apple has said they are 100 percent behind the mozilla effort and will do what they can to help and they constantly point out that all a 3rd party has to do is use their apis. they use msaa, why not apple accessibility apis. The answer is money.
----- Original Message ----- From: "kaare dehard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X by theblind" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2008 9:48 AM Subject: Re: Firefox (was Re: voice over evaluation) I think it is rather rediculous that mozilla says we want it to be entirely accessable across all platforms, but it's our way or no way. On 15-Nov-08, at 12:44 AM, Jacob Schmude wrote: > I can't speak to the motives of Mozilla, but it certainly does seem > counterproductive to take the stance they are taking. As for Orca > and Firefox, it is useable though far from a joy to use. It takes an > approach very similar to NVDA on Windows, but has serious stability > issues and often gets into a loop on pages--i.e. you'll be arrowing > through the same text repeatedly due to Orca getting stuck. It also > has a tendency to repeat an entire page after each element loads, so > very complex sites often continuously start reading from the top > until they are loaded--this often causes an exception in Orca and > makes it crash--admittedly, Orca is not a shining example of > stability. Further, responsiveness can be a serious problem > depending on a number of factors in your UNIX or Gnome setup, > sometimes Orca can take up to a second--no, I'm not exagerating--to > read after you push the arrow keys. > That being said, if you really did have to use it you would be able > to do most things with it. But it can be a world of frustration > especially if you need to do something quickly or are trying to get > through a conplex site you've never visited. Give me Safari, even > with its bugs, any day. Preferably, give me a bleeding edge > Webkit :). I'm probably biased, though, as I've always hated the > virtual buffer concept that every screen reader except for Voiceover > uses. Then again, I was a fan of Outspoken so that probably tells > you something right there. > > > On Nov 15, 2008, at 00:26, Mike Arrigo wrote: > >> That does seem silly, Apple has already provided the accessibility >> interfaces, why reinvent the wheel? By the way, how well does >> firefox work with Orka? >> On Nov 14, 2008, at 6:47 PM, Jacob Schmude wrote: >> >>> Actually, they said Firevox which is technically true, seeing as >>> how it's a speech extension to Firefox that has the ability to use >>> Mac's TTS engines. Honestly though it's pretty pathetic compared >>> to just about everything else, even Firefox under Linux with Orca >>> works better and that's saying quite a bit at this point. >>> Obviously Safari with Voiceover blows it out of the water. >>> I really wish Mozilla could swallow their pride and work with the >>> OS X accessibility APIs, but they seem determined to have it their >>> way or no way. They had a blog post on this a while back, and >>> basically summed it up that if Apple wouldn't open source >>> Voiceover or otherwise implement the Mozilla access APIs into it >>> they would never provide access on the Mac, with considerable >>> emphasis on open sourcing Voiceover. Honestly the whole thing came >>> off kind of childish to me, and is certainly counterproductive to >>> Mozilla's stated goals of providing access for everyone. >>> >>> >>> >>> On Nov 14, 2008, at 19:38, Mike Arrigo wrote: >>> >>>> Another comment that Apple made was that fire fox is accessible, >>>> unless something has changed, this is incorrect. >>>> On Nov 14, 2008, at 12:40 PM, John Panarese wrote: >>>> >>>>> I agree. I must admit that I was both very surprised and quite >>>>> pleased. At least, it seems that A Mac was used and there was >>>>> much more thought put into this review. >>>>> >>>>> As for Open Office, I would not say that it is fully accessible, >>>>> but it surely is usable on a daily basis if one needed an office >>>>> suite. The spreadsheet is surely quite impressive. The word >>>>> processor takes some getting used to, but, again, one can use it. >>>>> >>>>> Take Care >>>>> >>>>> John Panarese >>>>> >>>>> On Nov 14, 2008, at 10:49 AM, Slau wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "kaare dehard" >>>>>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >>>>>> > >>>>>>> It is certainly a more thoughtful >>>>>>> than the review done in 2005. I don't agree with all of it but >>>>>>> let's give em marks for effort this time round... >>>>>> >>>>>> I agree. I was a staunch critic of the 2005 review by Jay >>>>>> Leventhal but I sent him a message thanking him for a far >>>>>> better evaluation this time around and thanks to Jim Denham for >>>>>> his review. >>>>>> >>>>>> Slau >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >> >> > >
