Hi, Lets first put this in some perspective here. NVDA internet support is relatively new so a lot of the code to support newer things was created from scratch. The window-eyes brows mode has been around for over ten years and really needs a rewrite. So NVDA works better at times on the internet. This is with browsing web pages etc. it works pretty good with Microsoft office and windows live mail to. It works with t bird also. It should be remembered that Mozilla gave them a grant to make sure it does work. Microsoft also gave them a grant to insure that office and internet explorer worked as well. Adobe also gave them a grant to insure that flash and akrabat worked as well. So as you can see where they are ahead or at least some what in pace is places where they have received grants. Even with this said getting things done on the internet with window-eyes for me was still easyer. One reason was control search mode. Window-eyes has control search mode. This allows you to type in a number and then a letter of the control you are looking for. NVDA elected to go with the letter system that jaws uses to find controls and not allowing you to move directly to a control based on it's number. No place marker feature either. So lets say you are on the cnet news page and with window-eyes you put a place marker on the line right above where the articals begin. Now you press k to move to the marker read to end and start reading the article. NVDA you guessed it you issue it's find command type in more and then hope to god it found the right text. You could be issuing the find command for some time tell you find the more link that is right before the start of the article you want to read. On some sights no matter what I do it gets stuck in its focus mode and I have to turn off brows mode and turn it back on a few times before it figures out that guess what I want to brows the page verces going in to auto focus mode. With window-eyes I can here information about the page before I start reading if I wish so I know what letter commands are useful on this page. With NVDA it does not provide you with this information. If I don't want window-eyes to read new information about the page I can always find it out buy pressing the speak summery command at any time and I will be informed about everything I might want to know about this page. One nice thing that NVDA does that I wish window-eyes could do is NVDA speaks the name of the loaded document and if read whole page is turned off it will read the line of text that the buffer is on when it loads. And example Welcome to GW Micro Skip to Main Content This is usually all I want to know about a page and if I want to know more I will ask for it. So I think window-eyes should add a feature at some point that says automaticly read first line. So first 24 lines first line only whole page nothing. Also a option to speak the name of the document that has been loaded in to brows mode should be added. Working with tables using window-eyes is very friendly because you can control on the fly what is read as you move threw tables. NVDA has an option where you can turn them on and off that is it. With internet explorer 9 the information bar works grait when it works but when it doesn't you have no idea what is going on with it. There is no key you can press to read that bar at any time. Of course window-eyes has such a key and the information bar is always working. As far as refreshing the buffers between the two I found on the pages I went to that I needed to do this more often with NVDA. For example on the bard site once I downloaded a book if I wanted to keep track of what links I have visited after using the info bar to save the book I would have to refresh the buffer. Window-eyes picked up on it and there was no refresh needed. NVDA does not work with eloquence or dectalk out of the box. If you can find a sapi version of dectalk you can use it or if you want to you can buy eleaquence support NVDA pro. The speech that ships with it is e-speak and it sounds like the old accent. So reading long articals on the web wasn't fun. NVDA does do things window-eyes doesn't like it supports land marks. But for the most part window-eyes still has NVDA beat hands down here for the reasons I site above. Now lets talk about programs that are not listed as programs it supports. Window-eyes has a set file system that NVDA only can wish it had. Reading the screen in ways that makes scence window-eyes here has NVDA beat hands down. Then there are the programs where NVDA will just say unknown unknown when you move to controls and there is nothing you can really do. My vertic. NVDA is a good alternative if you need a screen reader to get sertain things done and you have a tight pockit book. The programs that it supports it does a good job of supporting them. Don't count on using programs that it doesn't support because fact of the matter is with window-eyes you can do things to get it working if it doesn't work with NVDA then it doesn't work and your not using it. You the user is not the top priority the grants makers are. So if your having a problem with lets say goldwave and it works horribly in that program buy the way and there is a problem with t bird the problem with t bird is on the top of the list no matter what the users say. T bird has to be on the top of the list because t bird support pays the bills not your need for goldwave. The window-eyes brows mode is being redone when it gets finished it will be done right. I saspect that it will be better then the others because gw micro took the time to see what works and what doesn't. I would guess we will get that around the same time we get windows 8 support. I can't wait and I know that when it does come out gw micro will be hearing what I have to say and chances are that what I have to say will be noted. Here is an example. I said I would buy window-eyes when it had the ability to be scripted so when the set file wasn't enough you could get in there and do something about it. They put scripting in and maid it where you could add features that you needed and wanted. They herd the user and did what the user asked. I bought my copy of window-eyes and I am a proud owner of it. Not scence david at synthavoice dyed have I felt like my feedback mattered and the company was going to do things I asked for. It is the only screen reader I know of that allows me to pick and choose what features I want and need in my screen reader. Does it have issues sure it does every pece of software does. Does it get the job done better then the rest? Most of the time it does. Here is the wonderful thing about all this. NVDA is free so you loos nothing buy putting it on your system use it when it makes scence for you to do so. Use window-eyes when it makes scence to do so. I am sorry I don't see NVDA replacing window-eyes on my system any time soon. The views expressed here are my own, and they are completely subjective.
Jim Grimsby JR. E-mail and Windows Live Messenger: [email protected] Skype Jim.grimsby Twitter Jgrimsby -----Original Message----- From: Tom Fairhurst [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2012 4:28 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Fw: window-eyes on the net, bit of a rant Sorry I didn't send this to the list the first time. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Fairhurst" <[email protected]> To: "Keith Barrett" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2012 5:46 PM Subject: Re: window-eyes on the net, bit of a rant > I, too, am frustrated with internet issues such as continually refreshing > web pages, edit boxes not speaking, needing to refresh a page before it > loads at all, the mouse not routing correctly, etc. However, after hearing > some of you praise NVDA as if it was sent from God, I thought I would give > it a try. I can see using it on the internet and will give it a further > look. However, in my first attempt to use, it, I was disappointed. The > explanation of the object navigator is quite confusing, in fact, I'm not > sure what it is. As far as I know, mouse movement is quite limited, and > determining its position on the screen is cumbersome if not impossible. > The documentation regarding the system focus, system caret, and the mouse > again is hard to understand. I can't imagine using it with other products > like MS Word, Excell, etc. I found with RealPlayer, it reads very little. > If anyone wants to write off list, that would be fine. Having an > open-source screen reader is fine. However, in my first analysis, NVDA is > worth not much more than its price. At least with Window-Eyes, one can > move the mouse pointer freely around the screen and in many different > ways. There have been good strides with Microsoft products. I do realize > that with them, we take one step forward and one step back sometimes. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Keith Barrett" <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2012 3:38 PM > Subject: window-eyes on the net, bit of a rant > > >> Can I start by saying I have been a window-eyes user since version 4.0 >> and up until version 6.x I found it more or less met all of my >> requirements. >> >> In recent times, however, I am having more and more issues when using the >> net. >> >> My main issues are, pages constantly reloading, regardless of the >> autoload settings and links and onclicks seem often to be invisible to >> window-eyes. >> >> I find that now, in order to make full use of the internet, I have to use >> nvda most of the time. >> >> As my sma has no more upgrades left, I now have to decide whether to >> renew it or donate the ammount I would have spent to nvda. >> >> I am wondering how window-eyes can have, seemingly, fallen so far behind. >> >> I know that there is the suggestion that window-eyes will perform better >> in some applications and this may well be so but with the internet >> playing such a huge parte in most people's lives, surely, this should >> work. >> >> Also, I believe that previously, as the readme states, window-eyes was >> the most stable screenreader out there but this seems to have changed >> since the introduction of scripting. I now have all scripting turned off >> just to try and make window-eyes the most stable screenreader. >> >> I do not usually send much to this list but I am really not sure that I >> can consider spending any more on the product when there seem to be so >> many issues on the internet. >> >> I hope that for those of us who feel unable to continue with an sma at >> present, there will be a chance to upgrade again at a reasonable cost if >> window-eyes can return to the quality product that us old-time users are >> used to. >> >> Just thinking aloud and as a final thought, bearing in mind how far nvda >> seems to have come in its short life, could it be time to consider making >> window-eyes open source so that it can get the development it needs to >> keep up with the changing technologies. >> >> Hope noone has been offended by any of this but having spent the evening >> trying to navigate my online banking site, I needed to let off some >> steam. >> >> Regards >> >> Keith Barrett >> If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender >> only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is >> related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to >> [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. >> >> GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can >> manage your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv. >> > If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can manage your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv. If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can manage your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv.
