Hi Marlon,
here's a rough summary of the accessibility on Macs.
For standard controls like buttons, combo boxes, and so on, wxWidgets is
indeed accessible out of the box.
However, this is not the case for custom controls. Examples of these in
Audacity include the tracks, and the time controls used in the selection
bar and other places.
wxWidgets provides a framework for making these custom controls, but the
writers of wxWidgets only got as far as implementing the framework for
windows. This is the available documentation for this:
https://www.wxwidgets.org/docs/tutorials/accessibility/
Leland, a developer who is no longer active, extended the framework for the
Mac. However, since he did this, wxWidgets has changed which gui library it
uses on Macs, and Leland's code no longer works.
Paul, a currently active developer, with Leland's help, has had a go at
updating the accessibility code for Mac, but this work has not been
finished, and I'm not sure whether he plans to do any further work in this
area.
I don't use Macs, and so haven't made any contributions in this area.
If you wanted to get involved with this, you could join the development
mailing list, and have a conversation with Paul about this. Details of the
list:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/lists/audacity-devel
David.
On 5 November 2017 at 11:12, Marlon Brandão de Sousa <splyt.lists@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
David,
I am also a programmer and wouldn't be that incisive as to say hi, I want
it accessible on the Mac, someone should make it accessible on Mac OS,
give me a copy of that accessible on Mac OS cause I want it!
As committed as you have always been to accessibility including staying at
this list having extremely limited resources to even develop Audacity, I
must suppose that there are a technical issue somewhat complex to implement
accessibility on that platform at this time. If it were easily doable then
you would already have done it ... a non programmer many times is not aware
of how complex it might be to develop or shape software. If you could
describe a road map explaining in a little higher level why you are facing
these issues since WX Widgets are usually accessible out of the box then
may be other programmers like me can try to jump on board and try to fix or
implement what you are not being able to do, I assume, lack of time or
anything like that.
Thank you,
On 31/10/2017 21:09, Victor Lawrence wrote:
Hi all,
It’s a shame that this latest version of audacity isn’t very accessible
with the Mac. Some of us would like to be able to use this latest version
of audacity with the Mac and voiceover. I hope someone out there will make
audacity accessible with the Mac again very soon. I hope we won’t have to
continue using older versions of audacity with the Mac.
Thanks,
Victor
Sent from my iPhone
On Oct 28, 2017, at 11:20 AM, David Bailes <drbailes@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Robbie,
as you say, audacity should import all the keystrokes regardless of
settings. It's a bug that it doesn't, and I'll log this as a bug.
thanks,
David.
On 28 October 2017 at 18:27, Robbie <tickleberryfun@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi David!
Yes, all key strokes now work. Thanks for providing the solution. It’s a
point, that probably should be documented. Or Audacity could be coded to
load all imported key strokes regardless of the setting, on the assumption
that a user who imports his own key strokes will want to use all of them.
Cheers! Robbie
*From:* audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *David Bailes
*Sent:* Saturday, October 28, 2017 5:14 PM
*To:* audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [audacity4blind] Re: Audacity 2.2.0 release candidate
available for testing
Hi Robbie,
One of the things that might be affecting this is that in 2.2.0, there
are two sets of default shortcuts: standard and full. Full is roughly the
same as in 2.1.3, but the standard set contains fewer shortcuts. For
example, in the standard set, shift+c to delete a track is not included.
If you run 2.2.0 and it finds a previous configuration file, then it will
use the full set of default shortcuts. If it finds no existing
configuration file, then it uses the standard set of shortcuts. You can set
which set of shortcuts to use in the keyboard category of preferences. If
you press the defaults button, a menu opens giving you a choice. Note that
when you set the defaults, all customized keystroke settings are lost.
So in your case, assuming that you're using a separate configuration for
testing 2.2.0, then first change to using the full set of default
shortcuts, and then import your saved keyboard settings.
Concerning a shortcut for crossfade clips not working, I've tested
exporting from 2.1.3 and importing into 2.2.0, and I can't reproduce any
problem.
David.
On 28 October 2017 at 15:00, Robbie <tickleberryfun@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi David!
Thanks for clearing this up.
When importing my key strokes into Audacity 2.2.0, none of the key
strokes assigned to what is now the Ext-Bar > Transport submenu work.
Some others are affected too, such as Delete Track and Crossfade Clips.
Cheers! Robbie
*From:* audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *David Bailes
*Sent:* Saturday, October 28, 2017 3:49 PM
*To:* audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [audacity4blind] Re: Audacity 2.2.0 release candidate
available for testing
Hi Robbie,
thanks for giving your feedback.
1. The commands in the mute sub menu in the tracks menu. These commands
act on all the tracks, rather than just the focused track, and so are there
for convenience. As to why there are not any Solo equivalents, I suppose
it's assumed that you would not want to solo a large number of tracks at
the same time.
2. The commands in the pan sub menu in the tracks menu. If there are any
selected tracks, then these commands act on these selected tracks,
otherwise, they act on all the tracks. So again, they are there for
convenience if you want to set the pan for a number of tracks at the same
time.
3. The Ext-Bar > Tools sub menu. The items in this menu are for settings
various modes when using the mouse to interact with the tracks, so you can
just ignore these.
4. The extra menus contain just about all the commands that aren't in the
standard menus, so this does result in commands being in the menus, such as
cursor right and left, which make the user question why they are included.
5. Renaming of items in menus. Even if the names have been changed
slightly, the identifiers used for storing customized keystrokes will
still be the same, so you shouldn't have to reassign your keystrokes. The
only case where I know there is a change is for the record commands, since
the the default has been changed to record append.
David.
On 28 October 2017 at 13:50, Robbie <tickleberryfun@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi David!
Here are my thoughts and findings after a first test run.
In the Tracks menu, Mute and Pan now have their own submenus. Whether
that's useful is debatable, because I don't see anyone going through the
menu each time they want to mute or unmute a track. Yes, Mute/Unmute was in
the Tracks menu before, but I never saw the point. Why Mute but not Solo?
Since all the above are found in the Ext-Command menu, they might as well
be left out of the tracks menu, to further slim it.
The same applies to Pan. Why put Pan in the Tracks menu, but not Gain?
Again, Pan and Gain are found in Ext-Command, so why not drop Pan from the
Tracks menu?
Regarding the rearrangement of the menus, I can see why some of the
changes would make Audacity easier to work with. Putting all the menu items
blindies have keystrokes for in menus you can hide is a nice touch.
I had to smile at the Cursor submenu in Ext-Command though. Who would go
through the menu to move the cursor right, if they could just press cursor
right? I mean, it's the cursor. It's even got its own Keys.
I don't know what to make of the Tools submenu in Ext-Bar. For instance,
what is Ext-Bar > Tools > Selection Tool supposed to do? I tried it with
the Selection Toolbar enabled as well as disabled and it doesn't seem to
have any effect.
I can't comment on the look of the high contrast theme, being fully
blind, but it's an excellent idea, which I shall recommend to VI-friends.
Unfortunately, all the items in the Ext-Bar > Transport submenu plus a
few others have apparently been renamed, so I need to reassign my key
strokes. If I want to work with this version that is. I'm not yet convinced
that it serves me any better than version 2.1.3.
While the design is more customizable, and the usability improved for
newbies, for my own use of Audacity there doesn’t seem to be an advantage
in switching to version 2.2.0.
Cheers! Robbie
*From:* audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *David Bailes
*Sent:* Friday, October 27, 2017 9:54 AM
*To:* audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [audacity4blind] Audacity 2.2.0 release candidate available
for testing
For those of you who are interested in testing a release candidate of
Audacity 2.2.0, this is a link to the portable version:
https://www.fosshub.com/Audacity-devel.html/audacity-win-2.2.0-rc1.zip
If you want this version of Audacity to use its own separate settings,
then after you have extracted the files, in the folder that contains
Audacity.exe create a folder with the name Portable Settings.
For a summary of new features see:
1. http://alphamanual.audacityteam.org/man/New_features_in_this_release
2. A section in the introduction of my guide:
http://vip.chowo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/jaws/Audacity-2.2.0-Guide.html
If you find any bugs, or have any comments about this new version, just
post them to this list,
David.
