Hi Dark,
Lol! Sorry, so far no dice. The copy of the consumer beta of Windows 8 I
have here does not let you customize the interface too much. Right now
what you see is what you get.
Its kind of funny but if you listen to the GW Micro podcast of Windows 8
and Window-Eyes someone in the audience asked if someone would be
creating something like Classic Shell to revert Windows 8 back to the
classic Windows look and feel. Of course, Dug and Jeremy didn't know,
but GW Micro's position is that they are not going to do anything like
that themselves as they feel that a blind user should get familiar with
the new look and feel in order to be productive in the job market which
I agree with.
In my opinion frankly speaking blind users have been spoiled for far too
long. When Windows XP came out the Jaws tutorial Freedom Scientific told
them to turn off the new start menu and revert everything back to the
classic look and feel. That's fine and dandy as far as accessibility
goes, but at the same time they are not learning to use the computer in
the way a sighted user uses it, and have become use to having that
feature available. Now, that Windows 8 is in beta and any hope of a
classic user interface is pretty much non-existent its going to present
blind users with a huge learning curve they can't overcome simply by
turning off feature x they don't like.
That said, I don't think the situation is as dire as it could be. Yes,
the new start menu sucks, but there are plenty of workarounds that don't
even require using the start menu. I can press Windows+r, type Notepad,
and it will pop up without having to screw around with the start menu
screen. I can also use the search screen, Windows+f, to act as another
run command to find icons for programs and apps as well. I can go into
the start menu and assign hot keys to all the icons I want to which
means I can launch most programs without having to use the search
screen, run command, or start menu. Finally, there is the option to pin
apps to the taskbar so I don't even have to leave the desktop to get
most stuff done. So its not as dire a situation as it could be. Its
simply another case of finding new ways to do the same thing.
Cheers!
On 3/14/2012 8:15 PM, dark wrote:
Hi tom.
that all sounds pretty dire, I especially ahte the sound of the
columnized views, but we'll see. Once again though this is the trend
of having information all on screen rather than accessible through
separate areas.
i hope myself there will be the opportunity to put it into lists or
some other change to stop it looking as stupid, ---- and whoever
thought of ribbons needs hanging on the end of one and punching for
several days Imho.
yes, I am biased I freely admit, but ribbons just annoy me, sinse they
are so damn illogical.
hopefully though sinse windows 7's lack of customizability in the
interface was a major turn off microsoft will actually listen on this
one and offer some alternatives, but we'll have to see. Otherwise I
might be heading off to find bill gates with a very big hammer, ----
though I suspect I'll have to wait in the kew, sinse I imagine lots of
people are looking for bill gates with very big hammers :d.
"hay bill, like windows? ---- maybe your head needs a new context
window opening! let me pin this to your task bar!" :d.
Beware the Grue!
Dark.
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