Re: [ui-dev] JAWS 7.0 and OpenOffice 2.0

[Everett Zufelt]

On the surface putting a reader in the program seems like a god idea.  are some reasons that it may not work well:   a) Assistive Technology (AT) companies have spent much time and money making their products work, for the most part, well.  A partial re-invention of the wheel would be required. b) Why reinvent a wheel if there already is one. c) Most visually impaired and blind users who currently own screen-readers are comfortable with how they work and would have to learn the nuances of a new system (keystrokes etc.). d) Why bother software developers who are trying to make a good product with having to incorporate scren-reading abilities?   I have also heard that MS is incorporating voce to text and text to speach in Vista.  No telling, however, how well they will work.   Everett      ----- Original Message ----- From: bogus_01 To: dev@ui.openoffice.org Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2006 10:54 AM Subject: Re: [ui-dev] JAWS 7.0 and OpenOffice 2.0 Why not put a reader in the program?  It would help solve the accessiblility issue and open the program up to people who are visually impaired and solve the problem.   I've heard rumors that MicroSoft is considering that in their Vista.   Stu ----- Original Message ----- From: Everett Zufelt To: dev@ui.openoffice.org Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2006 7:18 AM Subject: [ui-dev] JAWS 7.0 and OpenOffice 2.0 Good morning,   I have posted this bug with OpenOffice's accessibility in the past and was refered (as a suggestion) to Freedom Scientific, the developer of the JAWS screen reader.  I spoke with them, they were of little help, referring me to Sun.  Since then I have been doing some thinking and believe that what I am going to describe below is not a JAWS problem.  I do not know if the problem lies in the OpenOffice code, or in the JAVA Accessibility API.   When I have a document open in OpenOffice Writer, and I use the u/d arrow keys to move from line to line, lines after a hard return are only spoke if visited a second time.  This is a little hard to explain, perhaps an example   Example: Dear sir,   This is my letter to you as an example, Hopefully this line is long enough to wrap to the next line so that it works as an example.  If not, hopefully everyone can use their imaginiation.  Goodbye.   Sincerely, xxx   In the above example, if I were starting at the top of the document "Dear" and using the down arrow to read by line, the first line of the message body "This my letter..." would only be read if I went down to the second line in the paragraph and then pressed the up arrow to go back to the first line.  This is a little annoying but I can work around it with paragraphs.  However, the same would hold true for the "Sincerely" line.  However, in this case, there is not second line in the paragraph to move back up from, therefor, JAWS will not read the text at all.  That is, if a paragraph of text fits nicely onto one line I can not read it once it is written.  What I hear instead of the text I am expecting is "blank".  Pretty much making OpenOffice Writer useless to a blind user of JAWS.   Now, like I said, I am not sure where the problem lies, but expect it is somewhere in the OpenOffice code or the Java Accessibility API, though, I do not rule out Freedom Scientific.  This is a pretty major issue, as there is really no reason to incorporate the JAVA access technology if if the application remains, for all intents and purposes, unusable.   I don't mean to complain about the product, only to emphasize what really needs to be addressed to make it truely accessible.   Thank you for your continued assistance, Everett