Re: Commodo

  • From: "Octavian Rasnita" <orasnita@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:25:07 +0200

Jaws 7, 8, and probably 9 don't work well with any application if the users need to use special chars in other languages, so it wouldn't be an advantage, because I've seen that Commodo also miss some features, not only accessibility features.


Octavian

----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Leventhal" <aaronlev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 8:51 PM
Subject: Re: Commodo


Hi Octavian,

I just saw at the end of this that you are using JAWS 6. Unfortunately JAWS only started making Mozilla technologies accessible since something like JAWS 7.1

You ask if Firefox is the same. I would say no -- we (largely myself) have put a large amount of effort specifically into making Firefox itself accessible. No such effort has yet gone into Komodo (note -- it's spelled with a K and one M).

It would be great to find out if more recent versions of JAWS (such as the JAWS 9 beta) work better with Komodo.

- Aaron

Octavian Rasnita wrote:
Hi,

I have installed again Commodo and here is what I found:

1. If I press Insert+num pad minus in order to route the Jaws cursor to the PC cursor, sometimes the menu is activated, but only sometimes.

2. I needed to use the Jaws cursor, because right after starting Commodo, the editor is not accessible. I expected to press Insert+Tab and hear "edit", but instead I heard something more strange.

3. I opened the File menu, and I selected "New" and I pressed enter and in that moment I've seen that the new option has a submenu which is not announced by Jaws. Does Commodo need some special scripts which are not provided by Jaws 6? I am using Jaws 6 because the Eloquence from newer versions of Jaws doesn't read the special chars correctly.

4. I chosen to create a new file and it appeared a list with file formats, telling "Templates list Text 20 of 22, -85004040 of 0"... or a closed number.

I've noticed that the FruitBasket program made by Jamal with XUL works the same, telling that garbage with minus 85000000 of 0.

5. After choosing "Perl file" and pressing enter, it created a new tab named "perl1.pl" or something like that. I cannot read the exact title of the tab, because I cannot use the Jaws cursor well in Commodo. If I route the Jaws cursor to the PC cursor, I see that the menus are activated.

6. Another problem I've seen is because If I just move the Jaws cursor, a menu seems to activate itself without needing any click. This is very bad, because I can't read the screen with the Jaws cursor. Anything I do, I cannot read the titles of tab pages with the Jaws cursor.

7. Now in the editing area, if I press Insert+tab, instead of telling me "edit" like most text editors, it tells me a very long string which is not nice at all". Do I need to change the Windows Class of the editing area? I think I'll try this. (I also need to change the highlight color assignment, because if I select a text in the editor, Jaws cannot read that text).

8. I've tried changing something in the file then save it. I've seen that the "Save as" window doesn't allow us choosing the encoding of the file (which is not very important to be right here) but it also don't allow us to choose the end of line format in which we want to save the file (Unix/Win/Mac), and this is important to be right here, at least for me. This is not a bug, but just a missing feature.

9. Sometimes if I press Control+Home in the editing area in order to move the cursor at the beginning of the file, Jaws tells me "File, Edit, Code... the name of all the menus. It seems that this happends because Jaws can't discover where is the PC cursor after pressing Control+S then escape. Now I can press the up or down arrows, control+Tab or shift+Control+tab, but nothing happends. Jaws doesn't speak anything. I think I need to restart Commodo. If I try to use the Jaws cursor and I move it faster up or down, Jaws doesn't speak anything.

10. I've tried to delete the text word by word with control+backspace. The words are deleted, but Jaws doesn't speak those words.

11. I've tried to read the status bar of the window with the Jaws cursor, because it is too much text there and I want to see the line and column number of the cursor, but I can't read the status bar neither, because each time I press Control+left or right arrows, a menu seems to be opened. Now I've tried to see what's in that menu, because at a certain moment when moving the Jaws cursor with control+left or right, I hear "menu". I've tried then using up and down arrows. I have also tried first switching to the PC cursor, then using up or down, but with no luck. After doing that, I couldn't continue to read the text written in the editing area. I couldn't even return to Outlook Express because I couldn't read anything in this message I write right now. So I needed to close Commodo a second time, then I was able to write you.

12. I've seen that message "minus 85 millions and something of 0" is read when using a combo box too. Too bad, especially that in combo boxes the real number of the list elements is not read at all.

13. In the "Find" dialog (Control+F), the buttons don't have a hotkey defined, or at least Jaws cannot detect it if using Shift+Num pad 5.

14. Even if I press Control+F or Control+H for replace, the Window that appear is always entitled "Find and replace". This can be confusing sometimes.

15. I've tried to change some preferences from the Edit menu, but some elements are not very accessible because the text that describes them are not read entirely.

16. After closing with Ok button that preferences window, now Jaws lost the focus again and I cannot read the text from the editor with the PC cursor. So I need to close and reopen Commodo once more.

17. I like that Commodo has F8 and shift+F8 for jumping to the previous and next subroutine, but this can be done so easy with a find for "sub " then jumping around with F3 and Shift+F3 which is better known. A helpful thing though. I hope it also offers the possibility of defining bookmarks.


18. Control+F8 for finding all functions could be nice if its interface would be better, but Jaws speaks so much garbage, that I would prefer to search the subroutines manually than in that list. And after displaying that list of functions (subroutines), I wasn't able to make it disappear with an escape, but I needed to choose a subroutine then press enter. Maybe the focus moved to that subroutine, but then I wasn't able to move the cursor from there, but first I needed to switch the focus to another application then come back.

19. I've saved a file and Jaws lost again the focus. I've pressed for a few times some keys like control+Tab and others I don't remember and Jaws read for me some checkboxes without names. I've even seen a list of files and I pressed enter on one of them and Commodo told me that there is no such a file and asked me if I want to create it. Ok, I understand I might have been doing something wrong, but I wanted to read again that dialog message but I couldn't do it and this is not ok. Jaws was not reading anything, so I have chosen that I don't want to create that file.

20. I couldn't see an easy way of defining more bookmarks like in TextPad and this feature is very important for me. I've seen other things like breakpoints and other things, but no hotkeys for creating a bookmark, deleting a bookmark, jumping to the previous and next bookmark, and deleting all the bookmarks.
Isn't this possible with Commodo?

Anyway, as you might have seen, Commodo is very hard accessible at least with Jaws 6 without special scripts for it, but even if it can be made to be more accessible, it doesn't have some features other editors have.

Is Firefox same... "accessible"?

Octavian

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