Let's see pros and cons.
I'll start with my first love window-eyes.
prose
1.
Works well out of the box with many apps providing one learns their
screen reader reading keys, and uses the mouse movement and clicking keys.
2.
Has no invasive and unreliable copy protection scheme.
Allows one to install on any number of machines without having to
deal with internet licensing management.
3.
Costs a bit less than jaws.
4.
Has very good beginner level and intermediate tech support.
5.
Allows one to create customizable environments or setfiles without
having to be a programmer or scripter which is difficult and not
something the average person can do, but setfiles are made with
selections from a menu driven interface and are very powerful.
cons
1.
Does not always accurately work in edit modes with many programms,
eudora, notepad, rename dialogues, etc.
Work has been done to improve this but as of 7.1, errors can still happen.
2.
Does not accurately work at all times with selecting items, or
identifying what's selected.
Inevitably, when window-eyes won't read text that's selected or an
edit field properly, jaws almost always will read it correctly.
3.
Scripting is very powerful and potentially a huge shot in the arm for
window-eyes but as of now there are no real productivity apps
available and many of the scripts are buggy and don't work well, or
they crash window-eyes.
4.
The scripting re-write of window-eyes has de-stabilized it a bit,
it's getting better but still has a way to go to become the most
stable screen-reader on the planet as one of the founders is so fond
of advertising 'grin'.
Ok now for the other mistress I'm forced to have congress with let's
talk about jaws.
prose.
1.
Since they were first in the nt world, and been at scripting longer,
there are many more high level apps that work better with jaws.
My wife says office works better with jaws for her, and my experience
bears this out.
2.
Very good support for editing and selection and accuracy with eudora
and notepad and for jaws 9, not the latest jaws, but for the version
I'm working with is extremely stable.
3.
Very good support for music apps like sonar, and third party
plug-ins, if one is going to be a recording engineer or musician
using music technology, recording, scoring, any of that kind of
thing, and if one wants screen-reader technology to support this in
anything approaching modern standards, jaws is your only choice.
4.
A larger company with more programmers and resources to throw at a
problem, and many more users than window-eyes.
Ok cons for jaws.
1.
Has a terrible copy protection scheme which can go south on you just
for doing simple things like upgrade memory, or even plugging in your
sound card or upgrading firmware.
Further more to add insult to injury, because of how the servers
work, one might get stuck on the weekend and have to wait till
offices open up to get authorized.
This in my oppinion only aggrivates the customers, and leads to smart
folks pirating jaws more and just makes it harder for the honest folk
who need to use their tools but get burned by the heavy handed way fs operates.
2.
Tech support is a bit less personal and not as readily available.
3.
Jaws is picky about video displays, not as much as it used to be but
still a consideration as with any screen-reader, but a bit more so with jaws.
4.
Costs more.
5.
For basic applications right out of the box, with no scripting
involved, jaws doesn't work as well as window-eyes.
If one knows the screen-reader one can open up the defaults a bit,
but over all, I think window-eyes still tends to show a bit more of
what's actually on the screen over-all.
Ok, these are my subjective, objective takes on the two major
players, take it for what it's worth.
Your mileage may vary.
At 09:03 AM 7/25/2009, you wrote:
Hi Blake:
It seems that this debate has been going on forever, but if you are
looking for a consensus among the blind community, you won't get one.
I, along with most others on this list can go on and on about the
things we like about Window-eyes as compared to JAWS, but when I
proclaimed the virtues of Windoweyes over JAWS on another list, I
got an earful from a few of the JAWS users on that list. The moral
of the story is that you need to try Window-eyes yourself, and see
what you think. In my opinion, you will want to stick with it. I
used to be a JAWS user and I switched to Window-eyes and I haven't
regretted it for a moment.
Kevin Huber
----- Original Message ----- From: Blake
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2009 3:45 AM
Subject: Window-eyes good or bad?
Some say that window eyes is a million times better than JFW, some
say the other way around. What does everyone
(and I mean everybody) think about this one?
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