Hi Tom,
Yes and no, for an html file or htm file, like a chm file uses links to
get to the next instruction. I mentioned html because you can click on a
link to the next topic.
An html file will load your browser and allow you to use links. But,
having mentioned that I also suggested using email web pages to at least
allow you to get each link from the Microsoft tutorial pages.
You don't even have to send each page as a web page to your email server
you can also save them as an htm html file which is the default save option
in the files menu.
So, no knowledge of html is needed in either case for all you do is
click on the file and it opens up as either a web page or email page and the
links are there as long as you have that ability to read htm/html pages.
Or, save them as text and would have to either merge all the files with
editing to get rid of all the other stuff.
An html basic page is just 2 statements called tags.
<html>
<body>
do your stuff here.
</body>
</html>
The slash (/) indicates the end of a tag, just like the end statement in
VB. But you would never see this stuff, all you would see is just the name,
vb_tutor.html and click on that name, the rest will be a page with links and
descriptions/examples.
So, just go to the link Chip provided and he does use links to get to
the Microsoft version or other parts of the page he uses. Or go to the
Microsoft Reference and save the pages as you go to them. Either as a direct
file which is option one on the file menu, or the page by email option on
the file menu, your choice. You then have each page saved on your computer
and will be able to at least read each section at will. Just remember to
keep each page in the same folder.
A link on a html page is under the format of:
<a href="http//web page name.html"> Title description </a>
Just open up notepad or any editor and write those 2 tags and then make
each link under the format above. Then save you file as any_name.html
That is if you want to form your own book of references. That web page
inside the quotes can also be a file name that exists in the same folder as
the html file. That tab, <a> is placed inside the body of the page file, or
format is:
<html>
<body>
<a href="File.html"> Name of Section or Title </a>
That file can also be a .htm which will be the format when saving each
Microsoft page. So as long as you no the full name of the page saved within
the same folder, you can make a html file under the format I described
above. There you then have the entire Microsoft reference saved within one
folder and easy to jump around in.
The way to jump around is to click on that link, then do a back link, or
ctrl left arrow, and you will get back to the index and move on to the next.
This way is a crude but affective way to do your own tutorial book.
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2010 9:36 PM
Subject: Re: Window-Eyes Script Writing
And therein lies the problem. I went to the first link and it focuses
strictly on using VBScript within web pages for Internet Explorer. It tells
you that in order to understand the explanations and examples you must first
understand html and xml. While we do use xml in our scripts, I thought, were
I a beginner this would be mind boggling, reading VBScript code within html
code. And the initial examples went straight to using COM automation. Again,
were I a beginner, I'd be totally lost right from the get-go, think this was
all just way over my head, and probably just give up.
Regards,
Tom
----- Original Message -----
From: "BT" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2010 7:32 PM
Subject: Re: Window-Eyes Script Writing
>
> Hi!
>
> Yes, tutorials can come in many forms and like Python scripting
> language, W3 schools follows some what like that tutorial and goes in
> sequence with learning along with samples, which some can be run from the
> web page.
>
> As you said there are many forms to approach the topic but besides
> tape,
> or Recording For The Blind CD's this is the most user friendly type of
> approach, but on line only.
>
> Below I placed the link for the limited VB script tutorial which has
> some of the basics but lacks in the complex stuff...wishing there was just
> one place to do that. Also Python gives you a tutorial you can use with
> html
> to jump from link to link or tutorial section to section or definition to
> definition all within a folder on your computer. Which is the best
> tutorial
> to write.
>
> Any way here is,
> VB Scripting Tutorial:
> http://www.w3schools.com/vbscript/default.asp
>
> W3 Tutorial Index:
> http://www.w3schools.com/sitemap/sitemap_tutorials.asp
>
> W3 Home:
> http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp
>
> Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2010 1:41 PM
> Subject: Re: Window-Eyes Script Writing
>
>
> Oops. Time for a little sort of correction already. This is just for the
> sake of clarity and making things more readable for the beginner.
>
> In my For/Next loop example I used the old school "i" variable. That's how
> we all learned in the old days. I won't bother explaining why, but suffice
> it to say, i stood for index. Today you can use much more common words as
> variables to make your code much more readable, as in the following.
>
> For index = 1 To 5
> Speak index
> Sleep 1000
> Next
>
> Use whatever makes the most sense to you, such as, index, count, counter,
> loopCount, etc.
>
> Tom
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tom Kingston" <[email protected]>
>
>
>> Well, it's called a scripting language because that's exactly what it is.
>> And just like when we learned to read, write, and speak, the bottom line
>> was drilling it into our heads until we could do it without even thinking
>> about it. So naturally the beginner is going to have to reference
>> documentation and examples a lot and keep at it in a consistent enough
>> manner to learn it. And feeling that writing in a text editor is
>> monotonous is only normal, just as the repetitive nature of learning
>> anything is.
>>
>> Some of us have been discussing a tutorial just recently and naturally
>> everyone has their own ideas regarding the best way to go about it. And
>> of
>> course there's no one size fits all method that's going to work for
>> everyone. So while everyone's thinking about it I just started fiddling
>> around with writing a tutorial. Of course things seem easy when you've
>> been doing it for 20 years, but when you try to start explaining it you
>> discover that this has to be explained in order to explain that and
>> you've
>> got to at least touch on that in order to explain the concept of this
>> which is necessary in order to explain the point you started out with. So
>> again, it gets back to how we learned our language. It wasn't in a week,
>> and it wasn't all at once.
>>
>> And while I was working on that I pondered the audio option as well,
>> basically only because a human voice is a nice break from our endless use
>> of speech synthesizers. But that too slams us right back into the nature
>> of language. The equivalent of correct grammar and punctuation is
>> referred
>> to as syntax in a programming language. And the problem is that you don't
>> have two points taken off for a misspelling or a missing comma. Your
>> script throws an error and stops working. Luckily, most of the time,
>> syntax error messages will point you right at the source of the problem
>> so
>> you can correct it quickly. Even seasoned programmers make a type-o now
>> and again. So I'm not sure a strictly audio tutorial would work. I
>> suppose
>> it might because you can reference the audio as much as is needed. But I
>> suspect a combination of an audio tutorial with text file examples would
>> probably work better. Listening to the audio can instill the concepts
>> while having an easily accessible set of example files to really examine
>> would probably be more helpful once you get down to actually working on
>> writing scripts. Of course these are already available in VBScript help
>> files as well as the Window-Eyes scripting manual. But I imagine they
>> could be augmented with a more cohesive tutorial to begin with. It might
>> give the beginner a more gentle learning curve to help them tackle
>> scripting without the intimidation factor overloading them right from the
>> get-go; which I believe is the reason why so few people script. Even in
>> Jaws land, as long as scripting has been around, there's still very few
>> users who are scripting.
>>
>> Regarding the scripting framework? That's probably a good place to start.
>> I don't actually remember how it works because I just took a look at it
>> when it came out. But I think that's what it was designed for. And if you
>> really want to dive right in, download the immediate mode window script.
>> It allows you to pop up a window and write single lines of code that are
>> executed as soon as you press ENTER. And VBScript uses the colon (:) as a
>> virtual line separator so you can actually write more than one line on
>> one
>> line. For example, if you want to write the following For/Next loop to
>> tell your synthesizer to count from 1 to 5 and pause for one second
>> between each number, you'd normally write it in a more structured form in
>> your script, such as in the following.
>>
>> For i = 1 To 5
>> Speak i
>> Sleep 1000
>> Next
>>
>> But you can do the same thing in the immediate mode window or even in
>> your
>> script if you want to by using colons as in the following.
>>
>> For i = 1 To 5 : Speak i : Sleep 1000 : Next
>>
>> In case your mailer wrapped that line and broke it up, it should be one
>> single line from For to Next.
>>
>> And that's what I suggest focusing in on first, VBScript. Learn the
>> language first and just use the Window-Eyes "Speak" command without
>> worrying about how it works as it's pretty self-explanatory anyway. The
>> one thing to realize in the context of learning VBScript is that you can
>> use either variables or literals with the speak command, as in the
>> following.
>>
>> Literal example.
>> Speak "Hello world!"
>>
>> Note the quotes. That's what defines a literal string of text. Now here's
>> the same thing using a variable. I'll explicitly declare the variable
>> with
>> the "Dim" statement because I strongly advise doing so. You don't have
>> to,
>> but not doing so can send you off on wild goose chases due to nothing
>> more
>> than a type-o. For example, counter and ccounter is pronounced exactly
>> the
>> same with my synth so I wouldn't have a clue as to that error. But in
>> order to have this automatically checked and flagged in the event of an
>> error you must use the following as the first functional statement in
>> your
>> script.
>> Option Explicit
>> That's what forces "Dim" statements to be used and causes an error to be
>> thrown whenever a variable is found that hasn't been defined.
>>
>> Dim helloString
>> helloString = "Hello world!"
>> Speak helloString
>>
>> You can enter those lines individually in the immediate mode window or
>> put
>> it all on one line as in the following.
>>
>> Dim helloString : helloString = "Hello world!" : Speak helloString
>>
>> Okay. I better quit before I hit chapter two. So that's my 22 cents worth
>> on the matter.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Tom
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Keith Hinton" <[email protected]>
>> To: <[email protected]>
>> Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2010 10:44 AM
>> Subject: Window-Eyes Script Writing
>>
>>
>>> Hi,
>>> I learn best through audio examples mainly recordings, etc that
>>> demonstrate tasks, even ones like Window-Eyes scripting.
>>> I have a grasp not an extremely detailed grasp, I will be the first to
>>> admit, but enough of a grasp on the visual basic scripting language to
>>> write VBS scripts for Window-Eyes.
>>> I have listened to a few audio files, such as the CSun files where
>>> Aaron and Doug demonstrated in that four hour training session some of
>>> the scripting concepts, including the beginnings of how to write one.
>>> I had some trouble following along with it though due to the number of
>>> computers talking all at once.
>>> :)
>>> Recently, while browsing through the scripting repository on GW
>>> Micro's Script Central Platform, I noticed a Scripting framework
>>> script.
>>> I was curious if this would be a good starting point as it presents
>>> dialog boxes to the user for writing scripts?
>>> I find the idea of entering a text editor and typing out common blocks
>>> of commands as if I were a computer, somewhat repetitive.
>>> Any other suggestions?
>>> I listened to Jeff Bishups ACB Radio presentation and thought that he
>>> was going to do something on how to write scripts in an audio
>>> form.wich I think that some well-known scriptor of Window-Eyes should
>>> consider doing, as detailed as the Jim Snowbarger searies was on JAWS
>>> for Windows scripting.
>>> Maybe something that spans 5 or 6 episodes of MP3 recordings, wich
>>> each going into more and more topics, ranging from the most basic
>>> speak "Hello World" example, to the most difficult task possible with
>>> Window-Eyes scripting as it stands today?
>>> Curious on that one.
>>> Let me know!
>>> At any rait, I think that something like this should be created in an
>>> MP3 format and the lessons archived on the web somewhere, even if
>>> payment is requried to purchase such recordings.
>>> Maybe someone at GW Micro or elsewhere would have an interest in
>>> designing such a thing?
>>> Jeff mentioned something about it, but I haven't seen anything.
>>> Oh and Jeff..I attempted to send you an emial to your
>>> [email protected] address with a few comments about your Skype
>>> scripts, as well as on the Script Central page for those scripts, but
>>> haven't seen anything.
>>> Are you still around? :)
>>> Thanks again to all!
>>>
>>> --
>>> Regards, --Keith
>>> Skype: skypedude1234
>>> MSN Messenger: [email protected]
>>> Yahoo/AIM/Twitter: keithint1234
>>> Facebook: http://facebook.com/keith.hinton1
>>
>
