Sorry to say, but yes, and a clear yes. Even yesterday, I was unable to
operate some site on the web, due to WE all the sudden locking itself
up. No, it did not hang, I could switch to other windows and it would
talk, but in Firefox WE did go to sleep. Loading NVDA, I at least was
able to perform a couple of operations, and then closing down Firefox.
See more and more cases, when NVDA is the rescue for getting things
completed, when working on the net. WE locks itself up, for no real
reason, but NVDA works steadily over-all better. Furthermore, I have
seen tons of cases recently, where WE keeps refreshing the web page.
That is even with the NoScript add-on for Firefox. It fially becomes so
troublesome, that you close down WE, and load NVDA. Note, you do not
close anything other than the screen reader. You now can get things
done, by help of NVDA. Now, you could have thought it was just WE going
tired, and that two minutes rest for the screen reader would do the
trick. Well, try to close down NVDA, then reload WE, and things go back
to trouble. The page keeps refreshing, your cursor jumps around, and all
that stuff - or the whole system simply locks, and only a hard-start
will work.
Then, you could think that some sort of app would be the hazzle. First
thing you try, is to turn off the Enhancement apps, like IE-Enhance, to
see if that fixes things. Generally, NOPE. Then, you decide to turn off
all apps, and let the screen reader work for a while. Only to find
yourself hurled into trouble in a little. You then get frustrated and
unload the whole WE screen reader, load NVDA, and with the risk of
sounding negative - find yourself able to finalize the web job in
something like 90 percent of the time.
First thing AISquare need to fix, is the constant buffer reload. If they
cannot fix it, leave us a hotkey for turning off the reloading, so we
can lock the buffer at a given state. How NVDA has fixed things, I am
not sure, but they surely seem to have managed. Second thing that would
need attention, is to have the Flash-function work in both browsers. In
internet explorer, you sometimes can save yourself a bit of frustration,
by hitting Alt-Shift-M, till you have turned off flash-mode. Honestly, I
am not sure, if I ever have seen any benefit of it turned on, but that
could just be me. So, personally, I have turned it off, and save the
setting. But it does not work under Firefox, for some reason.And,
thirdly, they need to get the mouse-functionality back, in Internet
Explorer. Some sites, simply cannot work properly under Firefox, and
they still need mouse interaction. Finally, they need to recognize the
different controls on a site, as actual controls and not just plain text.
Well, seems we could do with an upgrade. Smile. Question is, if this is
just a strict browse-mode issue, or something deeper in the core of the
screen reader, which just happens to poke its nose out under
Browse-mode. Lets just hope, that they are going to further develop WE,
and that the new ownership combined with the "free" version of WE for
Office users, are not another way of preparing the market for a
turn-down. No, I am not trying to be negative, but unfortunately have
seen a few other companies doing similar maneuvering - only to find that
their products got in the background in the new partnerships. And, a few
years later, noone ever seem to remember the product.
With so much infiltration of other partners, maybe WE is no longer free
to go where it wants to, and needs to. And without having tried anything
else but NVDA, lately, I may be wrong - but it sure seems to me that
Window-Eyes is loosing out in the market. For one thing, due to the
frequent trouble in operating the web, which becomes a steadily growing
part of everyones daily living. Things that you could do just fine on a
local computer, or via an e-mail, can no longer be done without
operating some sort of websites. More and more badly constructed sites
dawn on the net, causing WE to go for vacations all the time. Nope, this
is not anything that GW, or AISquare, can do much about, other than
follow up on the changes. They have done so, in the past, by awaiting a
"good" time to release some kind of fixes. For instance, a few years
ago, there was a face-lift to the browse mode. For the most part, it was
a beneficial one, and we got a few new features built-in, like the place
marker feature, and we lately also saw the form interaction feature
which met a number of user-requests. So, by all means, they have done
some updating, and I for one, do appreciate that. Still, the net is so
rapidly changing, that browse mode cannot just have a face-lift every
second or third year. Likely, they should have released things more
frequently, and got out fixes more like one by one, instead of updating
once in a while, with a number of fixes. One thing they could do, is to
rebuilt the core of the screen reader, so that it could take
patch-fixes. Just like the Windows OS itself. See how often Microsoft
pushes out updtates to your Windows, even to the browser; then compare
it all with how often the screen reader gets things updated. True, they
do update their apps more or less frequently, but the screen reader has
been built the way - far as I can understand some of the messages from
the staff - that not everything can be handled through apps. So, they
may need to push out new updates more frequently, and far more
simultaneously around the globe. If there is the need for a fix in the
USA, likely the same fix is needed in China, Australia, Europe and on
the AntArtcitica. They all access the same net, the same websites, uses
the same Office, and so forth. Sorry, but on a few of these poins, wE
has dragged itself more in the background later years. The big benefit
of the screen reader, that still keeps it up front of others, is the
capability of running third-party apps, of which we have a number really
good and stabil ones. Unfortunately, that may not be enough, all the
time the user gets frustrated by not being able to finish his job on the
websites he is working with.
Again, my intention was NOT to sound negative, but merely to point out
some of the facts of a real-life experience with Window-Eyes compared
with NVDA. NO, NVDA is by far not an equivalent to Window-Eyes, so the
comparison may seem a bit out of scope to someone. Still, if NVDA has
managed to work more stabil on the net, maybe there is things that
AISquare needs to focus on. People do not need whistle and bells, they
need stability. As a funny side-note here, could I just mention, that
locally here the electronic stores report that now aday, three out of
five sold cellphones are no longer smartphones. People want their
keyboard back, and a phone that can do just the basics - ring and send
text messages. They are sick and tired of all the extra blah-blah-blah
on the smartphones. OK, I don't want to start a discussion of cellphones
on the market, but it just underlines the needs and want of many a user.
Also the assistive technology, may want to concentrate more on
stability, than on numerous fancy-looking ways of presenting themselves.
y
David
On 7/14/2014 8:38 AM, [email protected] wrote:
So does any other screen reader do better at the current moment? nvda?
Vaughan Dodd <[email protected]> wrote:
Donald: your truly reliable solution request, which I think is reasonable, is
to hope that AI Squared are close to releasing a new Window-eyes.
Yesterday was almost the last straw for me, as Forms Mode failed across three
sites, using Internet Explorer and Firefox.
We have not had any progress with respect to making Browse Mode more stable
since last December. I am not even certain that any developments of
significance actually occurred, but v8.4 is more stable than its predecessors
in the version eight series.
The elements which make up modern web pages appear now to be so numerous, and
the interactions so complex, that where once window-eyes was the leader in web
accessibility it has seemingly fallen out of the race.
Vaughan.
-----Original Message-----
From: Donald L. Roberts [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, 14 July 2014 9:53 a.m.
To: [email protected]
Subject: Browse mode frustrations
Regardless of whether I use Firefox or Internet Explorer, I find it extremely
frustrating to navigate some web pages when W E 8.4 is constantly turning
Browse mode on and off, despite the fact that I have turned auto load off.
Please tell me if there is a truly reliable solution to this problem, not some
partial solution.
Thanks.
Don Roberts
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