Re: [BRLTTY] [OT] Re: How doyou read books?

[Aura Kelloniemi]

Hi

Shérab  writes:
 > Many thakns for your very interesting answer!

Thank you for your question.

 > Along time ago I also started to write a program to read books on my
 > braille device. The program was written in OCaml and its ideas were very
 > close to what you describe. Unfortunately I didn't maintain it and since
 > it seems less advanced than yours, I wouldn't mind at all giving it up
 > to collaborate with you.

Thanks. There have been some API changes in Python's regex module which I have
to update my program for. I also need to do some checking, and make the key
bindings somehow customizable - probably by editing a bunch of constants in a
Python script, but that's better than no customizability.

 > If there are no secrets in your code, would you mind making it available
 > on GitHub?

There are dreadful confessions about crimes that I did in my past lives
written into the doc strings of methods... No, not really. I will release it
when I have time to do some cleanup on the code.

I consider my program to be useful for reading files, but it has some inherent
limitations, e.g. the file being read has to fit in RAM at once. I don't think
that it would either be a good idea to start duplicating features of other
applications (like web browsers, directory managers, text editors, etc.) in
it, because it would be a huge effort. Also my program does not support
keyborad input from the TTY, so it is not very useful with braille devices
which don't have a braille keyboard.

As a result I'm not interested to develop this code very much. I would instead
want to write a BrlAPI interface for emacs, because emacs already supports a lot
of functionality. Emacs is pretty usable with braille display already, but it
could see a little bit of enhancement (e.g. using routing keys as a
replacement for the mouse).

But definitely I don't have anything against somebody else developing my code
further. Be warned though, that it has not been designed with extensibility in
mind.

 > It would also be nice if you could bemore precise about the kind of
 > improvemnets you would like to see in BrlAPI regarding the handling of
 > keys and commands.

You can read about this from a thread titled "[BRLTTY] BrlAPI Raw key code
mode?" started by Mario Lang on this mailing list on 23 Jul 2017 00:12:56.

-- 
Aura
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[BRLTTY] Success! Re: installing BRLTTY on the mac

[Devin Prater]

It wasn’t that hard. I didn’t expect it to be easy, and yes, compiling is still 
nerve-wracking to me, but it works. Here is the page I got my instructions from:
http://brltty.mielke.narkive.com/9QBwp00R/installing-brltty-on-the-mac
Here are the notes I took:
First, make sure you have Xcode installed, or the command line tools. Then, get 
Homebrew. Simply search Google for this, and it’ll most likely be the first 
result. Follow the easy instructions there.
Now, install git. First, run the Terminal app, found in the utilities folder of 
the applications folder in the Finder app. When there, type:
Brew install git
Now, after you land back at your prompt, you can either download the source 
code from git, or you may download the tar.gz file from the downloads page on 
the BRLTTY site. The origin of these instructions uses the “live” git version. 
I’m not that adventurous… yet.
Git clone https://github.com/brltty/brltty 
Now you’ll have the BRLTTY code on your system. This code is in human-readable 
form, so it cannot quite be ran as a program yet.
Now, to run the auto-generator, we must have autoconf. Don’t ask me why, I just 
got an error about it and installed it from Homebrew, like this:
Brew install autoconf
So, if you get an error about something not found, similar to “autoconf: 
command not found,” you may attempt to install the command through Homebrew.
Now, run:
./autogen
When that’s done, run:
./cfg-darwin —prefix=/usr/local
Now, when that succeeds:
make
Then:
Sudo make install

Now, get screen:
http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/screen/screen-4.2.1.tar.gz 

Now, the screen program has to be patched to allow it to work with BRLTTY. Why 
Screen doesn’t just get the code and patch it in officially is beyond me. I 
guess there has to be a reason, so we just do:
sudo patch -p0 ___
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Re: [BRLTTY] How doyou read books?

[Devin Prater]

Thanks for letting me know that BRLTTY works with the Touch. If I can dredge up 
old emails about getting it working, and if I successfully do get it working, 
I’ll compile it all into, hopefully, an easy to follow manner and send it here.
Devin Prater
Assistive Technology Instructor

, Microsoft Outlook, Excel, Word, and Powerpoint instructor certified by World 
Services for the Blind

> On Mar 4, 2018, at 2:41 PM, Dave Mielke  wrote:
> 
> [quoted lines by Devin Prater on 2018/03/04 at 13:43 -0600]
> 
>> When BRLTTY gets a driver for the Braille note Touch, I’ll probably try 
>> compiling and running it on my Mac, if that’s still possible. 
> 
> The HumanWare driver already supports the BrailleNote Touch. Use the latest 
> brltty release (5.6) as there were some problems in earlier releases.
> 
>> There should really be an article on the BRLTTY site about that, and maybe 
>> even applications that work well with BRLTTY for doing everyday tasks, like 
>> writing and reading. 
> 
> I'll gladly accept submissions. I'll organize them into a web page, and will 
> even go through them to correct spelling, etc, but I need submissions!
> 
> -- 
> I believe the Bible to be the very Word of God: http://Mielke.cc/bible/
> Dave Mielke   | 2213 Fox Crescent | WebHome: http://Mielke.cc/
> EMail: d...@mielke.cc | Ottawa, Ontario   | Twitter: @Dave_Mielke
> Phone: 1-613-726-0014 | Canada  K2A 1H7   |
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Re: [BRLTTY] How doyou read books?

[Dave Mielke]

[quoted lines by Devin Prater on 2018/03/04 at 13:43 -0600]

>When BRLTTY gets a driver for the Braille note Touch, I’ll probably try 
>compiling and running it on my Mac, if that’s still possible. 

The HumanWare driver already supports the BrailleNote Touch. Use the latest 
brltty release (5.6) as there were some problems in earlier releases.

>There should really be an article on the BRLTTY site about that, and maybe 
>even applications that work well with BRLTTY for doing everyday tasks, like 
>writing and reading. 

I'll gladly accept submissions. I'll organize them into a web page, and will 
even go through them to correct spelling, etc, but I need submissions!

-- 
I believe the Bible to be the very Word of God: http://Mielke.cc/bible/
Dave Mielke   | 2213 Fox Crescent | WebHome: http://Mielke.cc/
EMail: d...@mielke.cc | Ottawa, Ontario   | Twitter: @Dave_Mielke
Phone: 1-613-726-0014 | Canada  K2A 1H7   |
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Re: [BRLTTY] [OT] Re: How doyou read books?

[Shérab]

Dear Aura,

Many thakns for your very interesting answer!

Along time ago I also started to write a program to read books on my
braille device. The program was written in OCaml and its ideas were very
close to what you describe. Unfortunately I didn't maintain it and since
it seems less advanced than yours, I wouldn't mind at all giving it up
to collaborate with you.

This program I wrote was called bless. This had two meanings. First it
was meaning braille-less, so a version of less but made
braille-friendly. Second bless like in blessing, because I saw it as a
blessing to be able to read comfortably.

If there are no secrets in your code, would you mind making it available
on GitHub?

It would also be nice if you could bemore precise about the kind of
improvemnets you would like to see in BrlAPI regarding the handling of
keys and commands.

Best wishes,

Shérab.
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Re: [BRLTTY] How doyou read books?

[John Covici]

For emacs, there is a whole customization for saving places, as well
as bookmarks.  It saves your whole desktop including places in all
your buffers.  To put in read only mode its c-x-q. or to visit a file
in read only mode its c-x-r.

On Sun, 04 Mar 2018 14:22:35 -0500,
Devin Prater wrote:
> 
> [1  ]
> [1.1  ]
> [1.2  ]
> [1.2.1  ]
> John, how do you have Emacs remember your place in a book? Do you use EWW or 
> something else, or just have it in a text file, converted with Pandoc or 
> something? I’m assuming you put the file in read only mode, I forget how this 
> is done
> but know its possible, and simply do space or C-v to scroll the window?
> Devin Prater
> Assistive Technology Instructor
> *
> , Microsoft Outlook, Excel, Word, and Powerpoint instructor certified by 
> World Services for the Blind 
> 
>  On Mar 4, 2018, at 12:39 PM, Shérab  wrote:
> 
>  Thanks a lot for your feedback, John!
> 
>  So, when you get a book in HTML or epub or whatever, you convert it to
>  text?
> 
>  Best wishes,
> 
>  Shérab.
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> 
> [2  ]
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-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

 John Covici wb2una
 cov...@ccs.covici.com
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[BRLTTY] [OT] Re: How doyou read books?

[Aura Kelloniemi]

Hi

My reply is a bit of off-topic on this list, but it might interest some
readers.

Shérab  writes:
 > I am wondering what you guys find most comfortable to read books in text
 > formats. Perhaps the first question could be which file format do you
 > prefer?

Anything somehow text-based. Anything that is understood by pandoc or other
conversion tools.

 > And then, which tool do you use to read it?

I use my own application (written in python3 + brlapi). It is a tool which
does not write anything to the TTY, but only communicates with the user using
BrlAPI.

My program supports (at the moment) only one bookmark per file. It has a
limited built-in text editor (for correcting spelling mistakes), an English to
Finnish dictionary lookup tool, and it supports regex-searching across files.

Its features make up a bit odd combination, because I just implemented what I
myself needed.

The tool is not available anywhere, because its keybindings are very weird.
That is due to BRLTTY's command set. For example I have bound KEY_CMD_INFO to
go back to previous navigation context, because KEY_CMD_INFO has been bound to
a convenient key on my Focus Blue display in my personal BRLTTY configuration.

I consider updating my application, if BrlAPI's command key handling improves.

One useful thing about my program is that I never need to hit PageDown or care
about long lines wider than the terminal.

-- 
Aura
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Re: [BRLTTY] How doyou read books?

[Devin Prater]

Oh, thanks. When BRLTTY gets a driver for the Braille note Touch, I’ll probably 
try compiling and running it on my Mac, if that’s still possible. There should 
really be an article on the BRLTTY site about that, and maybe even applications 
that work well with BRLTTY for doing everyday tasks, like writing and reading. 
I know, all CLI apps should work, but some work better than others for tasks.
Devin Prater
Assistive Technology Instructor

, Microsoft Outlook, Excel, Word, and Powerpoint instructor certified by World 
Services for the Blind

> On Mar 4, 2018, at 1:24 PM, Shérab  wrote:
> 
> I think it's thanks to Emacs' desktop that the positions in files are
> remembered.
> 
> Shérab.
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Re: [BRLTTY] How doyou read books?

[John Covici]

Well, for those, I may do that, or read with speech on a computer that
can do the web better than linux on the console.  I also use the
iphone for a lot of such things, since I can hook up the Braille
display to the iphone via Bluetooth.

On Sun, 04 Mar 2018 13:39:12 -0500,
Shérab wrote:
> 
> Thanks a lot for your feedback, John!
> 
> So, when you get a book in HTML or epub or whatever, you convert it to
> text?
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Shérab.
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> For general information, go to: http://brltty.com/mailman/listinfo/brltty
> 

-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

 John Covici wb2una
 cov...@ccs.covici.com
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Re: [BRLTTY] How doyou read books?

[Shérab]

I think it's thanks to Emacs' desktop that the positions in files are
remembered.

Shérab.
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Re: [BRLTTY] How doyou read books?

[Devin Prater]

John, how do you have Emacs remember your place in a book? Do you use EWW or 
something else, or just have it in a text file, converted with Pandoc or 
something? I’m assuming you put the file in read only mode, I forget how this 
is done but know its possible, and simply do space or C-v to scroll the window?
Devin Prater
Assistive Technology Instructor

, Microsoft Outlook, Excel, Word, and Powerpoint instructor certified by World 
Services for the Blind

> On Mar 4, 2018, at 12:39 PM, Shérab  wrote:
> 
> Thanks a lot for your feedback, John!
> 
> So, when you get a book in HTML or epub or whatever, you convert it to
> text?
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Shérab.
> ___
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> To post a message, send an e-mail to: BRLTTY@brltty.com
> For general information, go to: http://brltty.com/mailman/listinfo/brltty

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Re: [BRLTTY] How doyou read books?

[Shérab]

Thanks a lot for your feedback, John!

So, when you get a book in HTML or epub or whatever, you convert it to
text?

Best wishes,

Shérab.
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Re: [BRLTTY] How doyou read books?

[Shérab]

Dear Arthur,

Many thanks for your interesting response! You did send it only to me
personnally so I quote it below so that everybody can read it and then I
reply, below.

Arthur BREUNEVAL (2018/03/04 19:12 +0100):
> Hello Shérab,
> I personally read books in TXT format, with the internal editor of my
> device (Esytime, or Iris before). When I want to stop my reading, I
> simply put the device in hibernate mode, so I can restart when I want
> and at the same position I left. My device has an automatic reading
> mode, so it can move the Braille yindow with a certain time shift you
> can set, but I prefer to move it manually, since I'm not absolutely
> constant when I'm reading. Some lines need more time to be read, I don't
> want to impose a rythm to my reading, it is the book that does it.
> 
> Except for technical books, or even for books that don't count a story
> (like novels), that I can read with the speech synthesis, this is always
> the method I use.

I am not found of automatic reading mode, for the reasons you explain.
Even with a device that can detect my fingers and ajust the speed to
thier position, I think I would prefer not having the device move the
text without me deciding.

I think it's too bad there is no free software to read books in braille
in a comfortable way, would really be a nice thing to have, IMO.

Best wishes,

Shérab.
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Re: [BRLTTY] How doyou read books?

[John Covici]

I use emacs, which of course saves your place.  I do have to hit
something when I get to the bottom of the page -- I wish the cursor
would follow the brltty window, but other than that, it works well.  I
am using a Humanware Brailliant 40 cell.

On Sun, 04 Mar 2018 12:17:48 -0500,
Shérab wrote:
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> I am wondering what you guys find most comfortable to read books in text
> formats. Perhaps the first question could be which file format do you
> prefer? And then, which tool do you use to read it? Is it less, a text
> editor, lynx, or perhaps the internal tools of your notetakers?
> 
> What do you find most comfortable for long reading sessions and are you
> trying to achieve continuous reading (that is, you don't have to do
> anything special to update the screen?).
> 
> Also, does your solution provide a way to keep track of your position
> between your reading sesions?
> 
> Or perhaps you read books only through speech synthesis?
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Shérab.
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> 

-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

 John Covici wb2una
 cov...@ccs.covici.com
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[BRLTTY] How doyou read books?

[Shérab]

Dear all,

I am wondering what you guys find most comfortable to read books in text
formats. Perhaps the first question could be which file format do you
prefer? And then, which tool do you use to read it? Is it less, a text
editor, lynx, or perhaps the internal tools of your notetakers?

What do you find most comfortable for long reading sessions and are you
trying to achieve continuous reading (that is, you don't have to do
anything special to update the screen?).

Also, does your solution provide a way to keep track of your position
between your reading sesions?

Or perhaps you read books only through speech synthesis?

All the best,

Shérab.
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