RE: Your Experience with Braille Displays
- From: "Delaunay Christophe" <christophe.delaunay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:48:24 +0200
Hi Kerneels,
You just wrote :
[KR]
>But how have you experienced programming with a Braille display at your
>service?
[ChD]
Of course, the example of long lines, big conditionals in C ans so on is
something I know more quickly with a braille display but line indendation is
also quickly found. For instance, I really appreciate my braille display while
manipulating Python code.
[KR]
>Has there been any particular model / make / design which you can
>recommend above others?
[ChD]
In fact nowadays, there are many brands of braille displays, each one with its
particular user interface. And even within a given brand, you can find
different models with different user interfaces.
For instance, I had an old Alva ABT 340, (40 cells display) and several
different devices from F.H. Papenmeier. The design of my old ABT 340 is very
different from the one of Alva Delphi, Satellite, BC6xx, ... The same is true
for Papenmeier devices.
Within this variety of designs, some people will probably like one better than
the others but what your preferred design would be is really subjective. A good
idea is to attend great events like CSun, (there are probably such events
closer to you), and to try several different displays.
For instance, I really appreciate the Papenmeier easy access bar but many other
people don't like it at all. I am quite uncomfortable with too large displays.
Personnally, I hardly prefer 66 cells displays rather than 80 cells displays.
Among the braille displays I had or have right now, I can't say that one of
these devices should be avoided. They all had their own qualities and all of
them could be used during at least 10 years 8 hours per work day.
[KR]
>And how about screen reader compattibility?
[ChD]
I regularly use jaws to develop under windows, and brltty under linux. In jaws,
I have my best performance with Visual Studio when the display is set in what
they call "line" mode.
[KR]
>And lastly, has there been any particular language you absolutely could
>not get any joy with while trying to read code with a Braille display?
[ChD]
Personnally, I did not have problem with such or such languages but with IDEs.
Some like Visual Studio are quite accessible. Some others like Visual Café are
a little less, and some others I don't remember their names are totally
unusable. However, I did not yet encounter situations where I had better
results with speech than with braille.
HTH. Have a nice day. Chris D
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