_____ There'll be a lot more booiks on electronics, with tactile graphics. This is an announcement of an exciting new software development project that will greatly increase the availability and usability of Braille. Since this is an open source project, you are invited to participate. We need transcribers and technical writers as well as programmers. BrailleBlaster will be excellent for translating and formatting braille and inserting tactile graphics and hence release a blast of braille. It will be very user-friendly for non-technical users but also powerful enough for experts. Naive users will be able easily to compose simple documents and then translate and emboss them in braille or read them on a braille display. Advanced users will be able to divide books into multiple braille volumes, with title pages, tables of contents, and end-notes for each volume. The BrailleBlaster project should be completed within less than two years. BrailleBlaster will be fully usable in speech or braille by people who are blind. It will be designed for Windows, MacIntosh, and Linux operating systems and common screenreaders It will have visual display controls that make it maximally accessible for users with low vision and other visual disabilities. It will be localized into most major languages. BrailleBlaster will be developed under the Apache 2.0 license, which permits broad use, including use in commercial software. BrailleBlaster's sponsors are ViewPlus Technologies, Inc. and Abilitiessoft, Inc. They will hold the license copyright. -- John J. Boyer; President, Chief Software Developer Abilitiessoft, Inc. http://www.abilitiessoft.com Madison, Wisconsin USA Developing software for people with disabilities _____ Leave list: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at http://listserv.i <http://listserv.icors.org/archives/vicug-l.html> cors.or g/archives/vicug-l.html Send questions on list operation to <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]
_______________________________________________ ATI (Adaptive Technology Inc.) A special interest affiliate of the Missouri Council of the Blind http://moblind.org/membership/affiliates/adaptive_technology
