Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
I agree that Apple's model is better because the issue is addressed where it should be, at the application level. A screen reader developer making scripts removes the responsibility from the app developer. Of course, some developers just are unwilling to fix the accessibility issues with their application, and in those cases, using an alternative is the answer. For example, microsoft office on the mac is not accessible, use Iwork instead. Parallels is not accessible, fusion is a great alternative. Original message: One of the double edged swords is that many apps work in the Jaws world because the developer has written jaws-specific scripts for their app. These scripts get around shortcomings in either the screen reader or the app's communication with the accessibility APIs. They are often times written by a contracted 3rd party and, by definition, are brittle. So when the next OS, app or Jaws release comes out the scripts break and have to be fixed and re-released. This cycle is the antithesis of future-proofing. Apple took a different approach where the screen reader and accessibility APIs are robust enough that this scripting shouldn't be needed but it also means that a general app developer needs to care enough to bake accessibility in. This also means they can't just make their app and farm out accessibility to some 3rd party contractor as in the Jaws model. I'm convinced that the Apple model is better long term but am concerned that it requires a general app developer to now become aware of accessibility, which doesn't always happen. The good part is that Apple's development frameworks get a lot of accessibility stuff baked in 'for free'. The downside is that custom widgets or anything special probably needs the developer to do extra accessibility work, which they often do not. So it's not really Apple's fault that Microsoft has written their entire app using their own custom widgets, but it is Microsoft's fault for not hooking their widgets into the well defined accessibility APIs. Likewise for Mozilla and many others. In the end, I want Apple's futureproof accessibility for free model to work, I'm just unsure if developers are buying into the value of providing accessible apps. The success record there has been kinda spotty. CB On 6/25/12 8:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
There is o paid screen reader for the mac, nor is there really a need for one. I will address a few of your concerns. Not sure what you mean about browser support, I have no problems searching for fields or navigating tables on the web. Regarding the issues with Microsoft office programs, this is because microsoft refuses to follow the standards Apple has created. So, this is not the fault of the screen reader, it's the application developer's fault for not using the tools Apple has provided. Original message: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Agreed, we should not have to pay any more to access a device than a sightedperson does, and accessibility should not have to be developed by third parties, the company that makes the products should be responsible for making it universally accessible and that's what apple has done. Original message: First: A very helpful way to work with tables, at least on web pages, is possible if you have a full-sized keyboard, by using NumPad Commander; it is possible to use the number keys to move up, down, left or right in a table by unit, so that you can get a much better sense of how things are laid out and why it makes sense that way. Similarly, all the other things you mentioned--Office, DropBox, etc.--have work-arounds that, while not precisely the same as Windows, work just fine. Third, if you want a paid, screen-reader, just install VMWare or use Boot Camp and install Windows and Jaws or whatever you prefer on another partition. Best of both worlds. However, what distresses me most is your conclusion that paying someone else to design a screen-reader that would work better, simply because there's money involved. Apple has worked *VERY!* hard to make VoiceOver work while *NOT* replicating the mistakes and limitations of Windows. Developing an app that does what VO does is not only reinventing fire, the wheel *and* all of basic astronomy, it's downright insulting. I, for one, will NEVER pay for a screen-reader for the Mac when VoiceOver is not only free, but stands as a beachhead in terms of universal accessibility, which is what we should be shooting for in Mac, Windows, refrigerators, Cable TV boxes, department stores, etc. Paying someone else to make sure that something works right for the blind, is something we should be striving very hard to get *AWAY* from, not reestablish. • Mark BurningHawk Baxter • AIM, Skype and Twitter: BurningHawk1969 • MSN: burninghawk1...@hotmail.com • My home page: • http://MarkBurningHawk.net/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Good morning every one, This is my last post on this topic , yes keith , my last, and after, I will reply some privately. I'll thank you all for the discussion and the points where that strong to have a discussion but in global: a paid screenreader is idd not a good idea. It's because the built in screenreader the iOS-devices and MacBooks are accessible out of the box and yes, this is a great example food many other company's who makes electronic devices around the world. About the rules of Apple: osx has built in accessibility rules and the programmers of third party apps should follow this rules . This is true , the most stable option but not the fastest and easiest way. But one big remark: apple is not following their own rules in iWork's: the most accessible and complete office suite on the mac available for us. I hope they will bring out a update soon. The other point about scripting: yes apple scripting should be at least even powerful as jaws scripting and probably, much more powerfull but not that easy for everyone. I should will pay for scripts that are made by others if they should solve some problems or create a workaround for it that's comfortable. I knew a (italian) site: http://www.universalaccess.it/ that was beginning with such thing but there seems not that much new since a long time (on the English page). :( Any other sites should be very welcome... and, the problems in pages and the icons in the status bar of third party programs seems confirmed by some of you. So, who which can also mail me privately on william.wind...@gmail.com because I think I won't reply on that message on the list. Kind regards and thx for the discussion. William Windels Op 25-jun.-2012, om 14:08 heeft William Windels het volgende geschreven: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Hi all, I think a paid screenreader would create an environment like we have in the Windows world, relying on third parties to develop scripts for apps that don't work well out of the box, having to wait for those scripts to be updated if something is broken in an app update, OS update etc. I got tired of this reliance on third parties, and a reliance on scripts in general to make an app accessible. Also having to spend a lot just to get access to the system, was somehting that I'm happy not to see on the mac. Love it that you can just get a Mac, and have access to it right out of the box. . I like Apple's model, as it allows developers to test their apps, just by hitting command-f5, and having knowledge of three or four VO keystrokes.Usually dialog with developers in my experience has been good, some hasn't been as good, but if anything, we can make developers aware of the fact that their app could potentially be made accessible. Regarding later versions of Skype, I'd compare the UI to iTUnes, where you have your source list which in the case of skype, contains items like contacts, and then recent events, such as chats,etc. Then to the right of that table, you have information related to whatever you have selected in that table. I found the skype 5 interface to be a good change, and haven't had the need to use Skype 2.8 since. On 2012-06-26, at 4:27 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: I am aware. I have troubles with the newer version of Skype. I cannot get it to speak messages in the text window automatically with growl. that and the interface is a bit more confusing. I think I will need someone sighted to help me with the layout when I do get around to it. -eric On Jun 26, 2012, at 10:53 AM, Matthew Campbell wrote: Hi. I'm sure you do realize that there is a newer version of Skype available? This version has that keystroke. On 2012-06-25, at 11:14 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: that key assignment was not set as default and in Skype 2.8 (which I use on OS X 10.6) it doesn't even show as an assignment at all. I had to use a mute Skype script. also, I have to set Skype to auto-answer as there doesn't appear to be any way I can access the answer dialog (I know, I have tried every method available here and no joy). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 6:07 PM, Matthew Campbell wrote: Hi. What's wrong with pressing command shift M to mute Skype? On 2012-06-25, at 8:39 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: applescript is as (if not more) powerful than the scripting interface for jaws. since it is built-on to OS X, you can do a lot more with it than you could in windows with jaws scripts. Apple scripts can be set up as system services, application interfaces or even assigned to shortcuts. I use one such to allow me to mute the mic in Skype. I am not sure you can do this with jaws. anyway, that is my take on applescripts and OS X. at least, OS X is designed with accessibility in mind (of which windows is not). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Daniela Rubio wrote: VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
I was talked through how to install it once. unfortunately, its not so easy (it seems that voiceover gets a little slow in the script utility and I do not why.). I will respond privately with the attachment. -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 8:13 PM, Christopher-Mark Gilland wrote: Erick, would you be so kind to send me the script to mute my mike, and tell me how to install it? Chris. - Original Message - From: Eric Oyen eric.o...@gmail.com To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:39 PM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? applescript is as (if not more) powerful than the scripting interface for jaws. since it is built-on to OS X, you can do a lot more with it than you could in windows with jaws scripts. Apple scripts can be set up as system services, application interfaces or even assigned to shortcuts. I use one such to allow me to mute the mic in Skype. I am not sure you can do this with jaws. anyway, that is my take on applescripts and OS X. at least, OS X is designed with accessibility in mind (of which windows is not). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Daniela Rubio wrote: VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
All. I really get tied of seeing these bashing threads on different OS's and screen reader. This isn't productive at all and shows quite a negative outlook. Each model has positive and negative components which they range beyond what has been discussed thus far. If you believe there is improvements required. Then actively reach out to the relevant companies and send them positive and constructive information to them. If you require more people to help, then reach out to the relevant blind lists to get others to help you to support your change. This applies for any app on any OS. Lets work as a group, rather then complaining why this or that doesn't work. A larger group can make a change, compared to a single person. The windows screen reader companies have done an amazing effort with the restrictions to the inner workings of the OS. which they have had. Apple also has done an excellent job in the short period of time. Freedom Scientific in the late 90's made an word office applications accessible at a level where it was not available before. Window-eyes change the way people on the Windows platform interacted with web browsers. Orca also has done an amazing improvements to Xwindows with no real budget at all and uses a similar model as Apple. So a lot of amazing work has done to improve the accessibility of products. We are no where near at the end of the road. All OS's, applications and screen reading software have improvements. Give credit due to these companies with their effort and dedication in making very usable products under a very difficult environments. One comment I will make. Historically Apple have been very positive with accessibility. Having the foundation they have makes it a lot easier for developers to make their products more accessible. The question I would raise is what would happen to apples commitment to accessibility if the GFC occurs again which is being predicted. This Time they are saying it is going to last for many years. If comes to crunch and Apple has to make a decision on what features are not going to be developed or improved, will accessibility be the first to go? Will apple continue putting the same effort or would they place the level of accessibility on hold? Apple as yet have not been placed in this situation and it will be interesting to see what occurs, if this ever eventuates to find out what Apple does. . Sean -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
I agree that we need to mace always constructive comments. Just a little question, What is GFC? I don't know. Thanks! SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 26/06/2012, a las 13:37, Sean Murphy escribió: All. I really get tied of seeing these bashing threads on different OS's and screen reader. This isn't productive at all and shows quite a negative outlook. Each model has positive and negative components which they range beyond what has been discussed thus far. If you believe there is improvements required. Then actively reach out to the relevant companies and send them positive and constructive information to them. If you require more people to help, then reach out to the relevant blind lists to get others to help you to support your change. This applies for any app on any OS. Lets work as a group, rather then complaining why this or that doesn't work. A larger group can make a change, compared to a single person. The windows screen reader companies have done an amazing effort with the restrictions to the inner workings of the OS. which they have had. Apple also has done an excellent job in the short period of time. Freedom Scientific in the late 90's made an word office applications accessible at a level where it was not available before. Window-eyes change the way people on the Windows platform interacted with web browsers. Orca also has done an amazing improvements to Xwindows with no real budget at all and uses a similar model as Apple. So a lot of amazing work has done to improve the accessibility of products. We are no where near at the end of the road. All OS's, applications and screen reading software have improvements. Give credit due to these companies with their effort and dedication in making very usable products under a very difficult environments. One comment I will make. Historically Apple have been very positive with accessibility. Having the foundation they have makes it a lot easier for developers to make their products more accessible. The question I would raise is what would happen to apples commitment to accessibility if the GFC occurs again which is being predicted. This Time they are saying it is going to last for many years. If comes to crunch and Apple has to make a decision on what features are not going to be developed or improved, will accessibility be the first to go? Will apple continue putting the same effort or would they place the level of accessibility on hold? Apple as yet have not been placed in this situation and it will be interesting to see what occurs, if this ever eventuates to find out what Apple does. . Sean -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
GFC is global Financial Crises which occurred in 2009. I work for an international company which is getting ready for it now. Sean On 26/06/2012, at 9:41 PM, Daniela Rubio wrote: I agree that we need to mace always constructive comments. Just a little question, What is GFC? I don't know. Thanks! SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 26/06/2012, a las 13:37, Sean Murphy escribió: All. I really get tied of seeing these bashing threads on different OS's and screen reader. This isn't productive at all and shows quite a negative outlook. Each model has positive and negative components which they range beyond what has been discussed thus far. If you believe there is improvements required. Then actively reach out to the relevant companies and send them positive and constructive information to them. If you require more people to help, then reach out to the relevant blind lists to get others to help you to support your change. This applies for any app on any OS. Lets work as a group, rather then complaining why this or that doesn't work. A larger group can make a change, compared to a single person. The windows screen reader companies have done an amazing effort with the restrictions to the inner workings of the OS. which they have had. Apple also has done an excellent job in the short period of time. Freedom Scientific in the late 90's made an word office applications accessible at a level where it was not available before. Window-eyes change the way people on the Windows platform interacted with web browsers. Orca also has done an amazing improvements to Xwindows with no real budget at all and uses a similar model as Apple. So a lot of amazing work has done to improve the accessibility of products. We are no where near at the end of the road. All OS's, applications and screen reading software have improvements. Give credit due to these companies with their effort and dedication in making very usable products under a very difficult environments. One comment I will make. Historically Apple have been very positive with accessibility. Having the foundation they have makes it a lot easier for developers to make their products more accessible. The question I would raise is what would happen to apples commitment to accessibility if the GFC occurs again which is being predicted. This Time they are saying it is going to last for many years. If comes to crunch and Apple has to make a decision on what features are not going to be developed or improved, will accessibility be the first to go? Will apple continue putting the same effort or would they place the level of accessibility on hold? Apple as yet have not been placed in this situation and it will be interesting to see what occurs, if this ever eventuates to find out what Apple does. . Sean -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
I believe that you access the Skype keypad by using command+2. IS that what you wanted? Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 10:19 PM, Christopher-Mark Gilland wrote: Aa! So that's! how you do it! Coolness! Now, anyone got a keystroke for toggling on and off the key pad for dialing touch tones? Chris. - Original Message - From: Matthew Campbell wrestling.ch...@gmail.com To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 9:07 PM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Hi. What's wrong with pressing command shift M to mute Skype? On 2012-06-25, at 8:39 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: applescript is as (if not more) powerful than the scripting interface for jaws. since it is built-on to OS X, you can do a lot more with it than you could in windows with jaws scripts. Apple scripts can be set up as system services, application interfaces or even assigned to shortcuts. I use one such to allow me to mute the mic in Skype. I am not sure you can do this with jaws. anyway, that is my take on applescripts and OS X. at least, OS X is designed with accessibility in mind (of which windows is not). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Daniela Rubio wrote: VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Global Financial Crisis. I don't think it'll affect Apple enough that they would have to trim accessibilityRD. Egun On, Lagunak! Basque for G'day, Mates Louie P. (Pete) Nalda Http://www.myspace.com/lpnalda Http://www.facebook.com/lpnalda Http://www.linkedin.com/in/lpnalda Twitter @lpnalda On Jun 26, 2012, at 6:41 AM, Daniela Rubio mabuha...@gmail.com wrote: I agree that we need to mace always constructive comments. Just a little question, What is GFC? I don't know. Thanks! SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 26/06/2012, a las 13:37, Sean Murphy escribió: All. I really get tied of seeing these bashing threads on different OS's and screen reader. This isn't productive at all and shows quite a negative outlook. Each model has positive and negative components which they range beyond what has been discussed thus far. If you believe there is improvements required. Then actively reach out to the relevant companies and send them positive and constructive information to them. If you require more people to help, then reach out to the relevant blind lists to get others to help you to support your change. This applies for any app on any OS. Lets work as a group, rather then complaining why this or that doesn't work. A larger group can make a change, compared to a single person. The windows screen reader companies have done an amazing effort with the restrictions to the inner workings of the OS. which they have had. Apple also has done an excellent job in the short period of time. Freedom Scientific in the late 90's made an word office applications accessible at a level where it was not available before. Window-eyes change the way people on the Windows platform interacted with web browsers. Orca also has done an amazing improvements to Xwindows with no real budget at all and uses a similar model as Apple. So a lot of amazing work has done to improve the accessibility of products. We are no where near at the end of the road. All OS's, applications and screen reading software have improvements. Give credit due to these companies with their effort and dedication in making very usable products under a very difficult environments. One comment I will make. Historically Apple have been very positive with accessibility. Having the foundation they have makes it a lot easier for developers to make their products more accessible. The question I would raise is what would happen to apples commitment to accessibility if the GFC occurs again which is being predicted. This Time they are saying it is going to last for many years. If comes to crunch and Apple has to make a decision on what features are not going to be developed or improved, will accessibility be the first to go? Will apple continue putting the same effort or would they place the level of accessibility on hold? Apple as yet have not been placed in this situation and it will be interesting to see what occurs, if this ever eventuates to find out what Apple does. . Sean -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Hi. I'm sure you do realize that there is a newer version of Skype available? This version has that keystroke. On 2012-06-25, at 11:14 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: that key assignment was not set as default and in Skype 2.8 (which I use on OS X 10.6) it doesn't even show as an assignment at all. I had to use a mute Skype script. also, I have to set Skype to auto-answer as there doesn't appear to be any way I can access the answer dialog (I know, I have tried every method available here and no joy). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 6:07 PM, Matthew Campbell wrote: Hi. What's wrong with pressing command shift M to mute Skype? On 2012-06-25, at 8:39 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: applescript is as (if not more) powerful than the scripting interface for jaws. since it is built-on to OS X, you can do a lot more with it than you could in windows with jaws scripts. Apple scripts can be set up as system services, application interfaces or even assigned to shortcuts. I use one such to allow me to mute the mic in Skype. I am not sure you can do this with jaws. anyway, that is my take on applescripts and OS X. at least, OS X is designed with accessibility in mind (of which windows is not). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Daniela Rubio wrote: VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels --
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
I am aware. I have troubles with the newer version of Skype. I cannot get it to speak messages in the text window automatically with growl. that and the interface is a bit more confusing. I think I will need someone sighted to help me with the layout when I do get around to it. -eric On Jun 26, 2012, at 10:53 AM, Matthew Campbell wrote: Hi. I'm sure you do realize that there is a newer version of Skype available? This version has that keystroke. On 2012-06-25, at 11:14 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: that key assignment was not set as default and in Skype 2.8 (which I use on OS X 10.6) it doesn't even show as an assignment at all. I had to use a mute Skype script. also, I have to set Skype to auto-answer as there doesn't appear to be any way I can access the answer dialog (I know, I have tried every method available here and no joy). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 6:07 PM, Matthew Campbell wrote: Hi. What's wrong with pressing command shift M to mute Skype? On 2012-06-25, at 8:39 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: applescript is as (if not more) powerful than the scripting interface for jaws. since it is built-on to OS X, you can do a lot more with it than you could in windows with jaws scripts. Apple scripts can be set up as system services, application interfaces or even assigned to shortcuts. I use one such to allow me to mute the mic in Skype. I am not sure you can do this with jaws. anyway, that is my take on applescripts and OS X. at least, OS X is designed with accessibility in mind (of which windows is not). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Daniela Rubio wrote: VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Lol! What makes to have a different native language! thanks! SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 26/06/2012, a las 17:14, Pete Nalda escribió: Global Financial Crisis. I don't think it'll affect Apple enough that they would have to trim accessibilityRD. Egun On, Lagunak! Basque for G'day, Mates Louie P. (Pete) Nalda Http://www.myspace.com/lpnalda Http://www.facebook.com/lpnalda Http://www.linkedin.com/in/lpnalda Twitter @lpnalda On Jun 26, 2012, at 6:41 AM, Daniela Rubio mabuha...@gmail.com wrote: I agree that we need to mace always constructive comments. Just a little question, What is GFC? I don't know. Thanks! SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 26/06/2012, a las 13:37, Sean Murphy escribió: All. I really get tied of seeing these bashing threads on different OS's and screen reader. This isn't productive at all and shows quite a negative outlook. Each model has positive and negative components which they range beyond what has been discussed thus far. If you believe there is improvements required. Then actively reach out to the relevant companies and send them positive and constructive information to them. If you require more people to help, then reach out to the relevant blind lists to get others to help you to support your change. This applies for any app on any OS. Lets work as a group, rather then complaining why this or that doesn't work. A larger group can make a change, compared to a single person. The windows screen reader companies have done an amazing effort with the restrictions to the inner workings of the OS. which they have had. Apple also has done an excellent job in the short period of time. Freedom Scientific in the late 90's made an word office applications accessible at a level where it was not available before. Window-eyes change the way people on the Windows platform interacted with web browsers. Orca also has done an amazing improvements to Xwindows with no real budget at all and uses a similar model as Apple. So a lot of amazing work has done to improve the accessibility of products. We are no where near at the end of the road. All OS's, applications and screen reading software have improvements. Give credit due to these companies with their effort and dedication in making very usable products under a very difficult environments. One comment I will make. Historically Apple have been very positive with accessibility. Having the foundation they have makes it a lot easier for developers to make their products more accessible. The question I would raise is what would happen to apples commitment to accessibility if the GFC occurs again which is being predicted. This Time they are saying it is going to last for many years. If comes to crunch and Apple has to make a decision on what features are not going to be developed or improved, will accessibility be the first to go? Will apple continue putting the same effort or would they place the level of accessibility on hold? Apple as yet have not been placed in this situation and it will be interesting to see what occurs, if this ever eventuates to find out what Apple does. . Sean -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Hi. Adding to what Ray said, It doesn't seem really that necessary for there to be a 3rd party screen reading option for the Mac. Something like that will probably cost $1 or something else ridiculous and there will probably be an SMA every version or so for another $1000. It seems like there's a lot of improvements to VO coming down the pipeline in Mountain Lion. Maybe they will fix some of the minor annoyances with VoiceOver. On 2012-06-25, at 8:42 AM, Ray Foret Jr wrote: Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Hello, thx very much for your comments. I am not against mac and voiceover at all but, of today, I have to conclude that I can't work with my mac only in a windows/mac based environment for a administrative job. Numbers09 is not a equivalent to excel 2007/2010: les navigation options, les powerfull brailleoutput on the mac, some missing compatibility options. Pages is not fully accessible and specially when you have tables in the document. You have also ms office for the mac but I think this is very unaccessible and it won't become accessible in the near future. Also, on a windows platform, You have the choice: if something don't works well with jaws, it works perhaps better with window-eyes or cobra. On the mac, there is only one screenreader with no commercial pressure of the customers and they aren't dependent from other companys. After reading your comments and writing this, it could be a solution if Apple should release a new version of iWork's with accessible pages and numbers so we can do what others are doing in windows or on the mac. kind regards, William Windels Op 25-jun.-2012, om 14:52 heeft Matthew Campbell het volgende geschreven: Hi. Adding to what Ray said, It doesn't seem really that necessary for there to be a 3rd party screen reading option for the Mac. Something like that will probably cost $1 or something else ridiculous and there will probably be an SMA every version or so for another $1000. It seems like there's a lot of improvements to VO coming down the pipeline in Mountain Lion. Maybe they will fix some of the minor annoyances with VoiceOver. On 2012-06-25, at 8:42 AM, Ray Foret Jr wrote: Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Yeah, and like we don't ha8e any annoyances with those current others for Windows (not mentioning any, but it's not necessay.) Eugenia Firth gigifi...@sbcglobal.net On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:52 AM, Matthew Campbell wrote: Hi. Adding to what Ray said, It doesn't seem really that necessary for there to be a 3rd party screen reading option for the Mac. Something like that will probably cost $1 or something else ridiculous and there will probably be an SMA every version or so for another $1000. It seems like there's a lot of improvements to VO coming down the pipeline in Mountain Lion. Maybe they will fix some of the minor annoyances with VoiceOver. On 2012-06-25, at 8:42 AM, Ray Foret Jr wrote: Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Hello, I have not been on the Mac as long as you have, but after using a Window computer for 20 years or more, I am extremely happy with my Mac. You are correct when you say the Mac screen reader is more stable than the Windows screen readers. I agree that this more than likely due to the fact that Voice Over is part of the Mac OS which helps it to run more dependently. I however do not agree with your statement that on Windows more basic programs are accessible. First of all, what do you mean by basic programs? You mentioned Drop Box. It is true that using Drop Box on the Mac requires a certain level of expertise, but once you understand how you need to use it on the Mac, it works just fine. I think you must be referring to the fact that when you install Drop Box and you launch it all Voice Over will say is Drop Box has no windows. This frustrated me to no end until I realize that on the Mac you can just go to your home folder and arrow down to Drop Box and then access it like any other folder on your Mac. I put an alias icon right on my desktop and now all that I have to do is to open that, and then I can work in my Drop Box. My point with all of this is to illustrate that even though at first Drop Box may seem inaccessible on the Mac, it really isn't As for your question about a paid screen reader ever being made available on the Mac. I seriously doubt that this will ever happen, and I probably wouldn't use it anyway. I would not for one, want to go and pay several hundreds of dollars for something that in my opinion would give me a sub par experience on the Mac, especially when the beauty of owning a Mac is that once I purchase my Mac, all I have to do after turning it on to have accessibility is to hit command plus F5. Just my opinion. Scott On Jun 25, 2012, at 8:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
One of the double edged swords is that many apps work in the Jaws world because the developer has written jaws-specific scripts for their app. These scripts get around shortcomings in either the screen reader or the app's communication with the accessibility APIs. They are often times written by a contracted 3rd party and, by definition, are brittle. So when the next OS, app or Jaws release comes out the scripts break and have to be fixed and re-released. This cycle is the antithesis of future-proofing. Apple took a different approach where the screen reader and accessibility APIs are robust enough that this scripting shouldn't be needed but it also means that a general app developer needs to care enough to bake accessibility in. This also means they can't just make their app and farm out accessibility to some 3rd party contractor as in the Jaws model. I'm convinced that the Apple model is better long term but am concerned that it requires a general app developer to now become aware of accessibility, which doesn't always happen. The good part is that Apple's development frameworks get a lot of accessibility stuff baked in 'for free'. The downside is that custom widgets or anything special probably needs the developer to do extra accessibility work, which they often do not. So it's not really Apple's fault that Microsoft has written their entire app using their own custom widgets, but it is Microsoft's fault for not hooking their widgets into the well defined accessibility APIs. Likewise for Mozilla and many others. In the end, I want Apple's futureproof accessibility for free model to work, I'm just unsure if developers are buying into the value of providing accessible apps. The success record there has been kinda spotty. CB On 6/25/12 8:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
I think I like Apples' model better myself. To tha end, I wonder how we can communicate with Devs to encourage them to make more accessible apps. That there is a market, I think that Apple could encourage this too. Egun On, Lagunak! Basque for G'day, Mates Louie P. (Pete) Nalda Http://www.myspace.com/lpnalda Http://www.facebook.com/lpnalda Http://www.linkedin.com/in/lpnalda Twitter @lpnalda On Jun 25, 2012, at 9:26 AM, Chris Blouch cblo...@aol.com wrote: One of the double edged swords is that many apps work in the Jaws world because the developer has written jaws-specific scripts for their app. These scripts get around shortcomings in either the screen reader or the app's communication with the accessibility APIs. They are often times written by a contracted 3rd party and, by definition, are brittle. So when the next OS, app or Jaws release comes out the scripts break and have to be fixed and re-released. This cycle is the antithesis of future-proofing. Apple took a different approach where the screen reader and accessibility APIs are robust enough that this scripting shouldn't be needed but it also means that a general app developer needs to care enough to bake accessibility in. This also means they can't just make their app and farm out accessibility to some 3rd party contractor as in the Jaws model. I'm convinced that the Apple model is better long term but am concerned that it requires a general app developer to now become aware of accessibility, which doesn't always happen. The good part is that Apple's development frameworks get a lot of accessibility stuff baked in 'for free'. The downside is that custom widgets or anything special probably needs the developer to do extra accessibility work, which they often do not. So it's not really Apple's fault that Microsoft has written their entire app using their own custom widgets, but it is Microsoft's fault for not hooking their widgets into the well defined accessibility APIs. Likewise for Mozilla and many others. In the end, I want Apple's futureproof accessibility for free model to work, I'm just unsure if developers are buying into the value of providing accessible apps. The success record there has been kinda spotty. CB On 6/25/12 8:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. To
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Hello Scott, about dropbox, it works fine when you have pasted the setup but, to make it up and running or reconfigure your account, it can be hard to do it on your self. I know, you can go into the package contents to chose another .app file but this gives not always a solution. as I have written slow me original mail: it's mostly the office packet iWork's that isn't fully accessible and so, main tasks on the mac for a administrative job, I can't do it on a comfortable way. kind regards, William Windels Op 25-jun.-2012, om 16:13 heeft Scott Rumery het volgende geschreven: Hello, I have not been on the Mac as long as you have, but after using a Window computer for 20 years or more, I am extremely happy with my Mac. You are correct when you say the Mac screen reader is more stable than the Windows screen readers. I agree that this more than likely due to the fact that Voice Over is part of the Mac OS which helps it to run more dependently. I however do not agree with your statement that on Windows more basic programs are accessible. First of all, what do you mean by basic programs? You mentioned Drop Box. It is true that using Drop Box on the Mac requires a certain level of expertise, but once you understand how you need to use it on the Mac, it works just fine. I think you must be referring to the fact that when you install Drop Box and you launch it all Voice Over will say is Drop Box has no windows. This frustrated me to no end until I realize that on the Mac you can just go to your home folder and arrow down to Drop Box and then access it like any other folder on your Mac. I put an alias icon right on my desktop and now all that I have to do is to open that, and then I can work in my Drop Box. My point with all of this is to illustrate that even though at first Drop Box may seem inaccessible on the Mac, it really isn't As for your question about a paid screen reader ever being made available on the Mac. I seriously doubt that this will ever happen, and I probably wouldn't use it anyway. I would not for one, want to go and pay several hundreds of dollars for something that in my opinion would give me a sub par experience on the Mac, especially when the beauty of owning a Mac is that once I purchase my Mac, all I have to do after turning it on to have accessibility is to hit command plus F5. Just my opinion. Scott On Jun 25, 2012, at 8:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at
RE: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
It would be nice to have a second screen-reading option. Every screen reader has its advantages and disadvantages, so it would be nice to be able to use the screen reader that works best for the task at hand. Rafael Bejarano From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com [macvisionaries@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of William Windels [william.wind...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 7:08 AM To: macvoiceo...@freelists.org; macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Subject: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
First: A very helpful way to work with tables, at least on web pages, is possible if you have a full-sized keyboard, by using NumPad Commander; it is possible to use the number keys to move up, down, left or right in a table by unit, so that you can get a much better sense of how things are laid out and why it makes sense that way. Similarly, all the other things you mentioned--Office, DropBox, etc.--have work-arounds that, while not precisely the same as Windows, work just fine. Third, if you want a paid, screen-reader, just install VMWare or use Boot Camp and install Windows and Jaws or whatever you prefer on another partition. Best of both worlds. However, what distresses me most is your conclusion that paying someone else to design a screen-reader that would work better, simply because there's money involved. Apple has worked *VERY!* hard to make VoiceOver work while *NOT* replicating the mistakes and limitations of Windows. Developing an app that does what VO does is not only reinventing fire, the wheel *and* all of basic astronomy, it's downright insulting. I, for one, will NEVER pay for a screen-reader for the Mac when VoiceOver is not only free, but stands as a beachhead in terms of universal accessibility, which is what we should be shooting for in Mac, Windows, refrigerators, Cable TV boxes, department stores, etc. Paying someone else to make sure that something works right for the blind, is something we should be striving very hard to get *AWAY* from, not reestablish. • Mark BurningHawk Baxter • AIM, Skype and Twitter: BurningHawk1969 • MSN: burninghawk1...@hotmail.com • My home page: • http://MarkBurningHawk.net/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
I don't know quite what you are talking about with Dropbox. It is surely accessible on the Mac and can be configured as well. The trick is, during setup, not to place the dropbox app file in your application folder and to run it where you downloaded it. For whatever the reason, that will enable the setup to work as expected. As for your axe to grind about iWorks, there are other alternatives. Before you make bold proclamations about Apple's shortcomings, look around and try the variety of other word processor applications. There is also Tables for spreadsheets. In addition, no one knows what the next update to iWorks will bring, which I'd guess, is not too far off. As for a paid screen reader for the Mac, why would anyone want to re-invent the wheel? Why spend a lot of needless money on a product Apple has developed and supporting? I think the issue here is, as others have said, communicating with developers and having to educate them. Many of them are happy to respond and one can easily get productive discussions going with them to fix or include accessibility. I just had one with the makers of Disk Drill, for example. Take Care John Panarese jpanar...@gmail.com On Jun 25, 2012, at 11:03 AM, William Windels william.wind...@gmail.com wrote: Hello Scott, about dropbox, it works fine when you have pasted the setup but, to make it up and running or reconfigure your account, it can be hard to do it on your self. I know, you can go into the package contents to chose another .app file but this gives not always a solution. as I have written slow me original mail: it's mostly the office packet iWork's that isn't fully accessible and so, main tasks on the mac for a administrative job, I can't do it on a comfortable way. kind regards, William Windels Op 25-jun.-2012, om 16:13 heeft Scott Rumery het volgende geschreven: Hello, I have not been on the Mac as long as you have, but after using a Window computer for 20 years or more, I am extremely happy with my Mac. You are correct when you say the Mac screen reader is more stable than the Windows screen readers. I agree that this more than likely due to the fact that Voice Over is part of the Mac OS which helps it to run more dependently. I however do not agree with your statement that on Windows more basic programs are accessible. First of all, what do you mean by basic programs? You mentioned Drop Box. It is true that using Drop Box on the Mac requires a certain level of expertise, but once you understand how you need to use it on the Mac, it works just fine. I think you must be referring to the fact that when you install Drop Box and you launch it all Voice Over will say is Drop Box has no windows. This frustrated me to no end until I realize that on the Mac you can just go to your home folder and arrow down to Drop Box and then access it like any other folder on your Mac. I put an alias icon right on my desktop and now all that I have to do is to open that, and then I can work in my Drop Box. My point with all of this is to illustrate that even though at first Drop Box may seem inaccessible on the Mac, it really isn't As for your question about a paid screen reader ever being made available on the Mac. I seriously doubt that this will ever happen, and I probably wouldn't use it anyway. I would not for one, want to go and pay several hundreds of dollars for something that in my opinion would give me a sub par experience on the Mac, especially when the beauty of owning a Mac is that once I purchase my Mac, all I have to do after turning it on to have accessibility is to hit command plus F5. Just my opinion. Scott On Jun 25, 2012, at 8:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Just to add to what John said and I'm probably repeating myself but I think that by contacting the developer rather than waiting for new scripts to be released for a programme will work better in the long run. I can see two things it doing 1. Hopefully in the long term with this approach will make developers more aware of accessibility and thus they then in turn, become more educated in learning that there is a need for blind or visually in pared people. 2. We don't then have to depend on scripts that make the programme accessible with screen readers. Because the developers do the work themselves into the programme directly, they know that they are working for a number of people and hopefully without knowing that they have learnt something. Some will take this further in future projects others just won't care and I suppose that's life. Oh and from reading your message, when you talk about the status bar, if I am thinking what you mean you can get to by hitting VO keys plus the letter M twice really quickly. The other way is to hold Control and hit F8 either way you can then navigate by the left and right arrows and when you want to go into an item use the down arrow. When you are finish, to get out of it all just hit the escape key. Daniel On 25 Jun 2012, at 18:28, John Panarese wrote: I don't know quite what you are talking about with Dropbox. It is surely accessible on the Mac and can be configured as well. The trick is, during setup, not to place the dropbox app file in your application folder and to run it where you downloaded it. For whatever the reason, that will enable the setup to work as expected. As for your axe to grind about iWorks, there are other alternatives. Before you make bold proclamations about Apple's shortcomings, look around and try the variety of other word processor applications. There is also Tables for spreadsheets. In addition, no one knows what the next update to iWorks will bring, which I'd guess, is not too far off. As for a paid screen reader for the Mac, why would anyone want to re-invent the wheel? Why spend a lot of needless money on a product Apple has developed and supporting? I think the issue here is, as others have said, communicating with developers and having to educate them. Many of them are happy to respond and one can easily get productive discussions going with them to fix or include accessibility. I just had one with the makers of Disk Drill, for example. Take Care John Panarese jpanar...@gmail.com On Jun 25, 2012, at 11:03 AM, William Windels william.wind...@gmail.com wrote: Hello Scott, about dropbox, it works fine when you have pasted the setup but, to make it up and running or reconfigure your account, it can be hard to do it on your self. I know, you can go into the package contents to chose another .app file but this gives not always a solution. as I have written slow me original mail: it's mostly the office packet iWork's that isn't fully accessible and so, main tasks on the mac for a administrative job, I can't do it on a comfortable way. kind regards, William Windels Op 25-jun.-2012, om 16:13 heeft Scott Rumery het volgende geschreven: Hello, I have not been on the Mac as long as you have, but after using a Window computer for 20 years or more, I am extremely happy with my Mac. You are correct when you say the Mac screen reader is more stable than the Windows screen readers. I agree that this more than likely due to the fact that Voice Over is part of the Mac OS which helps it to run more dependently. I however do not agree with your statement that on Windows more basic programs are accessible. First of all, what do you mean by basic programs? You mentioned Drop Box. It is true that using Drop Box on the Mac requires a certain level of expertise, but once you understand how you need to use it on the Mac, it works just fine. I think you must be referring to the fact that when you install Drop Box and you launch it all Voice Over will say is Drop Box has no windows. This frustrated me to no end until I realize that on the Mac you can just go to your home folder and arrow down to Drop Box and then access it like any other folder on your Mac. I put an alias icon right on my desktop and now all that I have to do is to open that, and then I can work in my Drop Box. My point with all of this is to illustrate that even though at first Drop Box may seem inaccessible on the Mac, it really isn't As for your question about a paid screen reader ever being made available on the Mac. I seriously doubt that this will ever happen, and I probably wouldn't use it anyway. I would not for one, want to go and pay several hundreds of dollars for something that in my opinion would give me a sub par experience on the Mac, especially when the beauty of owning a Mac is that once
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Hi again guys. Besides, we should remember that Apple, compared say to Windows screen reader writers, has been at this for a much shorter time. They've made incredible progress in the time they've been at it. Another little while will show some more progress. Eugenia Firth gigifi...@sbcglobal.net On Jun 25, 2012, at 1:26 PM, Christopher-Mark Gilland wrote: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Hi John. I think Apple did a really good thing for us in the last Key Note. They were saying to everybody that accessibility was a good thing they were happy about, and at a developer's conference at that. I think that more developers will get the point that accessibility is big time important. Eugenia Firth gigifi...@sbcglobal.net On Jun 25, 2012, at 12:28 PM, John Panarese wrote: I don't know quite what you are talking about with Dropbox. It is surely accessible on the Mac and can be configured as well. The trick is, during setup, not to place the dropbox app file in your application folder and to run it where you downloaded it. For whatever the reason, that will enable the setup to work as expected. As for your axe to grind about iWorks, there are other alternatives. Before you make bold proclamations about Apple's shortcomings, look around and try the variety of other word processor applications. There is also Tables for spreadsheets. In addition, no one knows what the next update to iWorks will bring, which I'd guess, is not too far off. As for a paid screen reader for the Mac, why would anyone want to re-invent the wheel? Why spend a lot of needless money on a product Apple has developed and supporting? I think the issue here is, as others have said, communicating with developers and having to educate them. Many of them are happy to respond and one can easily get productive discussions going with them to fix or include accessibility. I just had one with the makers of Disk Drill, for example. Take Care John Panarese jpanar...@gmail.com On Jun 25, 2012, at 11:03 AM, William Windels william.wind...@gmail.com wrote: Hello Scott, about dropbox, it works fine when you have pasted the setup but, to make it up and running or reconfigure your account, it can be hard to do it on your self. I know, you can go into the package contents to chose another .app file but this gives not always a solution. as I have written slow me original mail: it's mostly the office packet iWork's that isn't fully accessible and so, main tasks on the mac for a administrative job, I can't do it on a comfortable way. kind regards, William Windels Op 25-jun.-2012, om 16:13 heeft Scott Rumery het volgende geschreven: Hello, I have not been on the Mac as long as you have, but after using a Window computer for 20 years or more, I am extremely happy with my Mac. You are correct when you say the Mac screen reader is more stable than the Windows screen readers. I agree that this more than likely due to the fact that Voice Over is part of the Mac OS which helps it to run more dependently. I however do not agree with your statement that on Windows more basic programs are accessible. First of all, what do you mean by basic programs? You mentioned Drop Box. It is true that using Drop Box on the Mac requires a certain level of expertise, but once you understand how you need to use it on the Mac, it works just fine. I think you must be referring to the fact that when you install Drop Box and you launch it all Voice Over will say is Drop Box has no windows. This frustrated me to no end until I realize that on the Mac you can just go to your home folder and arrow down to Drop Box and then access it like any other folder on your Mac. I put an alias icon right on my desktop and now all that I have to do is to open that, and then I can work in my Drop Box. My point with all of this is to illustrate that even though at first Drop Box may seem inaccessible on the Mac, it really isn't As for your question about a paid screen reader ever being made available on the Mac. I seriously doubt that this will ever happen, and I probably wouldn't use it anyway. I would not for one, want to go and pay several hundreds of dollars for something that in my opinion would give me a sub par experience on the Mac, especially when the beauty of owning a Mac is that once I purchase my Mac, all I have to do after turning it on to have accessibility is to hit command plus F5. Just my opinion. Scott On Jun 25, 2012, at 8:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Absolutely. Anyone who thinks Apple is just supporting accessiblity for good public relations is sadly mistaken. There is a commitment there, and I honestly would not be surprised if Steve Jobs himself had been the one to really kick that commitment into gear. Every release of a new Mac OS since Tiger has included VoiceOver additions and improvements, and that has been the same for the iOS area as well. Is it perfect? No, but what is. Windows surely isn't a picnic either and forget about the kind of commitment from third party developers for that platform like the Mac community. Been there and done that. Take Care John D. Panarese Director Mac for the Blind Tel, (631) 724-4479 Email, j...@macfortheblind.com Website, http://www.macfortheblind.com APPLE CERTIFIED SUPPORT PROFESSIONAL FOR MAC OSX LION AUTHORIZED APPLE STORE BUSINESS AFFILIATE MAC and iOS VOICEOVER TRAINING AND SUPPORT On Jun 25, 2012, at 3:21 PM, Eugenia Firth gigifi...@sbcglobal.net wrote: Hi John. I think Apple did a really good thing for us in the last Key Note. They were saying to everybody that accessibility was a good thing they were happy about, and at a developer's conference at that. I think that more developers will get the point that accessibility is big time important. Eugenia Firth gigifi...@sbcglobal.net On Jun 25, 2012, at 12:28 PM, John Panarese wrote: I don't know quite what you are talking about with Dropbox. It is surely accessible on the Mac and can be configured as well. The trick is, during setup, not to place the dropbox app file in your application folder and to run it where you downloaded it. For whatever the reason, that will enable the setup to work as expected. As for your axe to grind about iWorks, there are other alternatives. Before you make bold proclamations about Apple's shortcomings, look around and try the variety of other word processor applications. There is also Tables for spreadsheets. In addition, no one knows what the next update to iWorks will bring, which I'd guess, is not too far off. As for a paid screen reader for the Mac, why would anyone want to re-invent the wheel? Why spend a lot of needless money on a product Apple has developed and supporting? I think the issue here is, as others have said, communicating with developers and having to educate them. Many of them are happy to respond and one can easily get productive discussions going with them to fix or include accessibility. I just had one with the makers of Disk Drill, for example. Take Care John Panarese jpanar...@gmail.com On Jun 25, 2012, at 11:03 AM, William Windels william.wind...@gmail.com wrote: Hello Scott, about dropbox, it works fine when you have pasted the setup but, to make it up and running or reconfigure your account, it can be hard to do it on your self. I know, you can go into the package contents to chose another .app file but this gives not always a solution. as I have written slow me original mail: it's mostly the office packet iWork's that isn't fully accessible and so, main tasks on the mac for a administrative job, I can't do it on a comfortable way. kind regards, William Windels Op 25-jun.-2012, om 16:13 heeft Scott Rumery het volgende geschreven: Hello, I have not been on the Mac as long as you have, but after using a Window computer for 20 years or more, I am extremely happy with my Mac. You are correct when you say the Mac screen reader is more stable than the Windows screen readers. I agree that this more than likely due to the fact that Voice Over is part of the Mac OS which helps it to run more dependently. I however do not agree with your statement that on Windows more basic programs are accessible. First of all, what do you mean by basic programs? You mentioned Drop Box. It is true that using Drop Box on the Mac requires a certain level of expertise, but once you understand how you need to use it on the Mac, it works just fine. I think you must be referring to the fact that when you install Drop Box and you launch it all Voice Over will say is Drop Box has no windows. This frustrated me to no end until I realize that on the Mac you can just go to your home folder and arrow down to Drop Box and then access it like any other folder on your Mac. I put an alias icon right on my desktop and now all that I have to do is to open that, and then I can work in my Drop Box. My point with all of this is to illustrate that even though at first Drop Box may seem inaccessible on the Mac, it really isn't As for your question about a paid screen reader ever being made available on the Mac. I seriously doubt that this will ever happen, and I probably wouldn't use it anyway. I would not for one, want to go and pay several hundreds of dollars for something that in my opinion would give me a sub par experience on the
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Cheree Heppe here: At the risk of leaving one of those curt messages, Yes, I totally agree with this perspective Mark has put forward. I want to get away from the third party gate keepers, not enable them further. Regards, Cheree Heppe - Original Message - From: Mark BurningHawk Baxter markbaxte...@gmail.com To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 9:39 Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? First: A very helpful way to work with tables, at least on web pages, is possible if you have a full-sized keyboard, by using NumPad Commander; it is possible to use the number keys to move up, down, left or right in a table by unit, so that you can get a much better sense of how things are laid out and why it makes sense that way. Similarly, all the other things you mentioned--Office, DropBox, etc.--have work-arounds that, while not precisely the same as Windows, work just fine. Third, if you want a paid, screen-reader, just install VMWare or use Boot Camp and install Windows and Jaws or whatever you prefer on another partition. Best of both worlds. However, what distresses me most is your conclusion that paying someone else to design a screen-reader that would work better, simply because there's money involved. Apple has worked *VERY!* hard to make VoiceOver work while *NOT* replicating the mistakes and limitations of Windows. Developing an app that does what VO does is not only reinventing fire, the wheel *and* all of basic astronomy, it's downright insulting. I, for one, will NEVER pay for a screen-reader for the Mac when VoiceOver is not only free, but stands as a beachhead in terms of universal accessibility, which is what we should be shooting for in Mac, Windows, refrigerators, Cable TV boxes, department stores, etc. Paying someone else to make sure that something works right for the blind, is something we should be striving very hard to get *AWAY* from, not reestablish. • Mark BurningHawk Baxter • AIM, Skype and Twitter: BurningHawk1969 • MSN: burninghawk1...@hotmail.com • My home page: • http://MarkBurningHawk.net/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Well, actually dropbox is pretty inaccessible on the mack. I mean, sharing files with it works no problem. Everything else is pooched though. Forget seeing your update history or recovering accidentally deleted files or anything that involves the status menu icon. I think it's totally bogus that more basic programs are accessible under windows than mac. I've tested loads of third party software on both platforms and mac software has at least as much out of box potential as windows software. You couldn't ask for a better example for william's purposes though. Dropbox on the mac is pure crap for doing anything other than pasting in files or sharing public links. I don't think some of us mac users realize how much functionality we're actually missing. Best, Erik Burggraaf Introducing Ebony Consulting business card transcription service, starting at $0.45 per card or $35 per hundred cards. Ebony Consulting toll-free: 1-888-255-5194 or on the web at http://www.erik-burggraaf.com On 2012-06-25, at 10:13 AM, Scott Rumery wrote: Hello, I have not been on the Mac as long as you have, but after using a Window computer for 20 years or more, I am extremely happy with my Mac. You are correct when you say the Mac screen reader is more stable than the Windows screen readers. I agree that this more than likely due to the fact that Voice Over is part of the Mac OS which helps it to run more dependently. I however do not agree with your statement that on Windows more basic programs are accessible. First of all, what do you mean by basic programs? You mentioned Drop Box. It is true that using Drop Box on the Mac requires a certain level of expertise, but once you understand how you need to use it on the Mac, it works just fine. I think you must be referring to the fact that when you install Drop Box and you launch it all Voice Over will say is Drop Box has no windows. This frustrated me to no end until I realize that on the Mac you can just go to your home folder and arrow down to Drop Box and then access it like any other folder on your Mac. I put an alias icon right on my desktop and now all that I have to do is to open that, and then I can work in my Drop Box. My point with all of this is to illustrate that even though at first Drop Box may seem inaccessible on the Mac, it really isn't As for your question about a paid screen reader ever being made available on the Mac. I seriously doubt that this will ever happen, and I probably wouldn't use it anyway. I would not for one, want to go and pay several hundreds of dollars for something that in my opinion would give me a sub par experience on the Mac, especially when the beauty of owning a Mac is that once I purchase my Mac, all I have to do after turning it on to have accessibility is to hit command plus F5. Just my opinion. Scott On Jun 25, 2012, at 8:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group,
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
applescript is as (if not more) powerful than the scripting interface for jaws. since it is built-on to OS X, you can do a lot more with it than you could in windows with jaws scripts. Apple scripts can be set up as system services, application interfaces or even assigned to shortcuts. I use one such to allow me to mute the mic in Skype. I am not sure you can do this with jaws. anyway, that is my take on applescripts and OS X. at least, OS X is designed with accessibility in mind (of which windows is not). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Daniela Rubio wrote: VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Hi. What's wrong with pressing command shift M to mute Skype? On 2012-06-25, at 8:39 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: applescript is as (if not more) powerful than the scripting interface for jaws. since it is built-on to OS X, you can do a lot more with it than you could in windows with jaws scripts. Apple scripts can be set up as system services, application interfaces or even assigned to shortcuts. I use one such to allow me to mute the mic in Skype. I am not sure you can do this with jaws. anyway, that is my take on applescripts and OS X. at least, OS X is designed with accessibility in mind (of which windows is not). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Daniela Rubio wrote: VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Erick, would you be so kind to send me the script to mute my mike, and tell me how to install it? Chris. - Original Message - From: Eric Oyen eric.o...@gmail.com To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:39 PM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? applescript is as (if not more) powerful than the scripting interface for jaws. since it is built-on to OS X, you can do a lot more with it than you could in windows with jaws scripts. Apple scripts can be set up as system services, application interfaces or even assigned to shortcuts. I use one such to allow me to mute the mic in Skype. I am not sure you can do this with jaws. anyway, that is my take on applescripts and OS X. at least, OS X is designed with accessibility in mind (of which windows is not). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Daniela Rubio wrote: VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
that key assignment was not set as default and in Skype 2.8 (which I use on OS X 10.6) it doesn't even show as an assignment at all. I had to use a mute Skype script. also, I have to set Skype to auto-answer as there doesn't appear to be any way I can access the answer dialog (I know, I have tried every method available here and no joy). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 6:07 PM, Matthew Campbell wrote: Hi. What's wrong with pressing command shift M to mute Skype? On 2012-06-25, at 8:39 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: applescript is as (if not more) powerful than the scripting interface for jaws. since it is built-on to OS X, you can do a lot more with it than you could in windows with jaws scripts. Apple scripts can be set up as system services, application interfaces or even assigned to shortcuts. I use one such to allow me to mute the mic in Skype. I am not sure you can do this with jaws. anyway, that is my take on applescripts and OS X. at least, OS X is designed with accessibility in mind (of which windows is not). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Daniela Rubio wrote: VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com.
skype answer dialog, was Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Really??? When somebody calls me on skype, I can just vo right arrow to the accept button and it's there. I'm runing the latest skype and Lion. On 26/06/2012, at 3:14 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: that key assignment was not set as default and in Skype 2.8 (which I use on OS X 10.6) it doesn't even show as an assignment at all. I had to use a mute Skype script. also, I have to set Skype to auto-answer as there doesn't appear to be any way I can access the answer dialog (I know, I have tried every method available here and no joy). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 6:07 PM, Matthew Campbell wrote: Hi. What's wrong with pressing command shift M to mute Skype? On 2012-06-25, at 8:39 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: applescript is as (if not more) powerful than the scripting interface for jaws. since it is built-on to OS X, you can do a lot more with it than you could in windows with jaws scripts. Apple scripts can be set up as system services, application interfaces or even assigned to shortcuts. I use one such to allow me to mute the mic in Skype. I am not sure you can do this with jaws. anyway, that is my take on applescripts and OS X. at least, OS X is designed with accessibility in mind (of which windows is not). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Daniela Rubio wrote: VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Aa! So that's! how you do it! Coolness! Now, anyone got a keystroke for toggling on and off the key pad for dialing touch tones? Chris. - Original Message - From: Matthew Campbell wrestling.ch...@gmail.com To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 9:07 PM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Hi. What's wrong with pressing command shift M to mute Skype? On 2012-06-25, at 8:39 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: applescript is as (if not more) powerful than the scripting interface for jaws. since it is built-on to OS X, you can do a lot more with it than you could in windows with jaws scripts. Apple scripts can be set up as system services, application interfaces or even assigned to shortcuts. I use one such to allow me to mute the mic in Skype. I am not sure you can do this with jaws. anyway, that is my take on applescripts and OS X. at least, OS X is designed with accessibility in mind (of which windows is not). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Daniela Rubio wrote: VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at
RE: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Bravo Mark! I heartily agree! -Original Message- From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com [mailto:macvisionaries@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mark BurningHawk Baxter Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 10:39 AM To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? First: A very helpful way to work with tables, at least on web pages, is possible if you have a full-sized keyboard, by using NumPad Commander; it is possible to use the number keys to move up, down, left or right in a table by unit, so that you can get a much better sense of how things are laid out and why it makes sense that way. Similarly, all the other things you mentioned--Office, DropBox, etc.--have work-arounds that, while not precisely the same as Windows, work just fine. Third, if you want a paid, screen-reader, just install VMWare or use Boot Camp and install Windows and Jaws or whatever you prefer on another partition. Best of both worlds. However, what distresses me most is your conclusion that paying someone else to design a screen-reader that would work better, simply because there's money involved. Apple has worked *VERY!* hard to make VoiceOver work while *NOT* replicating the mistakes and limitations of Windows. Developing an app that does what VO does is not only reinventing fire, the wheel *and* all of basic astronomy, it's downright insulting. I, for one, will NEVER pay for a screen-reader for the Mac when VoiceOver is not only free, but stands as a beachhead in terms of universal accessibility, which is what we should be shooting for in Mac, Windows, refrigerators, Cable TV boxes, department stores, etc. Paying someone else to make sure that something works right for the blind, is something we should be striving very hard to get *AWAY* from, not reestablish. . Mark BurningHawk Baxter . AIM, Skype and Twitter: BurningHawk1969 . MSN: burninghawk1...@hotmail.com . My home page: . http://MarkBurningHawk.net/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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.
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Hi, Like some have mentioned, with Mountain Lion on the horizon, many of these issues might be addressed. We should probably wait until then then reevaluate what Apple needs to work on in regards to accessibility and Voiceover. Your point is valid though. I believe that access to icons in the status menu is very important. Probably even more so on the Mac than it is in windows actually. But being so close to an OS refresh, we might be complaining about some things that have already been fixed. JMO. Ricardo Walker rica...@appletothecore.info Twitter:@apple2thecore www.appletothecore.info On Jun 25, 2012, at 5:54 PM, erik burggraaf e...@erik-burggraaf.com wrote: Well, actually dropbox is pretty inaccessible on the mack. I mean, sharing files with it works no problem. Everything else is pooched though. Forget seeing your update history or recovering accidentally deleted files or anything that involves the status menu icon. I think it's totally bogus that more basic programs are accessible under windows than mac. I've tested loads of third party software on both platforms and mac software has at least as much out of box potential as windows software. You couldn't ask for a better example for william's purposes though. Dropbox on the mac is pure crap for doing anything other than pasting in files or sharing public links. I don't think some of us mac users realize how much functionality we're actually missing. Best, Erik Burggraaf Introducing Ebony Consulting business card transcription service, starting at $0.45 per card or $35 per hundred cards. Ebony Consulting toll-free: 1-888-255-5194 or on the web at http://www.erik-burggraaf.com On 2012-06-25, at 10:13 AM, Scott Rumery wrote: Hello, I have not been on the Mac as long as you have, but after using a Window computer for 20 years or more, I am extremely happy with my Mac. You are correct when you say the Mac screen reader is more stable than the Windows screen readers. I agree that this more than likely due to the fact that Voice Over is part of the Mac OS which helps it to run more dependently. I however do not agree with your statement that on Windows more basic programs are accessible. First of all, what do you mean by basic programs? You mentioned Drop Box. It is true that using Drop Box on the Mac requires a certain level of expertise, but once you understand how you need to use it on the Mac, it works just fine. I think you must be referring to the fact that when you install Drop Box and you launch it all Voice Over will say is Drop Box has no windows. This frustrated me to no end until I realize that on the Mac you can just go to your home folder and arrow down to Drop Box and then access it like any other folder on your Mac. I put an alias icon right on my desktop and now all that I have to do is to open that, and then I can work in my Drop Box. My point with all of this is to illustrate that even though at first Drop Box may seem inaccessible on the Mac, it really isn't As for your question about a paid screen reader ever being made available on the Mac. I seriously doubt that this will ever happen, and I probably wouldn't use it anyway. I would not for one, want to go and pay several hundreds of dollars for something that in my opinion would give me a sub par experience on the Mac, especially when the beauty of owning a Mac is that once I purchase my Mac, all I have to do after turning it on to have accessibility is to hit command plus F5. Just my opinion. Scott On Jun 25, 2012, at 8:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Hi, I think this was the original posters point. Work arounds are just that, work arounds. :). Of course, as a blind person, I sometimes feel my life is a work around. lol. So, We grow accustom to figuring out tips and tricks to get blood from a stone so to speak. But there is always a trade of here. Usually, its time, and efficiency. Honestly, I don't think a 3rd party screen reader on the Mac would change this fact. We just have to keep at it with these developers as well as Making sure we send our suggestions, and bug findings to Apple so they can make the best computing environment they reasonably can. JMO Ricardo Walker rica...@appletothecore.info Twitter:@apple2thecore www.appletothecore.info On Jun 25, 2012, at 5:57 PM, Daniela Rubio mabuha...@gmail.com wrote: VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions about this meanings should be very welcome. kind regards, William Windels -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Hi, I believe one is already built into skype. I think its command 2. You can double check by checking in the windows menu. hth Ricardo Walker rica...@appletothecore.info Twitter:@apple2thecore www.appletothecore.info On Jun 25, 2012, at 11:19 PM, Christopher-Mark Gilland clgillan...@gmail.com wrote: Aa! So that's! how you do it! Coolness! Now, anyone got a keystroke for toggling on and off the key pad for dialing touch tones? Chris. - Original Message - From: Matthew Campbell wrestling.ch...@gmail.com To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 9:07 PM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Hi. What's wrong with pressing command shift M to mute Skype? On 2012-06-25, at 8:39 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: applescript is as (if not more) powerful than the scripting interface for jaws. since it is built-on to OS X, you can do a lot more with it than you could in windows with jaws scripts. Apple scripts can be set up as system services, application interfaces or even assigned to shortcuts. I use one such to allow me to mute the mic in Skype. I am not sure you can do this with jaws. anyway, that is my take on applescripts and OS X. at least, OS X is designed with accessibility in mind (of which windows is not). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Daniela Rubio wrote: VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum...
Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Hi, I have a script to answer calls as well as hang up. Its very handy. lol Ricardo Walker rica...@appletothecore.info Twitter:@apple2thecore www.appletothecore.info On Jun 25, 2012, at 11:14 PM, Eric Oyen eric.o...@gmail.com wrote: that key assignment was not set as default and in Skype 2.8 (which I use on OS X 10.6) it doesn't even show as an assignment at all. I had to use a mute Skype script. also, I have to set Skype to auto-answer as there doesn't appear to be any way I can access the answer dialog (I know, I have tried every method available here and no joy). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 6:07 PM, Matthew Campbell wrote: Hi. What's wrong with pressing command shift M to mute Skype? On 2012-06-25, at 8:39 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: applescript is as (if not more) powerful than the scripting interface for jaws. since it is built-on to OS X, you can do a lot more with it than you could in windows with jaws scripts. Apple scripts can be set up as system services, application interfaces or even assigned to shortcuts. I use one such to allow me to mute the mic in Skype. I am not sure you can do this with jaws. anyway, that is my take on applescripts and OS X. at least, OS X is designed with accessibility in mind (of which windows is not). -eric On Jun 25, 2012, at 2:57 PM, Daniela Rubio wrote: VoiceOver has grown very fast in the last 3 years. Wait until Next OS is released, there are going to be nice surprises on accessibility. I have being working with tables in pages lastly and there is always a work around things. Why don't somebody, instead of creating a separated screen reader, makes Apple scripts to solve some issues? I think that VoiceOver y very powerful in combination with Applescript. SALUDOS, DANIELA R.T. MACNETICOS, APPLE Y ACCESIBILIDAD A TU ALCANCE. EN TWITTER: @macneticos NUESTRO BLOG EN: www.macneticus.blogspot.com Y EL PODCAST EN:` http://macneticos.libsyn.com El 25/06/2012, a las 20:26, Christopher-Mark Gilland escribió: Whole heartedly! agree. Chris. - Original Message - From: Ray Foret Jr To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 8:42 AM Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? Couldn't be more wrong. Why you want to make the Mac more like clunky crashy windows? It's not up to the screen reader to make things more accessible with more and more scripts which you have to keep up with; rather, that's up to the app developers. That's how it is in the Mac world. FS make a Mac screen reader? Are you seriously kidding me? No way it ain't gonna happen. GWMicro neither. They already have enough on their plate worying about windows type stuff. Sincerely, The Constantly Barefooted Ray!!! Now a very proud and happy Mac user!!! Skype name: barefootedray On Jun 25, 2012, at 7:08 AM, William Windels wrote: Hello, After working for more than 3 years with the mac , it's my personal opinionthat more basic programs are accessible on windows then on the mac platform. I find it more stable to work on the mac because of the integration of the screenreader voiceover with the osx. The fact that the hardware is also adapted for us by the trackpad and the function-keys with the spoken values. And of course the flexible way we can install , manage the system with voiceover support everywhere. However, we can't e.g. configure dropbox with voiceover while this is possible on windows, office programs like microsoft office and also iWork's aren't fully accessible with lay-out tasks, in my opinion there are several usability issues with the browsers on the mac, some ellements of the os , like Tables, on websites and on numbers and pages, are very difficult to navigate e.g. you can't search for edit-fields on websites while they are in a table and in pages, you can't work with tables on a comfortable way. the icon's on the status bar, can't be reached on a normal way with voiceover... My conclusion: a paid screenreader for the mac that makes program's accessible with scripts (like screen readers on windows do), should be very welcome I think. With this kind of optional screenreader, blind users should be able to use all the equivalents on the mac of their windows favorites. Perhaps it should push apple to make their screenreader better on a faster speed. Why such screenreader doesn't exist yet? I see 2 reasons for this: 1. Apple should not be happy with this and the screenreader of apple should have more possibilities to integrate with the os then the external screenreader. 2. Other communities don't see a reason to make a screenreader for the mac while there is one built in. If it should be the second reason, any people with accessibility frustrations on the mac , should communicate this to other companies like gw micro, freedom scientific, baum... Any opinions
RE: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option?
Here here!... especially for those refrigerators. Seriously, I am stunned anyone would think they could market such a thing. It is not like much of the windows paid screen reader market was aimed at the real users in he first place, had it been the lack of customer service e especially in the face of inflated prices would have ended that ages back. and of course there is the obvious, Apple is committed, and making a fortune not by aiming for one group, but by including methods that help many groups, those with sight loss, dyslexia communications issues etc. etc. compute with the same tool at the same price. while feeding the imagination and creativity of developers to expand on that universal idea...common ground on a common device. Pay for what exactly? you can run windows if you desire, and you can expand the functionality of i-works, or open office if you desire, so where is the practicality of a paid audience for a f free show? Karen On Mon, 25 Jun 2012, Gail the U. S. Male wrote: Bravo Mark! I heartily agree! -Original Message- From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com [mailto:macvisionaries@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mark BurningHawk Baxter Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 10:39 AM To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: is a paid screenreader for the mac a option? First: A very helpful way to work with tables, at least on web pages, is possible if you have a full-sized keyboard, by using NumPad Commander; it is possible to use the number keys to move up, down, left or right in a table by unit, so that you can get a much better sense of how things are laid out and why it makes sense that way. Similarly, all the other things you mentioned--Office, DropBox, etc.--have work-arounds that, while not precisely the same as Windows, work just fine. Third, if you want a paid, screen-reader, just install VMWare or use Boot Camp and install Windows and Jaws or whatever you prefer on another partition. Best of both worlds. However, what distresses me most is your conclusion that paying someone else to design a screen-reader that would work better, simply because there's money involved. Apple has worked *VERY!* hard to make VoiceOver work while *NOT* replicating the mistakes and limitations of Windows. Developing an app that does what VO does is not only reinventing fire, the wheel *and* all of basic astronomy, it's downright insulting. I, for one, will NEVER pay for a screen-reader for the Mac when VoiceOver is not only free, but stands as a beachhead in terms of universal accessibility, which is what we should be shooting for in Mac, Windows, refrigerators, Cable TV boxes, department stores, etc. Paying someone else to make sure that something works right for the blind, is something we should be striving very hard to get *AWAY* from, not reestablish. . Mark BurningHawk Baxter . AIM, Skype and Twitter: BurningHawk1969 . MSN: burninghawk1...@hotmail.com . My home page: . http://MarkBurningHawk.net/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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 macvisionaries@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.
