I am not mad, making fun or being inconsiderate but a good old fashion
class action will wrap this thing up in five years with a lifetime to
spare. That's my point. If you have blind people working for you for
16 plus years and you still don't understand accessibility or can't
produce a workable copy for public testing then something is wrong
with the subject of this thread. It should be the path to building a
nation instead of Pro Tools. In my opinion there is nothing Pro about
them. Furthermore we are talking about Pro Tools not Apple or anyone
else. Lets stop passing the buck.
On Jan 8, 2008, at 9:19 PM, Dan Keys wrote:
Hello,
Seeing the trend of this thread. Well, it might be done when OS X
10.9.0 comes out.
On Jan 8, 2008, at 5:56 PM, Shaun Jones wrote:
Hell, it isn't even Tiger compatible yet? When is the public beta?
Furthermore when is the final product going to be released to the
blind community? Not to be smart but if a person needs to have this
product today to get a job as a sound person they could not. Why,
because nothing was actually done to have them incorporate it into
the companies DNA. If they did they would have been in close close
contact with both Windows and Mac screen reader developers. On Jan
8, 2008, at 8:07 PM, Slau wrote:
Thanks for your defiant understanding. Pro Tools is not Leopard
compatible yet. Someone else mentioned that already in this thread
but I guess you must have missed that.
Cheers.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Shaun Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
llc.com>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac
OS X by theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 7:59 PM
Subject: Re: ProTools: The path to accessibility
I defiantly understand. I just want people to stop, look and
listen. That is sighted and blind, college educated or a high
school drop out, CEO or trash-man. If we will have a working
version soon then all is not lost but if it takes longer than
that then change will have to come. Why not test on Leopard,
isn't it the latest OS for Apple?
On Jan 8, 2008, at 7:27 PM, Slau wrote:
Shaun,
To clarify the timeline for you, it hasn't been three years at
all. Our petition, which closed at the end of 2006 prompted the
very first meeting regarding VoiceOver compatibility in October
or 2006. As you can imagine, the development team didn't just
drop everything and start working on accessibility. They were
already in the midst of working on what ended up being PT 7.4.
Mind you, they were essentially finishing up what was to be
introduced at the end of 2007. So, we're really only looking at
about a year since a closer look has been taken, not three years.
To answer your question, I'm using a dual processor G4 running
Tiger for beta testing. Regarding other testers, Digidesign has
a form that you can request to become a beta tester. Naturally,
to be a beta tester, one would have to be quite familiar with
Pro Tools and be well acquainted with it's features and
operation. There are a number of blind Pro Tools users who fit
that bill.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Shaun Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of
Mac OS X by theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 6:25 PM
Subject: Re: ProTools: The path to accessibility
So are you guys telling me that after three years of work and
high level meettings I still can't put my hands on Pro Tools,
use it with VO overr all without having to find a old computer
and a piece of software that isn't even in production. What
platform are you doing testing on? How can we join the team of
testers?
On Jan 8, 2008, at 6:01 PM, Chris Blouch wrote:
Not to crank things up more but I thought Avid was partly
owned by Microsoft and Avid's big product line was high end
video production, the same target market for Apple's Final
Cut. So there is at least the appearance of some compulsion
to not give the Mac platform a huge win with their tools. I
know Avid/ DigiDesign has dropped and picked up the Mac
platform in the past so they haven't had a real love for the
platform.
CB
Slau wrote:
Shaun,
While I sympathize with your frustration, there are a few
things you need to keep in mind.
First, After Rick's work with Digidesign to make Pro Tools
accessible, we blind musicians and audio professionals who
used the Mac with outSPOKEN had years of excellent access to
Pro Tools. Where things fell apart was when Apple
introduced a completely new operating system and there was
no third-party screen reader. This, of course, had nothing
to do with Digidesign and certainly didn't diminish their
track record for working with blind customers. So it's not
like we've had 16 years of no access.
Further, the whole issue of accessibility in OS X was a very
long process, throughout which, we didn't even know if the
blind would have access to the OS, much less any
applications by developers. As soon as it was clear that OS
X Tiger was a viable system for a blind person to use via
VoiceOver, we began our communications with Digidesign which
led to several face-to-face meetings at their Daly City
headquarters as well as the NAMM show in Anaheim and the AES
show in San Fransisco and New York.
Keep in mind that the development cycle for products is not
months but years and this is not a simple application written
in Coco. this is a cross-platform application for OS X and
Windows that requires an enormous amount of work to create
and update. Taking two seconds to change one's mind, as you
say, is not at all the case when it comes to corporations
that have production schedules and development cycles like
this.
Regarding beta testing, I assure you that, not only are
there plenty of beta testers for OS X who are aware of the
issue of accessibility with programs such as Pro Tools, I
happen to be a beta tester for Pro Tools itself and I was
specifically invited to the beta team in the hopes of
future testing of accessibility.
All of this, naturally, doesn't mean that everything is fine
and dandy. It takes a lot of time and effort to continue our
progress. By all means, if digidesign doesn't produce some
sort of results, perhaps a legal action will be warranted
but not before we've tried everything to do it in good faith.
Trust me, I make my living as an audio engineer and there's
nothing more that I want but to ensure Pro Tools
accessibility, for myself as well as for others. While I'm
aware that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, I've been
around long enough to know that there are preferable ways of
going about dealing with corporations and the people who run
them. Incidentally, the petition we drafted, which
Digidesign became aware of by word-of- mouth, prompted an
invitation from them to have a meeting even before we
presented it. The petition was delivered to the heads of
Digidesign as well as their parent company, Avid
Technologies. Our communications are with the senior product
manager for Pro Tools as well as vice-president of marketing
and development. I do believe we're talking to the right
people.
Please be patient and have some trust that some of us who
have had a track record with Digidesign are working hard to
ensure the future accessibility of Pro Tools.
Best,
slau
