Hi Veli-Pekka , We see things differently. <grin> I think it is fine that JAWS and Window-Eyes (not sure about SuperNova) seek to provide a more functional presentation of a web page from an audio or braille perspective. I think HTML is, in fact, intended for such usage, separating content from presentation whenever possible according to W3C guidelines. In my opinion, the Virtual View of JAWS and MSAA mode of Window-Eyes have boosted web friendliness and productivity for the average blind person compared to the experience we had of the web a few years ago before these innovations. Assistive technology firms are in a better position than browser developers to be familiar with their customers needs and abilities, so they are more likely to design a better nonvisual presentation. One can turn off the Virtual PC cursor or MSAA mode, but few users do because of the marked drop in productivity. I think such differences in GUI behavior outweigh the advantages of a consistent, lower baseline across different screen readers. Simple screen readers are probably a thing of the past now: adapting GUIs for blind users is a complex challenge for a reasonable level of productivity to be achieved. Most users will pick a screen reader and stay with it, at least for a few years. Regards, Jamal -----Original Message----- From: ossrp-control-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ossrp-control-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Veli-Pekka Tätilä Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 4:20 PM To: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ossrp-control] Re: Semi OT: Scriptability: Start Menu Highlighting (Was: Member Intro, Feature Suggestions and Questions) Hi Jamal, I can see your point regarding whether to auto-highlight the first item in the Start Menu with a screen reader. I'd say this does come to taste and personally not doing these little convenience things automatically is one reason why I prefer Supernoava to Jaws. Another point is that you can take this same idealization scheme a bit further and start reformatting HTML pages by the screen reader. This is another thing I greatly dislike and for the same reason. IT is giving you a manipulated picture of screen contents without even telling that it does so. Having a browser feature or plug-in for HTML reformatting is fine by me, because that's an application feature and not a screen reader specific quirk. Apart from taste issues I do have one rational argument against the Start Menu auto-highlight and many other similar features: There will always be simple screen readers that don't have these convenience features at all. Or even worse, screen readers implementing these features slightly differently. This means that the Windows fundamentals vary from screen reader to screen reader and the user has to cope with that. With kind regards Veli-Pekka Tätilä (vtatila@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) Accessibility, game music, synthesizers and programming: http://www.student.oulu.fi/~vtatila/ Jamal Mazrui wrote: > As acknowledged this is partly a matter of taste, but I personally am > glad that JAWS automatically highlights and reads the first option of the > Windows Start Menu. Most application menus automatically highlight the > first option when activated, so this is not peculiar behavior. It has an > efficiency benefit of giving a bit more information about the menu just > opened, but not too much to be verbose. Hearing the first menu option is > additional, relevant information about the context of current choices > available, and if one wants the first menu option, one can just press > Enter, thus saving an extra down arrow keystroke. > > I do not think we should be such purists that we necessarily immitate the > visual interface, even its oddities, through sound. If there are ways > the screen reader can make the computing environment more productive for > us as blind users, without losing some other significant feature, then > why not? We have enough obstacles to contend with in a GUI environment > that it should be respectable if not desirable to improve it for > ourselves when feasible. > > Jamal To post to the list, send a message to: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send a message to: ossrp-control-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and set the subject field of the message to "unsubscribe" (without the quotes To post to the list, send a message to: ossrp-control@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send a message to: ossrp-control-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and set the subject field of the message to "unsubscribe" (without the quotes