Ah, yes I couldn't agree more. To encourage developers to develop,
Apple needs to be sure they provide the tools and environment in
which a sighted or blind/visually impaired developer can work. That
would help Apple greatly in my mind.
I believe Apple's entire point was that you could work along side
sighted co-workers/peers etc. in a fairly seemless manner and you and
this person could discuss things virtually on equal terms. An example
of this is in Windows, I find that if I'm testing a web site for
someone and I try to show them where I am, MSAA makes it appear to
the sighted person that the cursor hasn't move at all, but yet to the
screen reader and of course me, its moving all over the place. I
guess this has something to do with the MSAA buffer etc. When moving
around the screen on a web page or in an application, my sighted
counterpart can see exactly where I am. I think this is a good thing,
but having the ability to drag and drop would only enhace this
experience. Of course adding a bit more functionallity to Terminal
for automatic speaking would be nice. True you can work with it as
is, but improving it would only make life eaiser.
I still plan to sit and write a letter to Apple and for sure address
it to Steve Jobbs and whether or not he ever reads/sees it, I don't
know, but I think its important to reach out to Apple's higher ups
and let them know the r&d has and is worth it.
Of course not to beat a dead horse to death any further, as much as
Apple pushes Itunes and Ipods, it would be mighty smart of Apple to
either allow other apps to upload music/content to the Ipod, make
Itunes more accessible, or allow one to copy stuff direct to the
unit. This idea they may release an accessible Ipod of sorts would be
pointless if we as Mac users couldn't use them and the Windows crowd
finds it painful.
Just my comments, but yeah I have a long list of VO and non-VO
related items for Apple to work on. Having the ability to mark, cut,
and paste textual content with VO would be really nice.
Of course don't forget there is the online ADC which is free and they
do read bug reports, suggested features, etc. Trust me I generally do
get feedback, but not for every little item submitted.
Scott
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Jul 16, 2006, at 6:17 PM, Travis Siegel wrote:
Me personally, I'd like to see vo work better with XTools. Whether
this is via XTools becoming more vo friendly, or vo doing something
to vo to make it work better with things like interface builder
really makes no difference to me, as long as I can use the silly
thing to build a full-blown app from scratch without having to
resort to coding tricks, command-line editing, and/or canibalizing
other programs just to get the interface objects I need. Though
version 2.3 is a leap forward from previous versions, it still
lacks a *lot* of things. I.E. there's no way (I know of) to get at
the pallete's tool bar, and customizing items such as matricies,
buttons and window panels can't be done using vo only key
combinations. Admittedly, a lot of this has to do with mouse drag-
and-drop type operations, but some of it doesn't, have anything to
do with mous movement (such as customized toolbars) and it sure
would be nice if we could do these kinds of things without sighted
assistance. Especially since,, in my case, sighted assistance for
programming related tasks is extremely hard to come by. Sure, my
wife can click and drag things for me, but often she has no idea
what she's supposed to do, and trying to explain what I want isn't
always possible.
To say the least, working with the tools apple provides for
programming that make it so simple for sighted folks is a real
chore for vo users, and downright impossible in some cases.
I'd also like to see better access to terminal. I've fiddled with
a few solutions myself, and had some success, but nothing I'd write
home about.
I'd also like to see a mode where you could have vo read
automatically when text changes on the screen. While I don't need
this very often, I find occasions where this could be very handy.
