[ddots-l] Jaws 13 and the OCR Feature
- From: Bryan Smart <bryansmart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2011 11:31:24 -0400
If you all haven't tried the public beta of Jaws 13, you might want to think
about doing so.
The new major feature in version 13 is the built-in OCR support for the Jaws
cursor. This feature should be a huge help for those of us that work with
softsynths and effects that display information on the screen in ways that
screen readers can't normally recognize.
With the new feature, you can press a command, and Jaws will use optical
character recognition (like in OpenBook or Kurzweil 1000) to identify any text
in the current window, even if the entire window was directly drawn on the
screen/all graphics. After a few seconds, the Jaws cursor will activate, and
you can arrow around the window, reading the identified text as if it were
displayed on the screen through normal means. Once you find the text of a
control, such as a browse button, you can click on it to activate it, just as
you could if the text were visible to the standard Jaws cursor.
I've tried it with a few synths that were previously inaccessible, and have
been able to use them to a greater extent than before. As an example, I've been
able to use some of the Native Instruments synths in a very limited way.
For some synths, I've been able to click on the name of the current preset, and
then use the arrows to change to other presets. With other synths, I've been
able to press load buttons that cause standard file open dialogs to appear
where I can select other bank files. My list of synths tried with this feature
is still fairly short, but the results are interesting, so far.
Please carefully temper your enthusiasm, though. This isn't a magic bullet.
Just because it is possible to find and click on text doesn't mean that you'll
be able to edit most parameters. Also, the interfaces of some synths will be
too flashy and colorful for OCR to read anything useful from them. Finally, if
the synth uses buttons that indicate their function with icons, but no text,
then the OCR feature won't help, either. As is typical of OCR, the results are
sometimes cluttered with garbage characters and mistakes. This feature will be
a great addition to our toolbox, though.
With limited testing, CakeTalking 8.5 seems to work fine with Jaws 13.
If you try Jaws 13's OCR feature with softsynth and effects plug ins, please
post your experiences.
Bryan
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