Speaking Characters

  • From: "Chris Hofstader" <chris.hofstader@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:32:06 -0400

Hi,

Teddy: "it is not ok to speak 2 different chars in the same way."

This is true in most languages but Japanese Kanji and Katakana, traditional
Mandarin Chinese and some Arabic and Hebrew characters with specific
diacritics can cause them to sound the same based upon context.

Personally, I have no idea how anyone learns to read Japanese.  Up to four
separate writing systems (roughly the equivalent of an alphabet) can appear
in a single document.  Kanji, the traditional system based in the Chinese
script, Hiragana, the system used for phonetically writing foreign terms
(baseball for instance), Katakana, the system for phonetically writing new
words added to the Japanese lexicon that do not have Chinese or Kanji
representations and, lastly, Romangi (pronounce Roman g), which uses the
standard Roman character set for foreign proper nouns.

When dealing with a glyph based writing system, an author needs to type
(using a western keyboard) words phonetically.  Thus, one might type ai
(pronounced I) and will receive the Global IME (Input Method Editor) list
box which, for a blind person, will say something like "You as in the person
to whom this addressed," "would as in the interrogative," etc.  If the user
selects one of the words from the list the appropriate ai character will be
inserted in the document.  If the user ignores the list and ends up typing
ai shi teri yo they will be asked, "aishiteryo as in I love you,"
"aishiteryo as in do you want to share an umbrella," etc.  Having worked
with global IME with JAWS in Japanese and using my tiny Japanese vocabulary,
I can attest to just how slow life can go when many characters have the same
sound.
All Japanese Braille is first translated to Katakana and then sent to an
embosser or refreshable display.  It is much simpler to read than their
printed text but (due to some of the ambiguities expressed above) can come
out with completely incorrect words with perfect pronunciation.  Both the
Braille and speech systems leave users with problems like accidentally
signing a letter "beautiful tulip" when they wanted to say, "Fred."


Arabic has some similarities but they only crop up based upon the position a
character appears in a word so parsing such and speaking the correct
character is pretty easy.  The same is true for Hebrew and other Middle
Eastern and Northern African writing systems that, at some point in their
history, did not include vowels at all but have since used diacritics to
make the reader's need to understand the subtleties of context a bit easier.

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Octavian Rasnita
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 8:56 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Window-Eyes public beta released with powerful scripting
capability

Oh yes, but I've seen that this announcement also says something about a
"new sinthesizer".
And Jaws started to work strangely with those special chars since it started
to support Unicode.
("support" is not really true, because it is not ok to speak 2 different
chars in the same way.)

Octavian

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris Hofstader" <chris.hofstader@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 3:18 PM
Subject: RE: Window-Eyes public beta released with powerful scripting
capability


> How the characters are spoken is more a function of the synthesizer than
the
> screen reader.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Octavian
Rasnita
> Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 1:34 AM
> To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Window-Eyes public beta released with powerful scripting
> capability
> 
> I hope full unicode support really means that it can work with more
> languages, not like Jaws that speaks foreign special chars as english
chars.
> 
> Octavian
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jamal Mazrui" <empower@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
> <guispeak@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <uaccess-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 11:10 PM
> Subject: Window-Eyes public beta released with powerful scripting
capability
> 
> 
>> -- Forwarded Message --
>> From: gw-news@xxxxxxxxxxx
>> Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 1:33 PM
>> Subject: Window-Eyes 7.0 Beta 1 Is Now Available!
>> 
>> After much anticipation, Window-Eyes 7.0 Beta 1 is now available.
>> Window-Eyes 7.0 Beta 1 offers the latest advancements in screen reading
>> technology, including full Unicode support, new scripting functionality,
>> web browsing enhancements, a new synthesizer, and much more.
>> 
>> Full Unicode support means the ability to work with more international
>> languages. Web browsing enhancements mean easier navigation between
>> controls, and the ability to add placemarkers that can remember places on
>> a webpage even when the webpage changes. ECI Eloquence 6.1 is now
>> available as yet another speech option. Other enhancements like speed
>> increases for list views, the system tray, and error reporting, being
able
>> to increase and decrease the speech rate during read to end, new options
>> for keyboard voice interruptability, and numerous bug fixes make
>> Window-Eyes 7.0 Beta 1 a welcome update.
>> 
>> The most notable enhancement in Window-Eyes 7.0 Beta 1, however, is
>> scripting. Window-Eyes scripting is unparalleled in its design and
>> implementation.  Rather than require a scripter to learn a proprietary
>> language, Window-Eyes 7.0 Beta 1 allows a scripter to choose from a
number
>> of standard computer languages for writing scripts.  This means that more
>> people will be able to take advantage of Window-Eyes scripting, and
>> ultimately more accessibility to more software applications. Access all
>> Window-Eyes features and settings, all operating system windows and
>> properties, create custom accessible dialogs for user interaction with
>> power and ease, and more.
>> 
>> To make scripts easily accessible and encourage script development, GW
>> Micro has created a centralized script repository called Script Central
>> (www.gwmicro.com/sc). Script Central provides script developers with the
>> tools to distribute their scripts, and provides scripts users the tools
to
>> download, comment, rate and track favorite scripts.  The GW Micro forums
>> (www.gwmicro.com/forum) have also been enhanced for general script
>> discussions, script requests, script announcements, and much more. While
>> we encourage everyone to take advantage of Script Central, Window-Eyes
>> scripts can be hosted anywhere and distributed by anyone.
>> 
>> Read more about all of the features Window-Eyes 7.0 Beta 1 has to offer,
>> and download your copy, at www.gwmicro.com/beta.
>> 
>> 
>> ----------
>> 
>> -- Forwarded Message --
>> 
>> From: gw-news@xxxxxxxxxxx
>> Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 1:41 PM
>> Subject: Window-Eyes 7.0 Beta 1 - Default Installed Scripts
>> 
>> Greetings,
>> 
>> Window-Eyes 7.0 Beta 1 includes four script packages, automatically
>> installed for your convenience, that demonstrate the power Window-Eyes
>> scripting provides to enhance your daily computing experience. The
>> information for each script below is also found in the script's help and
>> options. You can access a script's help and options by opening the Script
>> Manager dialog (from the Manage Sets and Scripts pull down in the
>> Window-Eyes File menu), selecting the script you're interested in, then
>> selecting the Help and Options button (or pressing the Help and Options
>> button shortcut, H).
>> 
>> GW Toolkit
>> 
>> The GW Toolkit script provides a collection of commonly used shared
>> objects for use with other scripts, such as providing consistent help
>> information, managing hotkeys, and much more. The rest of the scripts
>> listed below require the GW Toolkit script's functionality. You can read
>> more about the objects contained in the GW Toolkit by reading through the
>> gwtoolkit.chm Help file, installed automatically to your user profile
>> directory.
>> 
>> AutoComplete
>> 
>> AutoComplete provides announcement of inline autocompleted text and
>> suggestion list items in supported combo edit boxes, such as those in the
>> Start Menu's Run dialog, standard file save and open dialogs, and many
>> other areas.
>> 
>> To disable the speaking of inline autocompleted text, select the "Do Not
>> Speak" radio button. To speak only the text that autocompleted, select
the
>> "Speak Completed Text" radio button. To speak the entire line (i.e.
>> what has been typed plus the text that autocompleted), select the "Speak
>> Entire Line" radio button.
>> 
>> To hear an index of the number of suggestions provided in the suggestion
>> popup list, check the "Speak Suggestion Index" check box. To hear the
>> first item in the suggestion list spoken, check the "Speak First
>> Suggestion" check box."
>> 
>> If toggling the "Enable Inline Autocomplete" check box does not work, you
>> can always verify this setting manually by toggling the "Use inline
>> AutoComplete" check box under the Advanced tab of the Internet Options
>> control panel.
>> 
>> Note that the suggestion popup list does not have anything selected by
>> default. To select the first item (the same item spoken if the "Speak
>> First Suggestion" option is enabled), press the Down Arrow.
>> 
>> LVNav
>> 
>> The lvnav script is designed to allow you to virtually navigate a
>> listview.  You can use the insert arrows to virtually move through the
>> rows and columns in the listview. Insert-Home and Insert-End move to the
>> beginning and end of a row while Control-Insert-Home and
>> Control-Insert-End move to the top and bottom of a column.  You can also
>> use Alt-1 through Alt-0 to read columns 1 through 10.  If you want to set
>> focus to the virtual item you are on use Insert-Enter.  If you want to
set
>> focus to the virtual item and add it to the current selection use
>> Control-Insert-Enter.  This script can be loaded globally to be available
>> for all listviews or in a specific application to only be available for
>> listviews within that application.
>> 
>> Progress Indicator
>> 
>> This script is designed to get you immediate feedback on the status of
>> progress bars in the active window.  There are two types of progress
bars.
>> The main progress bar contains a visual indicator as to the progress
>> giving sighted users a percentage from 0 to 100.  Marquee bars are
similar
>> but they dont give a percentage.  Instead they just give a sighted user
an
>> indication that progress is being made.  This script gives you the
ability
>> to monitor both types independently.
>> 
>> Virtual View
>> 
>> Virtual View displays a text view of any window. To include graphic
>> labels, check the Include Labeled Graphics option. To include the window
>> type where the text came from, check the Include Window Types check box.
>> To prompt for the window to retrieve the text from, check the Always Ask
>> for Window Type check box. Virtual View also offers several quick keys
for
>> accessing the dialog where the text originated. For example, if a button
>> called Close exists in the dialog where you obtained the virtual view
>> from, you can place your cursor on the word close, and press the letter L
>> to close the Virtual View dialog, and click the close button -- all in
one
>> key stroke. In addition to L for Single Left Click, other commands are: R
>> for Single Right Click, D for Double Left Click, M for Middle Click, P
for
>> Route Mouse, and F for Focus Control. You can also use Control-F to
search
>> for text in the Virtual View edit box, as well as F3 to find the next
>> occurrence of the last string searched for.
>> 
>> --
>> To insure that you receive proper support, please include all past
>> correspondence (where applicable), and any relevant information pertinent
>> to your situation when submitting a problem report to the GW Micro
>> Technical Support Team.
>> 
>> Aaron Smith
>> GW Micro
>> Phone: 260/489-3671
>> Fax: 260/489-2608
>> WWW: http://www.gwmicro.com
>> FTP: ftp://ftp.gwmicro.com
>> Technical Support & Web Development
>> The gw-news list is an announce only list used for GW Micro news and
>> product information.
>> 
>> 
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