While VO works very well in most cases without scripting, I would assume that one could add the really interesting augmentations that JAWS and WE provide in a lot of programs to make their users interactions more efficient.
I really want to explore doing this but I haven't had the time or energy to devote to learning any of it well enough to even understand what is and is not possible. AppleScript has a lot of powerful ways to access a lot of applications and if the VO scripting interface offers enough ways to hook an application (do not mistake this with the dreaded video hooking in the traditional Windows screen access tools) it would likely be possible to do a lot of cool stuff. If Numbers, the OpenOffice spreadsheet or Tables provides a extensibility model as rich as Excel on Windows, there's no reason why one couldn't do all of the nifty stuff that JAWS and WE provide. These sort of features do not lend themselves to a generic accessibility solution like VO uses getting data from the accessibility API. These augmentations require the software have a lot of knowledge about the program it intends to provide efficiency enhancements to. A whole lot of JAWS scripts are there for no other reason than to work around JAWS bugs. This is not true for Window-Eyes as their scripting facility is a whole lot more powerful and, rather than just reading information from some rectangle on the screen aloud, it can do some extraordinarily interesting things by communicating with the automation layers in other programs. WE .SET files, however, did a lot to work around bugs in Window-Eyes. VO scripting wouldn't be to work around bugs but, rather, to provide really cool enhancements in areas where generic presentation models fail or under serve. cdh On Dec 2, 2009, at 1:27 PM, Nicolai Svendsen wrote: > Hi, > > One thing I can say here, is that VoiceOver doesn't require it. It's > important, in my opinion, to make the distinction between a screen reader > that is practically dependent on them, and a screen reader for which it is > not required to run applications or even use. I don't even believe > AppleScript for VoiceOver was allowed before 10.6. I might be wrong, and if > so I've never used it to improve either applications or its performance. > > Regards, > Nic > Skype: Kvalme > MSN Messenger: nico...@home3.gvdnet.dk > AIM: cincinster > yahoo Messenger: cin368 > Facebook Profile > My Twitter > > On Dec 2, 2009, at 7:01 PM, John W. Carty wrote: > >> I've been following this list for a good while now and I appreciate all the >> good insight I've gained concerning the mac os and voiceover. >> >> I'm moving ever closer toward purchasing a mac but it seems like all screen >> readers the access has limits. >> >> Has anyone attempted to improve voiceover performance thru applescript? >> >> If so, is there a web site where scripts are shared? >> >> I'm a long time jaws and we user and i've written a lot of scripts over the >> years and without extensive scripting niether jaws nor we would offer nearly >> the level of performance available today. >> >> Thanx, >> >> John >> >> >> -- >> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email >> tomacvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
