[macvoiceover] Re: In Defense of the Virtual Buffer

  • From: Chris Hofstader <cdh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: macvoiceover@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:24:10 -0500

These decisions came after my departure from FS and I haven't discussed any of this with my spies. I think the caret was late to show up in browsers because it is not a natural feature of a non- editable text object as it indicates an insertion point where, on most of a web page, such a concept does not actually exist.


I have to run to a pain management doctor so I may be loaded on vicadan for the rest of the day.
On Dec 12, 2008, at 10:09 AM, David Poehlman wrote:

Oh, the facts are solid but what I am driving at is why was the carot so late in coming and why does jaws not embrace it in ff?

On Dec 12, 2008, at 9:50 AM, Chris Hofstader wrote:

The dominance of the VB systems in Windows screen readers has little to do with Windows itself but, rather, problems with the backdoor to the browsers . In 1998, when we first got hold of an IE4 beta, we saw the first browser on any platform that could expose a DOM to external applications. We wanted to make exploring a web page as close to using a word processor as possible - hence, the birth of the virtual buffer. Windows screen readers and Orca have added a few cool features since but the virtual buffer has remained mostly constant since. Today, with the possible exception of Opera which I know nothing about, all major browsers expose a DOM really nicely and VO type browsing could be done on any screen reader on any platform if the authors so chose to do so.


Apple is making progress far faster than any other challenger. The Windows screen readers: JAWS, WE and SA are all very similar and, with the slight exception of SA that does do some cool new things, the competition among these products falls into the "keeping up with the Jones'" model as one guy will add a feature and everyone else jumps on. JAWS and WE are demonstrating a consistent decline in support for applications other than IE, MS Office and a few odds and ends.

Apple is already the leader in screen access innovation as, in the past couple of years, WE has added a scripting language - a feature JAWS has had since 1993 and JAWS added its Tandom feature which System Access has had for a few years already. FS tries to derail competition via litigation which does nothing to improve the lot for its customers - I don't consider my SMA dollars well spent on lawyers rather than features and quality.


The battle for VO is less features and cool functionality but, rather, the monopolistic JAWS juggernaut which has most of the really big screen reader customers tied up in multi-year exclusive deals and lots of other contractual stuff with dealers and agencies that makes it very hard for any competitor, even on Windows, to get a foot in the door.


The second major hurdle for Mac/VO is to get passed the training hurdle. Agencies that train on access technology have invested a lot in training their staffs to teach people how to use JAWS and don't want to spend the huge number of retraining dollars that it would take to get an army of proficient VO trainers prepared.

VO needs to demonstrate that it is a killer app to the unwashed masses and they need to start shouting ey want it. this is likely going to be slow going.

Sorry for being so negative this morning. My RSI issues are really flaring up and the chronic pain I endure often shades my mood.

cdh


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On Dec 12, 2008, at :14 AM, David Poehlman wrote:

I should say though an dquite clearly that if windows had been built correctly in the first place, more aptly, the browsers, vbs never would have been necessary or even thought of. I'm not sure how far apple has to go different for different people I suspect, but they are going there fast.

On Dec 12, 2008, at 8:56 AM, Chris Hofstader wrote:

Hi,

While I am gradually learning to understand why the VO object and semantic modes of browsing web pages is a major innovation in this area and should be loudly applauded, I also feel that, as one of its inventors, I had to stick up for the virtual buffer approach at least a little bit. I do not want to start a pee pee match or debate about the relative merits of each system but, rather, say a few things about what had been my baby back in the paleolithic era of screen readers on the web.

Most notably, we released the first virtual buffer solution in JAWS 3.31, that was in September 1999. If you remember previous implementations, the Window-Eyes MSAA mode took more than 20 minutes to load Jamal Mazrui's empowermentzone.com site, JAWS had its reformat screen to flatten things and the list of links dialogue and the user had to use the review (JAWS) cursor for most browsing tasks, Dolphin had a system so peculiar that I can't even explain it nearly a decade later.

So, yes, Apple has produced a major step forward but the virtual buffer system was a major step forward a decade ago. All of us who make these kinds of programs stand on the shoulders of giants and, for a pretty long time, JAWS was the most innovative thing around. So, maybe the king is sick and VO will inherit the crown but there is still a lot of work to be done in the meantime.


cdh

On Dec 11, 2008, at 9:58 PM, Marty Rimpau wrote:

Hi all, my two cents worth regarding the virtual cursor, and browse mode is this, and that is, that once you surf with the mac, on a site like youtube, and have listened to, or are currently listening to a video, by pressing vo command h, you are taken to the first heading on
the comments page for that video, that is, if you have an account,
which is free, and from there, you can rate, add the video to your
favorites, and by pressing vo command h a second time, and vo right
arrowing, there is an edit box for comments.  You ask, why are you
telling us all this, when we don't use youtube, and that is, that once
you see that safari does not use a virtual buffer, you'll say to
yourself, at least, in my opinion, this virtual cursor browse mode
stuff is a bunch of horse hocky, pardon the bruskness, but it is so
much better when you can navigate, and know that the page isn't
constantly re-loading.
On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:46:25 -0500, Jacob Schmude wrote:

Hi Chris
This is entirely my take on it, and I may be completely off the mark.

It almost sounds like the problem you're having, in regards to getting

lost, is you're used to the one-dimensional virtual buffers. VO, whe in group mode, is actually two dimensional. It can be confusing for
the first few days, but stick with it and you'll get it.
In regards to this, I do have to stress stick with it. When I first
started with the Mac I'd do the same thing, if it didn't work use
Windows (Orca and Firefox didn't play well at that time so that wasn't

a practical option). This ultimately turned out to be doing me a lot more harm than good, because I wasn't making myself understand VO's web navigation and, since it was so different from what I'd grown used

to even though I hated virtual buffers, I wasn't really trying to
understand it.
If you have the time, the best thing I can suggest is put your Windows

or Linux system away--not because they're horrible systems, but
because the fallback might actually be getting in your way. If I'm
presuming, all apologies. This is just how it was for me. Use it for a

few days, no falling back to the familiar, and you'll get it. In my case it just clicked at one point, I just had to get used to treating
a web page like an Application. VO's uniformity of navigation, no
matter what the situation, can be a bit daunting. Now, however, I am so much more efficient with VO than I ever have been with a virtual buffer it amazes me, and everyone who watches me navigate the web. I can easily find the content areas of web sites, probably because I now

understand more accurately the visual convensions of web designers, and perhaps it's this same reason why I never get lost in a web page. Maybe this is just me, since VO so closely resembles what was always
my screen reader of choice until its death, Outspoken.

Just my $0.02 on the matter.



On Dec 11, 2008, at 09:42, Chris Hofstader wrote:

Hi David,

I also use the item chooser, the list of links and the VO approach to quick keys but still find myself "lost" in portions of a page or unable to figure out how to get to places that I know are probably
there but am uncertain of how it may be labeled.  The total
flattening of the virtual buffer in the other screen readers causes
a lot of inefficiency  resulting from turning everything into a
laundry list of objects. VO, though, seems to build a box of boxes (which seems to work great for applications and, if they move in the
direction of an r-tree sorting algorithm with some intelligence
added, they may well be able to take screen reader UI well into this century) I find I have trouble finding the right "box" on many web
pages.

This is probably due to ignorance but I cannot seem to find a way to do a SayAll in Html or PDF with VO. I get lots of long, scholarly stuff in these formats and I just want to hit a single keystroke and let it rip. I also want a single key stop speech but place me where
I stopped as often my reason for stopping is so I can get the
spelling of a word or person's name.  I then want to restart the
SayAll from the same point and continue until I feel like stopping
again.  If this is possible with VO, I haven't found out how in a
pretty lot of reading. Again, this may be a vocabulary problem or
that I'm brain damaged from a decade of JAWS on the brain.

Lastly, I can't quite figure out the Find (Command+F) in Safari with
VO.  Is there an analogue to the virtual searches in the Windows
screen access tools?

Happy Hacking,
cdh

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Marty



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