Excellent comments, and worthy of a note to [email protected]. Anyone remember jaws 3 or window-eyes 3? These screenreaders are in their 11th and 7th generations respectively, and I can remember being the old codger that I am the performance of their third or 4th generation products. Absolutely a lot of room for improvement on the voiceover side, but I feel that being the "walled garden," allows the stability to continue to work on these types of issues. On 2010-09-02, at 6:15 PM, William Windels wrote:
> Hello, > I want also to say something about this topic: > > Apple is doing great efforts to make their products accessible and macosx > with voiceover is in global, working good. > Also , the trackpad is a very nice feature that don't exist on windows > computers for blind users. > > However, I have also some remarks: > since 10.6, voiceover isn't that stable like in 10.5. > Sometimes, voiceover is restarting while reading texts , I think because of > some strange characters. > But, this is not a big problem while comparing with windows and the > screenreaders because they are also crashing sometimes. > > A bigger problem , in my opinion is that voiceover from apple is the only > screenreader on the mac. > > I mean: since safari 5, the braille isn't working correctly in formfields. > > This problem can also happen of course on windows when a new release of a > browser is installed but, on windows , there are at least 2 browsers that are > fully supported by the most screenreaders: internet explorer, firefox and > perhaps opera. > > firefox 4 (beta) isn't also accessible with voiceover after a first look. > > Also, the time-machine program, to restore e.g. a deleted folder from the > past, isn't accessible with vo. > The automatic backup system of timemachine works great! > > Pages, a great texteditor isn't also fully accessible : tables in pages are > n't working with vo. > > The numbers application has not the same features as excel with a > screenreader. > Navigation in numbers is missing some important features. > > Also: the braille representation on the mac has not the same contort as on > windows, I give 2 examples: > The text on the brailledisplay isn't independent of the speech. so. in > global, what the mac says, that will be shown on the braille display and > revers. > It makes it much more powerful if you can configure what to read in braille > and what to hear. > A second thing is the representation of controls on a braille display: > They should give a option to configure how the representation of a radio > button, a button, a dropbox/pull down menu, a checkbox, a link, should be > shown on a braille display. > The best solution here is to have language independent symbols for this kind > of controls. > Since some people have only a braille display of 12, 20 or 40 characters, it > doesn't make sence to see only checkbox on your display. > > When I try to speak with other blind people about the mac and the included > accessibility, the first question they ask is about particular programs they > want to use. > > When I compare this about text processors, internet, spreadsheets , databases > (ms access), powerpoints, chatting, listening to music..., not all of this > tasks gives the same confort on a mac as on windows. > > Conclusion: I love the mac , osx is great but the accessibility is still a > work in progress and, in my opinion, not at the same level of most windows > screenreaders. > > > best regards, > William > Op 2-sep-2010, om 22:47 heeft Mike Arrigo het volgende geschreven: > >> Just a few comments to add to this. First, I think gw-micro is a great >> company and window eyes is a great product, I'm using it with my work >> computer to write this message. With regard to supporting the web, at this >> point at least, voiceover is actually ahead of window eyes, because it >> handles the pages that change dinamicly. In window eyes, if a page changes >> through something like java script, you must reload the browse mode buffer. >> On the mac, as apple says, it just works. The new content is available as >> you navigate the page. I know gw-micro is working on this, and I'm sure once >> the work is done, it will work very well. Also, on a mac, you can install a >> new version of the operating system completely and totally without sighted >> assistance, with speech and or a braille display. This cannot be done with >> windows. Of course, this is not the fault of gw-micro, Microsoft gets the >> blame for that one, but I think it demonstrates the commitment Apple has to >> accessibility. >> >> -- >> Email services provided by the System Access Mobile Network. Visit >> www.serotek.com to learn more about accessibility anywhere. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]. >> 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 [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > 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 [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. 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