O, ok. So if that doesn't read, might I ask how people like yourself figure
these kind a things out? Do yall usually get sighted help to look at
things? Tell me your tricks!
Chris.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jacob Schmude" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X by
theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 7:28 PM
Subject: Re: My initial thoughts on Open Office
Hi Chris
Agreed on every count, except the preferences dialog. This is in fact not
obvious, and is not truly accessible, but there are quite a few tabs.
What you do is tab to the ok button. Tab, then shift-tab. You should be
on a control that says nothing, this is a control that will not read and
VO will not see. You can arrow up and down to get to the different
preference tabs, using vo+f2 to check the window title which will reveal
which tab you are on. The options in each tab are accessible, but the tab
list or category table, or whatever it is, is not.
On Nov 5, 2008, at 18:36, Chris Gilland wrote:
OK, I cannot really vouch for the whole suite. I only have so far,
played with Writer, but I wanted to give my first initial thoughts.
1. I must say, when the application comes up, I was shocked at how long
it took to load. I think it took maybe half a minute to a minute. I
dono if that's cause I'm only running 800mhz or what. So, I really
can't make a fair complaint there, as I dono if OO is to blame for that.
My guess is, probably that they're not.
2. Upon the first look of the Writer screen, just voing around, I was
very! very very impressed. Not quite, but almost everything read.
There were a few things here and there that I wasn't really totally sure
about. I didn't vo H on them though, as it's not that they are not
labeled, it's just I don't really know what they are used for, or do.
So, I'll rtfm on those. Really, they're probably things I'll never use
though anyway.
3. I noticed that some of the menu buttons in the two toolbars at the
top, didn't seem to drop down when I hit vo space on them. Neither did
they seem to do anything when I rooted my mouse and then did vo shift
space to click. I've not tried vo shift m yet as that just occured to me
right before typing this mail. So, that actually might work.
4. The edit areas on the main writer screen are disgusting in my
opinion. I can't for the life of me figure out what they are. There's
about 4 or 5 of them that I am seeing.
I also am noticing, that if I have a file that has multiple lines of
text, which 99.99 percent of files do, I'm finding it's for some really
peculiar reason, putting each line as a seperet item. meaning, I can
actually vo left and right, and hear each line seperetly by item. Now
that! is annoying! Command up arrow does not seem either to be taking
me to the toppa the file.
5. I don't like the fact that I am a low vision user, and there is no
zoom option in the window menu. This means the only way to maximise
the application where it takes the whole screen is to either resize the
window, or, spend a few minutes looking through the menus only then, to
find that command F will give you full screen. I just don't like the
fact that that option wasn't more obvious.
6. I went into the preferences. I was quite disappointed that there is
only one tab, and that one tab hardly is worth anything. All it has is
like, your name, your e-mail address, your phone number, etc. There is
really no customization.
7. The fact that I could not apply certain formatting very obviously
and easily really ticks me off. I'm sure it can be done, but, I've not
found any way. For instance, like I said before, creating tables and
then entering data into them, seems a royal pain in the behaunkus.
Furthermore, I want the ability to change accessibily the color of the
font text, as well as change the document's background color.
I've not found either how to do that.
8. Conclusion: I think at least that Writer, is o, Kayyy. I think it
still however needs a ton of work. It's a real good first try/ start,
but, there are just enough annoyances to really drive me insane. Does
this mean I am giving up? Absolutely not! If someone can work with me,
and show me how to do, and how to get around these things that are
confusing me, I'd be more than happy to give them a chance to do so. Do
I think this is a bad product? Again: Absolutely? not! I think it
actually, is extremely promising. I think it has fantastic potential,
but there are just so many kinks right now, that I really don't think
I'd use it as my primary editer. I'm not very good at editing things on
a Mac, anyway, in general, but, I'd like to get better at it, that's for
sure.
Chris.
