And, that necessity is much better than what was achievable before VO
came along. My real reason for writing though is to agree with you
Travis. Two things. Please, throw away your Jaws. It won't help
you here unless you want to use it to read the manual which you can
do perfectly with VO.
As I said in my earlier post, You'd have to re-write the app, not re-
write VO. Apple have lots of requests for things and I'm sure they
are evaluating them, but more often than not, the solution you'll see
will be one that is app wide and not specific to VO. There are some
issues with VO which require changes to the api which I am sure will
be done if and when they can be done, but the kinds of things we
think of like find and skipping to text etc are user agent functions
and will be if at all implemented safari wide.
--
Jonnie Apple Seed
With his:
Hands-On Technolog(eye)s
On Dec 8, 2005, at 3:01 PM, Travis Siegel wrote:
I disagree. I do not think a scripting language for voiceover is
necessary. Voice over is not jaws. Let me repeat that. Voice over
is *NOT* jaws. Since voice is part of the os, and not something
running on top of the os, it doesn't work the same way Jaws does.
Because of this, it's fundamental operating mode is different. While
it would be nice to have hot keys to read parts of the screen, or
macros to do things, it's not necessary. You have to keep in mind
that voice over is part of the os. This gives it a *lot* more power
than something just built-on to make things talk. There is no need
for a voiceover only scripting language, because there are already
several scripting options for the os itself. By default, these
languages work with voice over, because they control the os itself.
Therefore, any scripts written for the os will automatically work
with voiceover. There is no equivalent on the windows platform,
though I suppose some may try to argue that windows scriptiing is
such an animal, though I can point to plenty of reasons why this is
not so. But because of the way voiceover is integrated into the os,
having a separate scripting language would pointless, as it would
simply duplicate what apple has already provided for controling
applications anyway. If you want to write voice over scripts, learn
apple script, then script to your hearts content. Anything you write
will work just fine with voiceover, and with the apple applications
as well. You can't do that with windows. Please try to keep in mind
that the approach used here is not the same as the approach used
elsewhere. The closest you can get is a linux kernel patched with
speakup, so that the os speaks from boot, since speakup is built-in
to the kernel, it works at a much lower level than does any windows
screen reader, and thus *every* terminal application is accessable,
not just those that play nice with video output routines. This is
what apple has done, only on an even lower level.
I know comparisons to windows is unavoidable, and you're more than
welcome to make them, but while doing so, try to remember how things
work, and why voiceover is what it is. Comparing voiceover and jaws
is like comparing the electric grid to solar panels. When you buy a
mac, you're getting the grid, because your house is already wired to
use it. With windows, your house needs to have power added to it, so
you install solar panels on your roof, then run wires down inside the
house for plugging in your stuff. Obviously having the house built
from the start with electric already in it is a much better options,
because you know your appliances are going to work, whereas with the
solar panels, there's no guaraantee that new stove you got will play
nice with your power output requirements, and it may not work. And
of course there's still the paralels with incompatabilities as well.
Even with the electric grid connected to your house, you still can't
run a gas appliance w/o adding something else to make it work, or an
appliance requiring 240 volts instead of 110, you need to change
something to make it work. Macs are the same way. For most things
they work just fine, but sometimes you'll need additional help. With
windows, you can't even move in until the solar panels are
installed. Thereby adding to the expense and complexity of the system.
Sorry for going off like this, but it still irks me that folks just
don't grasp the difference here. $499, and you've got a completely
up to date macintosh that will run all modern software, and the
latest os version. Try doing that with a pc/windows based machine
with a screen reader on it. I can't be done, and that's all there is
to it. The entry level is so much lower with a mac than a pc, I
expect simple economics will drive more and more folks to the mac out
of necessity, never mind the ease of use and lack of
incompatabilities plaguing any pc based machine.On Dec 8, 2005, at
2:31 PM, Joshua E. Loya wrote:
I don't believe a scripting language has been implemented for
Voice Over; however, I would hope that Apple has considered this.
It's all fine and well to ask software developers to adhere to the
Voice Over Guidelines that Apple has formulated, but what if we
want to use versions of software that are not initially compatible
with VO? That is the one thing that Jaws and Window Eyes have over
Voice Over. Granted, Voice Over is still in its early stages, but
something along these lines is going to need to happen in order for
more blind people to want to make the switch to the Mac.
-Joshua
----- Original Message ----- From: "LARRY WANGER" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac
OS Xby theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 11:12 AM
Subject: Re: some further questions
Curious about something else. Are there folks out there who write
scripts for programs using VO as some do with Jaws.
By the way, related to question 4 of my last post, the two
external drives are firewire so it should work from that
perspective. My concern is that while one is actually Mac based
and I use MacDrive to access it, another is windows based but I'm
assuming I can still plug this right in and it will read the FAT
32 or NTFS format, can't remember which it is.
Check out my blog at http://lsw999.blogspot.com/
Larry Wanger
----- Original Message ----- From: "John W. Hess"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac
OS Xby theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: some further questions
Larry, Here are some of the answers to your questions.
1. I experienced some difficulty working in the Internet Browser,
Safari. As you know, when you load a page you are then able to
move around with the right and left arrows in combination with
the control and option keys. When I moved to the html content and
hit the command to interact with the HTML, I found I then had to
move line by line with the arrow keys. Is there a command that
works to tell the Voice Over to just read the entire page without
having to enter commands. When reading a lot of text, having to
hit a key for each line gets old and tough on the fingers.
Command-Option-a (I will referto these as voKeys) is supposed to
read the page however I find that it seems to stop every now and
then. You can try pressing vokeys-semicolan to lock the vokeys
and that will at least free up a hand from holding them down.
You might also try vokeys-shift-w to read the entire window.
2. Related to question #1, is there a command that will either
allow you to skip past all links and go to the text on a web page
or, is there a command to be able to skip a lot of links at
once. For example, in Windows with Jaws I can be on a web page
and just hit page down to get past links or to move through a
page faster. Often I look at specific pages several times a day
and know that if I hit page down twice I get to the text. This
is kind of important to me as hitting arrow keys to move link by
link really stinks.
Larry, I love this command too and have
[EMAIL PROTECTED] requesting this. At the present
time the best choice is using the item chooser list which can be
activated by pressing vo-i and typing the first few letters of
what you are looking for. I have also found that going to last
item by pressing vokeys-pagedown gets you closer to the meet of
the page.
3. I'm going to check out the Apple site but can someone briefly
contrast what is different between an iMac and a Mac Mini other
than the obvious things like needing a keyboard and monitor if
you use a mini? How big is the normal hard disk in a Mac Mini,
things like that?
I'll leave that to the pros on this list. They will share some
of the differences.
4. I have backed up data on two external hard disks. These files
consist of word documents, photographs belonging to my wife,
music, stuff like that. I'm assuming that the drives which are PC
compatible will just connect to the Mac and be readable?
Good question. I am going to suggest the possibility that if they
are being connected via usb port they should be recognized by the
Mac. Again, there are folks doing this who hopefully can give you
a more detailed answer.
I'm all but ready to order up a Mac but had these few last
questions!
Well Larry, I am glad that you have given it a serious look and
also glad that you are making an informed decision. Keep those
questions coming. WE all want you to be happy with your Mac and
know what you can and can't expect write out of the box. Have a
great day.
Sincerely:
JohnyTheHess & WillieTheWoof
