[vi-kindle] Unexpected Behavior of "Search" Function in Kindle for PC with Accessibility Plugin
- From: Craig Werner <craig_werner@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: vi-kindle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 11:11:38 -0400
Greetings to the list.
I have become quite fond of the Kindle for PC with Accessibility Plugin
software, which allows users with screen readers to rread books even if
they don't have their Kindles with them. One of its benefits is the
"Search" function, allowing one to search for a text string and have all
occurrences of that string available for selection. This morning,
though, I hit an unexpected problem. While reading the Table of
Contents for _Frommer's New Mexico_, I decided to read the sixth chapter
of the text. I pressed the "Search" hotkey, "Control-F" and entered
"Chapter 6" into the edit box. The results list pointed to passages in
which the author refers the reader to sections in Chapter Six, but the
start of the chapter itself was not flagged. When my wife took a look
at the Table of Contents, she noticed that each chapter number was
followed by a colon. Sure enough: when I entered the string "Chapter 6:
followed by a colon, I got the result I desired. It appears that the
software's search engine is doing a whole word search. However, since
punctuation is not spoken by the Nuance speech engine, and since there
appears to be no way of toggling it on, the blind user might well not
know of the colon or other punctuation mark after a chapter number and
might fall victim to the same confusion that befell me. There is a hint
that the search is a whole=-word one since when one types "Control-F,"
one hears the message "type a word." However, this text is not specific
enough to rule out the possibility that entering a part of a word would
not produce a desired result.
I am going to email Amazon.com about this behavior. I'll report back
when I receive a response.
Craig
Other related posts:
