Emacs is more like a whole desktop environment than an editor, and it's configurability is amazing. In the late '90s, I had to program by voice, using Naturally Speaking. The only way I could find to be productive was to write emacs macros to help me write code and do various tasks. Even today, without emacs, speech-recognition users basically can't be productive programmers. By the time my hands had healed enough to resume typing, I had written 1,600 custom Naturally Speaking commands, most of which drove custom emacs-lisp macros. I think Jamal probably has a similar story, but for blindness rather than an inability to type, but he wrote his environment in a way that it is very useful to other blind users. I'm not an emacspeak user, but here's an example I imagine is highly doable in emacspeak. Bash commands tend to spew insane amounts of nearly useless information at us, making bash a real pain to use with speakup or Orca. What I really want is something that watches the line updates, and just reads the first word or two before moving on, unless I pause it and ask for more detail. I also want to be able to silence speech until a command is done, and then I want the last line or two of output read to me. However, if an error or warning occurs, I want that read right when it is displayed, and I want it read in a high pitch voice. All of this is doable in emacspeak, because manipulating text in buffers is the central ability of emacs. I know of no similar capability anywhere. My vision is still pretty good, so all I require is a little magnification, and it's nice to have text read to me at high speed. As my vision fades, I do expect to rely more on emacspeak. Bill On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 4:14 AM, Chris Hallsworth <christopherh40@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > What does Emacspeak do that Orca doesn't? Quite interested in Vinux now > <grins>. > > On 02/06/2010 01:58, Jamal Mazrui wrote: >> >> Another question. Perhaps I missed it, but I did not find mention of >> Emacspeak in the Vinux distribution. If it is not included, I'm curious >> why, and wonder if there is a convenient script to install it. >> >> Jamal >> >> __________ >> View the list's information and change your settings at >> //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind >> >> > __________ > View the list's information and change your settings at > //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind > > __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind