Just for the record, I'm not sure how much my letter did for Xcode. Apple had been steadily improving Xcode accessibility for years, just not at a pace I'd like, and version 7 still doesn't address many of my concerns. The processes are easier and more reliable, certainly, but VO users still follow some alternative procedures, and some parts are still unlabeled/not intuitive to use. I have to wonder if the improvements we got in 7 were more coincidental than the result of anything I wrote.
As to an open letter for braille support, I'd suggest using the AppleVis contact form to put the idea forward. > On Oct 5, 2015, at 09:48, Devin Prater <[email protected]> wrote: > > Perhaps we could get with Applevis and write an open letter to Apple about > braille. Not just for the Mac, but for the phone too, as there are some huge > annoyances there too. The open letter seemed to help with xCode so maybe > braille can get it next. > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Oct 5, 2015, at 7:50 AM, Scott Granados <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> This is a well presented message and reflects a lot of my feeling as well. >> I do not have the driver problems you have, I’m using a Focus 40 Blue but >> the cursor routing is a real problem. I find the key assignment features >> difficult to master, things are really inconsistent like I could map space w >> to close a window for example but it won’t work in mail yet it will in Text >> edit etc, mapping across applications is not consistent for me. Absolutely >> agree on the status cells and I disabled them as well on my 40 cell display. >> >> >>> On Oct 4, 2015, at 8:08 PM, Blee Blat <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> I have a display but I may be hitting different bugs than others so I >>> wouldn't mind a list either. I have noticed that cursor routing is useless >>> because there is no separate braille cursor or braille doesn't follow the >>> system cursor it just moves the voiceover cursor which isn't what should >>> happen. There's no way to tell if text is selected easily since dots 7 and >>> 8 are used for the voiceover cursor as well as the highlighting of text. I >>> don't understand what to do with these silly status cells at all. I turn >>> them off on OS X and iOS because I don't understand how their information >>> is at all useful especially on a small 18-cell display. >>> Braille input is also equally useless on iOS and OS X because I braille too >>> quickly and the driver appears to hang. I should also point out that I >>> frequently work with autocorrect and dictation turned off because I still >>> get input lag typing on qwerty as well but the braille translator makes >>> input lag a lot. >>> I'd sell this braille display to someone if I could find one for a >>> reasonable price that I could put under the laptop or keyborad since I >>> don't like the braille input function at all because it doesn't work at all >>> in a useful way. >>> Also USB serial support is broken in OS X so that you cannot use your >>> braillle display in USB mode at least not with Refreshabraille even though >>> the documentation claims it works. Bluetooth frequently drops on both iOS >>> and OS X especially after sleep / wake so often the braille display will >>> not connect at all and I have to revert to speech. Braille also doesn't >>> work until after the user is logged in, nor does it work in recovery mode. >>> There is no braille for emoji either. >>> Some of this is probably user error because OS X and iOS probably handle >>> braille differently than BRLTTY which is what I used to use. I moved to OS >>> X to avoid Windows because I generally prefer UNIX shells and things and I >>> thought maybe Apple had better accessibility when I played with it and in >>> general I'm not unhappy with that decision. But it seems to me that the >>> computer industry in general is releasing poorly written software for all >>> users and so I'm thinking every OS is badly written and buggy so I'm giving >>> Apple a pass on that one. It seems people want things in this world that >>> give the delusion of working but don't actually work and that is ok if >>> that's what people want. So I expect it to be horribly broken because >>> that's what sells and I'm surprised that in general Apple tends to be less >>> horribly broken than other companies but I am sure it's a design decision >>> since the focus seems to be on data mining and tracking and accessibility >>> just doesn't help them collect data or advertise so it means nothing. And >>> braille is the bottom of the stack when it comes to that. >>> I wrote Apple Accessibility telling them that I've got a lot of time and I >>> could learn their architecture and help with braille testing but I got a >>> form letter saying that they'd look into the bugs I reported so I left it >>> at that. But I would like to know how to get the most out of braille on >>> either the phone or the mac because I prefer not to use speech since it >>> gets in the way of my creative process, especially thanks to Apple Music >>> and several meditation apps being available on all devices. Don't take >>> any of this as criticism or negativity I'm willing to help but I don't know >>> what's constructive. I'm also betting that maybe I haven't explored >>> something or don't fully understand some features so I'd be willing to take >>> this off list for extended conversation if someone wants we could talk >>> about how to get this stuff constructively fixed. I think Apple is trying >>> to do the right thing I'm just not sure how we can help them. >>> Yes it's a small user group but it might get larger very quickly if somehow >>> we had easily accessible built-in working braille support to point people >>> at. Sorry if this is a bit long I have only given the most severe bugs >>> I've noticed. There's probably more I'm sure but I'm assuming the ones I >>> encountered were user error mostly but someone make a list of bugs and we >>> can hack this out. Thanks for reading and have fun times. I'll go away now >>> unless there's a reply. >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "MacVisionaries" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to [email protected]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Have a great day, Alex Hall [email protected] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. 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