Several things may help you get what sighted people see on your screen.
(1) Turn off virtual cursor. With real cursor, you won't get anything
outside the screen.
(2) Pres <insert+v>. Then, arrow down to "Document presentation". In the
tree view on the left of the screen, this item is just under "General
options". Then press the space bar to hear "Screen layout" and
<enter> to
save your settings. This time, you have a quite poor geometric
representation of the screen layout but if what you want is to "see"
what
sighted people see, it's better than nothing.
(3) If you have a braille display, put it in "line" mode and "8 pixles
per space". This way, the braille display presents the text like it is
written on the screen. Of course, it is far from being perfect yet
but you
can definitely know which part of text is above or below which other.
I know that we are far yet from what Papenmeier did with their famous
WinDOTS screen reader for windows 3.11 but who cares really? Seems that
nobody does because WinDOTS was a real flop.
HTH. Have a nice day. Chris D
rom: jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of
Cy Selfridge
Sent: mardi 3 août 2010 14:36
To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Preview of JAWS 12
Gerald,
Speaking of the workplace one thing I would *really* like to see is JAWS
actually reading what is on the screen as viewed by the Sightlings.
(LOL)
Even with JAWS 11 folks ask "where on Earth is JAWS reading fromn?".
Cy, The Anasazi
From: jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf
Of Gerald Levy
Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2010 5:50 AM
To: JFW list
Subject: Preview of JAWS 12
Here's a brief preview of JAWS 12 I just came across:
by Curtis Chong
In early July, I attended a three-hour session conducted by Freedom
Scientific during which the company provided a sneak preview of JAWS for
Windows Version
12. Freedom Scientific has been working on this newest release of
JAWS for
more than a year, and it is hoped that JAWS 12 will be released
before the
end
of 2010.
Long-time JAWS users will be interested to know that in JAWS 12, Freedom
Scientific proposes to replace the familiar JAWS Configuration
Manager with
something
called the Settings Center. In the Settings Center, you can search
for the
setting that you want to change and then simply make the change. It
is no
longer
necessary to explore a variety of menus to track down where, for
example,
you can change the level of punctuation that JAWS speaks or increase the
speaking
rate of JAWS. Also, in the Settings Center, your last 25 changes will be
displayed at the bottom of the tree view, making it easier for you to
fix a
setting
that might have been adjusted incorrectly or adjust settings that you
change
frequently.
Another feature included in JAWS 12 is the ability to operate your
computer
from the Braille keyboard of any connected refreshable Braille display.
Using
the Braille keys, you can enter any character that would be entered
through
a standard QWERTY keyboard, and this includes all JAWS commands as well.
Also, a proficient Grade II Braille user will be able to enter text in
contracted Braille and have the result reverse-translated on the fly.
I do
not see
much value in this feature for me, personally, but I hesitate to
criticize
the investment in time and effort that has been made by Freedom
Scientific;
I simply do not know how many Braille users out there have been
longing to
operate their computer from a Braille keyboard.
The final noteworthy feature in JAWS 12 is the ability to use a Virtual
Ribbon in Microsoft Office. Some blind computer users have expressed
frustration
with the ribbon that has been incorporated into Microsoft Office 2007
and
now into Office 2010. What Freedom Scientific is proposing for JAWS
12 is to
give the Office user the choice of whether to use the ribbon as is or
to use
the Virtual Ribbon provided by JAWS. This Virtual Ribbon provides a user
experience
that feels more like the traditional menus with which a lot of people
are
familiar. Time will tell whether this feature is worth the
investment. As
for
me, since I feel quite comfortable with the Office ribbon as it is, I
will
probably choose not to use the JAWS Virtual Ribbon that comes with
JAWS 12.
In all, JAWS 12 seems like a bit of an improvement over JAWS 11.
Certainly,
Freedom Scientific has incorporated some new features which some
people will
like. As for me, I would wish for features in JAWS which make it
easier for
blind people to compete in the workplace-something which Freedom
Scientific
seems to have lost sight of over the years.
Gerald
--
JFW related links:
JFW homepage: http://www.freedomscientific.com/
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