[brailleblaster] Re: Thoughts on the Specification
- From: "qubit" <lauraeaves@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 12:29:53 -0600
If you change the default key bindings on each platform, the docs should update
as well. I don't think that would be difficult. In fact, I have a thought for
the docs: if the user changes the key bindings, then I think the docs should
automatically update as well. Is this done in any other software? Well, it
was just a thought...
--le
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Whapples
To: brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 11:09 AM
Subject: [brailleblaster] Re: Thoughts on the Specification
I would say keybindings should be platform specific, particularly for the Mac
as it has keys which other platforms don't have (eg. command and option). Also
if key bindings weren't wisely chosen if they were the same for all platforms
then there could be conflicts with platform specific ones (eg. the web mail
interface for aim.com email has ctrl+alt+d defined for a shortcut to delete
message but on gnome this is taken by the desktop for show desktop, therefore
on linux I cannot use the aim.com shortcut key).
However this is easily accommodated as if key bindings can be customised by
users then we can ship a different configuration depending on the platform the
build of BrailleBlaster is for.
Michael Whapples
On 10 Dec 2010, at 17:09, Alex Jurgensen wrote:
Hi John G.,
I agree with having a user friendly site for updating tutorials. However,
Windows and Linux help systems may have a feature like we have on the Mac,
where the help system is self-updating.
About UI changes, while Eclipse handles a lot of the UI changes that we
would need to make to make the UI look native, I have sited several examples
where we may need to make adjustments, such as the "Exit" menu item, which
exists on the Mac in a menu that does not exist on any other Platform to my
knowledge, unless you cont some distributions of Linux.
Eclipse may handle some of this by default, so I do think that we can
safely use SWT to handle most of the UI differences automatically.
My point was that we should integrate the small tweaks that Eclipse does
not handle automaticallly into Braille Blaster.
Regarding Key Bindings, should we not taylor those to the various
platforms. The OS's system-wide keyboard shortcuts should be respected in my
opinion.
Let me know hwat you think.
Regards,
Alex,
On 2010-12-10, at 8:48 AM, John Gardner wrote:
I propose answers to the first two of John's questions.
1. I do believe that the user should be able to change key bindings, for
lots of reasons. And the ones in the spec wiykd be the defaults. None
are
cast in stone - I undoubtedly made a few mistakes.
2. If I understand correctly, the "look and feel" on the different OS
platforms are controlled to a large extent by SWT, so why not just use it
without a lot of tweaking?
3. I really don't understand much about changing the appearance of
applications, so I won't give an opinion on how much the user can/should
be
able to do. However I hope that we won't agree on anything that is a
major
complication.
A few other comments. I agree more or less with John B that we should
keep
UI changes to a minimum. As a Windows user I know that many applications
do
not put recent documents list at the end of the file menu, and it would
hardly be a problem for anybody if there were a "recent documents item
there
instead. Preferences are not at all standard. In fact I don't recall
ever
seeing preferences in the edit menu. I've seen it in the file menu, in
the
help menu, in the tools menu, and in other places too. If it is more
standard in other OS, I'm happy to follow their lead.
Finally I am also happy to have help file as part of BrailleBlaster. It
would be good if we could have a user-friendly update site so that people
could easily get updates to tutorial and help files.
John G
-----Original Message-----
From: brailleblaster-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:brailleblaster-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John J. Boyer
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 11:24 PM
To: brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [brailleblaster] Re: Thoughts on the Specification
We have three questions that need to be resolved.
1. Should the user be able to change key bindings? If so, the keystrokes
given in the spec would be the default.
2. What aspects of BrailleBlaster's appearance should be changed from
one platform to another.
3. How much should the user be able to change BrailleBlaster's
appearance?
I think it would be helpful to look at how Eclipse deals with these
matters.
The idea of context menus was that there should be a context menu for
the Daisy view and the Braille view, with things peculiar to that view.
I think the spec should be reworded to make things clearer. The Daisy
and Braille views should be called that, not windows. It should be
stated that the welcome "screens" will be dialog boxces. It should also
be stated that the print and emboss previews will be large dialog boxes.
Finally, it should be stated explicitly that BrailleBlaster will have a
top window containing the title bar, the menus and the status bar and
that the Braille and Daisy views will be child windows of this top-level
window. If the user has more than one document opoen, The views will
change according to which document is being viewed. Various menu items
may also be grayed out or inversely.
BrailleBlaster will use the printing widget of SWT. This works with CUPS
on Linux and the Mac and with the printer dialogs on Windows. Embosser
dirvers, including the ViewPlus drivers, should interface with the
printing widget, not print directly on the platform. This may require
some revision of the drivers, but it is necessary for platform
independence. Some Java code may be written to manage the interface.
The Mac is used with all kinds of proprietary software that does
printing. I don't think we have to worry about paying for CUPS.
John B.
On Thu, Dec 09, 2010 at 09:11:44PM -0800, Alex Jurgensen wrote:
Hi John,
Apple aquired the CUPS project, so the requirements for using it in paid
drivers may have changed.
The Mac also uses CUPS for its printing system.
Regards,
Alex,
On 2010-12-09, at 5:34 PM, John Gardner wrote:
The specs say that a user should be able to maximize either the DAISY
or
Braille view to cover the other. Or put them side by side.
On another topic - there has been some discussion about printer
drivers.
It
should be straightforward to use ViewPlus printer/embossers with the
Windows
version of BrailleBlaster. All ViewPlus printer/embosser users have
Tiger
ttf fonts installed, and it should be easy to set up a template so
that
the
right ones are being used to tell the ViewPlus machine which character
to
print and which to emboss. Otherwise, BrailleBlaster is just another
Windows ap and should print/emboss just fine. However I personally
don't
know much at all about printing with Mac or Linux. I have been told
that
CUPS is what one should use for Linux. I remember reading about CUPS
many
years ago, and all I remember is that it is GPL-licensed and that the
license fee for use in a commercial non-GPL printer driver is many
thousands
of dollars per year. So what is another way?
John G
Original Message-----
From: brailleblaster-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:brailleblaster-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of qubit
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 9:09 AM
To: brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [brailleblaster] Re: Thoughts on the Specification
I think that the daisy and braille windows/views/whatever you call
them
should be resizeable and draggable, like the spec said. As long as
the
dialog windows are accessible, there is no need to customize them.
The main window should be as large as it can be on each platform.
My opinions.
I think that since the user can resize and drag the D&B windows,
he/she
should be able to maximize one of them to cover the other, so as to
see
the
full context in that document.
Anyone comments?
--le
----- Original Message -----
From: "John J. Boyer" <john.boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 8:33 AM
Subject: [brailleblaster] Re: Thoughts on the Specification
Another question we need an answer to: How much should the user be
allowed to customize the appearance of BrailleBlaster?
John
On Thu, Dec 09, 2010 at 06:07:40AM -0800, Alex Jurgensen wrote:
Hi,
Well, you saved me a great deal of typing.
I was going to point out the menu bar situation on platforms like
OS X
which have a system menu bar. I've seen this talked about fro some
setups
of Ubuntu, althought I've never seen the latter in practice.
Thanks for getting to this task first.
Regards,
Alex,
On 2010-12-09, at 1:59 AM, Michael Whapples wrote:
Hello,
I don't think having the Braille and daisy views as top level
windows
with there own menus would be very natural. Firstly it doesn't
really
fit with any other GUI application I can think of, normally they
either
modify available menu options depending on the current view or
they
grey
out unavailable options. So as greyed out options are fairly
"normal"
to
encounter I don't see why they would be confusing. Then there is
the
case of platforms where menus aren't actually in the window but
get
placed by applications in a system menu bar like in Mac OSX
(NOTE: SWT
will automatically handle this for you). As an example of the Mac
situation, in safari the web browser, even when I go to its
preferences
all menu options are still there but ones which are irrelevant to
preferences (eg. the option to show/hide the status bar) are
greyed
out.
Also the idea of two top level windows being present in one
application
at the same time just seems odd to me, I couldn't imagine it would
look
right (it would probably look like two separate applications).
Then
what
happens when there are more documents opened, your description
seems
to
give me more top level windows and more clutter of the desktop.
Then
there is the situation of "I am working on a document in
BrailleBlaster,
I have finished on that document so I close the document but
keeping
BrailleBlaster open as I want to work on another document", what
do I
encounter at the point when BrailleBlaster has no open documents?
Having
the document views as child elements of a "BrailleBlaster
appliccation
top level window" I would be left with an empty BrailleBlaster
window
containing only the menus and toolbars (IE. no sub windows),
allowing
me
to go to the menu and choose open document or new or whatever
task I
want to do. Also with my idea of the view, multiple documents
would
just
lead to more sub views, the desktop only ever has one
BrailleBlaster
top
level window.
Now one thing which might be desired is a shortcut pop-up menu
specific
to each view. What I mean is one of those context menus which are
activated by right clicking the mouse of a UI element (use the
applications key or may be shift+f10 and on Mac with voiceover
vo+shift+m). In these context menus only the options relevant to
that
element would be shown.
Michael Whapples
On 09/12/10 04:55, John J. Boyer wrote:
This sounds good. My understanding was that the Daisy and
Braille
windows would each have their own menus. The specification
doesn't
say
so explicitly, but it seemed reasonable, since some things
would be
possible in one window and some things in another. If the Daisy
and
Braille windows are embedded in a top window with the menus,
status
bar
and toolbar, the grayed-out options could be confusing and
frustrating
for the user. Is this actually the way it will be?
So the print and embosser previews are basically big dialog
boxes. I
don't remember anyone saying they should be open continually.
They
are
opened when needed.
I don't think BrailleBlsster should display multiple documents
simultaneously, since it already has two views for each
document.
Rather, when a user switched to another document these view
would be
changed for that document.
The Daisy and Braille windows should prbably be called views
instead,
especially if they don't contain their own menus.
John
On Wed, Dec 08, 2010 at 08:45:53PM +0000, Michael Whapples
wrote:
We seem to be getting a whole jumble of things here. A window
is a
very
generic thing. A dialog is a type of window, normally used to
show
messages or let users select options. A dialog is not
embedded in
the
top level window but can be such that it prevents the user
going
back
to
the main window. A dialog might not cover the main
application top
level
window. Then there are child windows (they may have another
name)
which
usually is embedded into the top level window. These may be
used for
multiple documents (eg. MS Word has been known to work like
this I
don't
know about their latest version). Finally then there are what
I am
calling a top level window, these don't have any other window
containing
them.
My feeling is:
* BrailleBlaster will have a top level window containing the
menus
and
such like which are common to all situations.
* The daisy viewer and Braille viewers will be child windows
or may
be
even panes within a child window or may be this will all work
on the
tab
idea. Anyway the main idea is these will be embedded into the
top
level
window.
* Print and preview will be dialog boxes as these are both
actions
(IE.
I go to print/emboss a document or I go and view how it will
be
printed). I see no reason why print preview would need to be
open
continually.
Michael Whapples
On 08/12/10 20:13, John J. Boyer wrote:
I've never actually looked at a print preview window. Has
anyone
seen
an
embosser preview window? I would think that programs would
handle
preview by opening a temporary window that either hides the
existing
window or minimizes them.
John
On Wed, Dec 08, 2010 at 12:27:33PM -0600, qubit wrote:
Regarding What happens to the windows when a print
preview is
active:
I wonder if opening a new window is a good idea.
I am growing to like one feature in eclipse's UI: eclipse
will
cycle
through
all the various windows if you hold control and type F7
repeatedly.
It has a lot of rather busy windows. I wonder what it
looks like
to
a
sighted person.
As for print preview, I have no idea what to do if you are
embossing
a
document. The image in the braille window doesn't
necessarily
look
like
the
output of the device. Do the various embossers provide
any kind
of
API
for
knowing what the braille will look like?
Also, if viewing it on screen, you are further limited by
the
display
capabilities.
Interesting question. But do you really want there to be
a hard
coded
window for print preview, print and emboss? Couldn't it
just be
like
most
apps that put a command for print and emboss and print
preview in
the file
menu? That could bring up a dialog.
Just wondering.
--le
----- Original Message -----
From: "John J. Boyer"<john.boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To:<brailleblaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 9:24 AM
Subject: [brailleblaster] Thoughts on the Specification
I have just reread the specification carefully. It
certainly hangs
together better for me than at the beginning. Here are
some
thoughts.
There is a menu item for opening a list of recent
documents. These
documents should be on the menu, just below the exit
choice, as
they
are
ikn most word processors.
The ability to open recent documents means that the users
will
want
MDI.
Fortunately, this is not hard to implement.
We may need a third window for each document for print and
embosser
previews. What happens to the Daisy and Braille windows
when a
preview
is chosen? Are they minimized?
John
--
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities
Alex Jurgensen,
VoiceOver Trainer,
ASquared21@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Visit us on the web at: www.vipbc.org
--
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities
Alex Jurgensen,
VoiceOver Trainer,
ASquared21@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Visit us on the web at: www.vipbc.org
--
John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer
Abilitiessoft, Inc.
http://www.abilitiessoft.com
Madison, Wisconsin USA
Developing software for people with disabilities
Alex Jurgensen,
VoiceOver Trainer,
ASquared21@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Visit us on the web at: www.vipbc.org
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