Announcement: Sodbeans 2.0 Officially Released
- From: Andreas Stefik <stefika@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Kimberly Ann Slattery <thenthattempt@xxxxxxxxx>, Susanna Siebert <susanna.siebert@xxxxxxxxx>, Lisa Hodge <lisa.hodge@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Sean McCormick <sean.mccormick@xxxxxxxxxxx>, dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Al Lovati <ALovati@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, Bill Daugherty <billdaugherty@xxxxxxxxx>, Brian Charlson <brian.charlson@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Christopher Hundhausen <hundhaus@xxxxxxx>, Dean Stenehjem <Dean.Stenehjem@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Derrick Smith <derrick.smith@xxxxxxx>, Jamal Mazrui <Jamal.Mazrui@xxxxxxx>, Jay WIlson <jwilson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, Jim Oldham <jim.oldham@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Joseph Abely <Joe.abely@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Martin Monson <martin.monson@xxxxxxxxx>, Melissa Stefik <harrismel@xxxxxxxxx>, Rachel Rosenbaum <rachel.e.rosenbaum@xxxxxxxxx>, Richard Lampert <lampertr@xxxxxxxxx>, Sharon Nichols <sharonnichols@xxxxxxxxx>, Sherry Hahn <Sherry.Hahn@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Sina Bahram <sbahram@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:19:19 -0500
Hey all,
My team here is pleased to announce the release of Sodbeans 2.0, our
accessibility enhanced version of NetBeans 7.0. Some of the highlights
from this release include:
1. Major interface and accessibility improvements, including a new
windows installer, lots of screen reading enhancements, some prosody
changes, a new tutorial system, and many other subtle changes to
improve (hopefully) the sounds produced by Sodbeans.
2. Major changes and improvements to the Hop programming language and
its connection into Sodbeans, including the addition of standard
libraries, exceptions, constructors, a new native call-down system for
connecting to Java or C++, multimedia code completion, better auditory
editor hints, more obvious auditory cues for breakpoints, small
improvements to the auditory debugger, and many other features.
3. A completely rewritten text-to-speech engine, now using our own
engine Phonemic. Phonemic was released previously, but Sodbeans 2.0
represents the first version that includes full integration. This
change will greatly simplify adding screen reader and TTS features in
the future and has made it possible to fix a number of accessibility
problems, like making the difference between capital and lower case
letters more obvious.
More detailed release notes can be found here:
https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/sodbeans/wiki/Sodbeans/ReleaseNotes
And Sodbeans 2.0 can be downloaded from here:
http://sodbeans.sourceforge.net/download.php
Thanks to all for your help and support in this release. I hope that
folks enjoy using it as much as we have enjoyed building it!
Sincerely,
Andreas Stefik, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
P.S. I would especially like to thank Melissa Stefik, Susanna Siebert,
Kim Slattery, Jeff Wilson (my team), Chris Hundhausen and Derrick
Smith (my collaborators on this project), Lisa Hodge and Sean
McCormick (Two of the teachers that helped substantially in
identifying what features should be put into this release), and the
great folks out at Oracle that put up with my team's constant
questions. I would also like to thank the National Science Foundation,
as without their financial support, this work would not be possible.
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