John,No, unless the Adium folks get on the ball and make that part of the program accessible, you'll *never* be able to read the message text, as you've noticed, VO says "Scroll Area" when you arrow onto it, but you can't interact with it.
If you go to the preferences, and click on the "Events" tab, you can set many things which Adium can do.
After you stop interacting with the toolbar, and you VO-Right Arrow, you're presented with the following:
Event preset: Personal Notifications pop up button (Actually, if memory serves, this is not the default state of this popup) Sound set: TokyoTrainStation pop up button button (drops volume to 0%) 100 percent horizontal slider button (Raises volume to 100%)( table dimmed button (Help-Tag = "Add an action for the selected event") dimmed button (Help-Tag = "Remove the selected action(s)") Edit dimmed button (Help-Tag = "Configure the selected action")
When you interact with the events table, the first thing VO will speak is "Button". If you use your help tag command (VO-h), each one in the 1st column, as you arrow down, has a help-tag attached to it. When you hear the button you want (i.e. "Message received"), stop interacting with the table, VO-Right Arrow, and you'll notice the first button, the "Add Action for the selected event" is no longer dimmed. Use VO-Space to press it, and the "Action Editor" will open. The popup menu in this window gives you a number of actions you can use. The ones you'll most likely want are "Play Sound", and "Speak Event. Set everything else in this dialog as you'd like it to be.
In this way, you can tell Adium to speak each IM you receive, the name of the user sending you the IM, etc.
If you ever miss an IM, just go to that user's window, enter the toolbar, and click the "Transcripts" button. When the "Transcript Viewer" appears, use VO to navigate to the second table, interact with it, VO-Right Arrow over to the contact name column, and VO-Up/Down to the contact you wish to read the IMs from. When you get there, stop interacting with the table, use VO to navigate to the text area of the viewer, interact with it, and read away! While in this text area, you can highlight text, links, etc, copy them to your pasteboard, and use the info wherever you like.
If you get an IM from a new contact, or one who's window isn't already open, you'll need to close the viewer, go into that person's window, enter the toolbar, and repeat the above procedure to read their missed IMs. You'll figure this out, and become quite familiar with it over time.
Fortunately, there's enough accessibility code in Adium to let a VO user work with it, even if many things don't just "sit up and speak", so to speak. I use the program on a regular basis, and rarely, if ever, need sighted assistance.
HTH? Ron P.S.I culled all the info, from the "Events" dialog, using the "Copy last phrase to the pasteboard" command (VO-Command-Shift-C). I've only had Leopard for 16 days now, and I find this command *EXTREMELY* useful!
ron, maybe you can tell me how you read messages. all of your instructions worked well but I don't seem to see the message text. does the sender text aprear in the same window as the received text? do you use arrows or vo curser?On Nov 9, 2007, at 9:33 PM, Ronald Johnson wrote:John,I'm still using Adium, and I'm managing just fine. Don't mess around with Fire, as it's no longer in development. In fact, some of the developers of Fire are now on the Adium team.My workaround for the current inaccessibility of Adium, is to select a contact with VO, then, do Command-Shift-I to get info on that contact. I do this till I find the contact I'm looking for, then do a double-click with VO to open a message window for that contact. The rest works fine. The same technique works for finding out what group you're in, as well.As to setting events, each item in the list does have a "help tag", so you can figure out which event you want to edit.Yes, this is a pain, but until the Adium folks finally get around to merging the accessibility code back into the program, in a future version, this is the best we have.I agree with you, the procedure for accessing MSN contacts in iChat is a bit much , and it's much better to use a client which does MSN natively.HTH? RonTim, thanks I do remember this but would rather look for a client that does this nativly. Thanks for the help and where to look for the jabra info.----- Original Message ----- From: Tim Grady To: macvoiceover@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 1:03 PM Subject: [macvoiceover] Re: instant messaging client on leopardLook at the archives. There was a discussion a few days ago of how to set up Ichat to do this. You have to set up a jabber account in Windows and do it on a server with a MSN gateway. Somewhere in the archive there should be a message with a link in it to tell you exactly how to do this. Basicly what you do is use a Windows Jabber client like PSI to create a Jabber account, then when you're connected you do a service discovery in PSI and look for MSN. After you make sure to sign on you don't need PSI any more. Set up your Jabber account in Ichat and you're on your way. The only thing is that PSI is totally inaccessable so you'll need sighted help for that part.On Nov 8, 2007, at 9:40 PM, John W. Hess wrote:is anyone using anything that supports MSN? Fire seems to crash after being open for about 2 minutes and adiam is not very accessible to vo or I am missing somethinkg. I do use IChat but have people on MSN I talk to as well. any thoughts?John W. Hess Senior Associate Evaluation & Training De Witt & Associates Suite 110 700 Godwin Avenue Midland Park, NJ 07432 Phone: 201/447-6500 Extension 219 Fax: 201/447/1187 E-Mail: johnh@xxxxxxxxxxx Web: www.4dewitt.comThis message and any attachments it contains are confidential and are for the intended receiver only. If you are not the intended receiver, please delete this message immediately and inform the sender of the error. Yourcooperation is appreciated.Click on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.com Manage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below. //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceoverUsers can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Web interface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceoverSincerely: John W. HessClick on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.com Manage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below. //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceoverUsers can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Web interface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
Click on the link below to go to our homepage. http://www.icanworkthisthing.com Manage your subscription by using the web interface on the link below. //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceoverUsers can subscribe to this list by sending email to macvoiceover-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe' in the Subject field OR by logging into the Web interface at //www.freelists.org/list/macvoiceover
