Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
To the person saying the insert+6 to open settings center didn't work in tks, this is because the keyboard hook is working properly on that particular computer, so jaws is prevented from seeing the keystroke. That said, sleeping jaws for tks in that case is not necessary anyway. Cheers, Sent with thunderbird 17.0.8 portable On 7/26/2014 3:16 PM, valiant8086 wrote: Hi. Ok I'm a pretty expert jaws user, I'd like to lay this out. To mute speech, press, depending on keyboard layout, caps lock space, or, if desktop layout insert+space. Once you heard the click noise, press s. This turns speech off. On my lenovo Yoga 2 pro tablet laptop thingy, that takes less than a second to accomplish. caps lock space, then s turns it off. pressing that again turns it on just as quickly as it was turned off. On slower computers it may take a couple of seconds for speech to restart when toggling it back on. This actually unloads the synthesizer, so if you use eloquence and someone crashes it, you can often use this to quickly recover, provided the crash didn't drag jaws down with it. Secondly, with later versions of jaws that use the settings center instead of the configuration manager, setting jaws to sleep for specific applications is ridiculously easy. Open the game and press insert+6 (same regardless of keyboard layout). Depending on whether jaws had a configuration file for this game already it may ask you what you'd like to call the new configuration file. If it does, just hit enter to accept what it suggested by default. Now you'll be in the settings center,, focused on an edit box. in that edit box, type sleep without the quotes. Now down arrow until you hear sleep mode disable. Press space till it says enable. If you really want too you can space again to make it unload the synthesizer as well, but this usually is not a good idea if you have a slower computer it will take a while to get speech back once focus leaves the game, plus, usually, the speech synthesizer itself doesn't do anything that would actually interfere with game play, that includes the fact that when jaws is sleeping, it's not sending stuff to the synthesizer to be spoken, so the synthesizer sits idle, which is as good as using no resources of your machine right? So to summarize, with our Traders of Known Space game, I can launch the game, and while sitting in the game press insert+6. It asks what I'd like to call the configuration, I press enter to accept what's already suggested. Then I type sleep, down arrow twice, press space once, tab to the ok button and hit enter. That's all. Takes less time to do it now that I know how to do it so well than it does to describe it. What's more, if I open Traders of Known Space but I need jaws to speak while in the game for some reason, I can repeat the exact same steps to bring jaws out of sleep mode for this application, save in that situation, I would never need to press enter at first to accept a suggested configuration file name, as if it's sleeping, it obviously has a configuration file. Cheers, Sent with thunderbird 17.0.8 portableOn 7/25/2014 4:54 PM, Nicol wrote: Hi tom Well, in jaws15 you press alt plus windows key plus s to mute the speech but I don't know if that will remove the keyboard hook while playing games. I know for sure it mutes speech until you switch focus to another application. -Original Message- From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: 25 July 2014 12:36 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman Hi Dark, That's a good question, and I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask. I rarely use Jaws any more myself. That said, I do know in the versions of Jaws I've used I can't just flick speech on and off the way I can with NVDA or the way you can with Supernova. At least, that has been my experience. there may be a way to do what you want to do, but I'm just not familiar with any current Jaws releases to give you an answer without downloading the Jaws demo, installing it, and playing around with it to find out if what you are asking is possible or not. In NVDA one can press insert+s until it disables speech or enables speech which is quick and easy. Cheers! --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
well daniel there are a few synths. there is a wiki page for all this crap somewhere on the nvda site but ofcause I can't think of this its something like list of speech synths. There is espeak, pico which is easy enough to set up, speech hub which can crash a lot, vocaliser which costs but is ok and others. if you can get bit torrent sync and enter AZABHLNBW2RZ2AVDOUJ5FVGUAAFB5J4WK into the secret box you should be able to get access to a lot of stuff, 2gb worth which should include speech synths. There is a dropbox but its not updated and because people hack it and delete stuff post malware and other junk well I don't have it anymore but take it at your own risk. At 04:37 p.m. 26/07/2014, you wrote: I was wondering the same thing. I'm still on the fence about NVDA. I would like something other than that almost robotic standard synth it comes with and when I'm doing surveys it doesn't always display the screen or even continue functioning especially if my JAWS demo times out and I launch NVDA. Danielle On 7/25/14, Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com wrote: Charles, I thought the command to unload Jaws was insert+f4 not insert+j. Last time I used Jaws insert+j opened the Jaws main window. Has that changed or something? Cheers! On 7/25/14, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote: Assign a hot key, such as control alt j for starting JAWS from anywhere. Insert j removes JAWS from memory. I think that's as close as you're gonna get. --- Be positive! When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi even if you can add freedom scientific vocaliser voices like ava and danielle as far as the concern of MR Charles and our moderator MR Thomas sir If you use both window like chatting and games JAWS will absolutely work no need to unload or shut down your screen reader If you want to really shut down the JAWS without any kind of warning press insert windows and f4 If you have problem from NVDA press insert shift s to sleep NVDA When I got my sod key I first register my name with JAWS and put it in the deep sleep and then I pasted my key and press enter. If you are chatting and playing games and you have configure JAWS for your game there will be no problem in chatting JAWS will really work. Thanks Ishan On 7/26/14, Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Danielle, Go to https://vocalizer-nvda.com/? that's where you can download demos, purchase voices, etc for NVDA. Cheers! On 7/26/14, Danielle Antoine singingmywa...@gmail.com wrote: Oh okay I'll have to look into it and play around with NVDA some more. Where do I get the Vocalizer voices? And I'm done with the off-topic post. Danielle --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
You are right MR Vallient but as far as the question of TKS I am not able to sleep JAWS. Thanks Ishan On 7/27/14, Danielle Antoine singingmywa...@gmail.com wrote: Yup thanks Valiant. Works like a charm. Danielle On 7/26/14, valiant8086 valiant8...@gmail.com wrote: Hi. Ok I'm a pretty expert jaws user, I'd like to lay this out. To mute speech, press, depending on keyboard layout, caps lock space, or, if desktop layout insert+space. Once you heard the click noise, press s. This turns speech off. On my lenovo Yoga 2 pro tablet laptop thingy, that takes less than a second to accomplish. caps lock space, then s turns it off. pressing that again turns it on just as quickly as it was turned off. On slower computers it may take a couple of seconds for speech to restart when toggling it back on. This actually unloads the synthesizer, so if you use eloquence and someone crashes it, you can often use this to quickly recover, provided the crash didn't drag jaws down with it. Secondly, with later versions of jaws that use the settings center instead of the configuration manager, setting jaws to sleep for specific applications is ridiculously easy. Open the game and press insert+6 (same regardless of keyboard layout). Depending on whether jaws had a configuration file for this game already it may ask you what you'd like to call the new configuration file. If it does, just hit enter to accept what it suggested by default. Now you'll be in the settings center,, focused on an edit box. in that edit box, type sleep without the quotes. Now down arrow until you hear sleep mode disable. Press space till it says enable. If you really want too you can space again to make it unload the synthesizer as well, but this usually is not a good idea if you have a slower computer it will take a while to get speech back once focus leaves the game, plus, usually, the speech synthesizer itself doesn't do anything that would actually interfere with game play, that includes the fact that when jaws is sleeping, it's not sending stuff to the synthesizer to be spoken, so the synthesizer sits idle, which is as good as using no resources of your machine right? So to summarize, with our Traders of Known Space game, I can launch the game, and while sitting in the game press insert+6. It asks what I'd like to call the configuration, I press enter to accept what's already suggested. Then I type sleep, down arrow twice, press space once, tab to the ok button and hit enter. That's all. Takes less time to do it now that I know how to do it so well than it does to describe it. What's more, if I open Traders of Known Space but I need jaws to speak while in the game for some reason, I can repeat the exact same steps to bring jaws out of sleep mode for this application, save in that situation, I would never need to press enter at first to accept a suggested configuration file name, as if it's sleeping, it obviously has a configuration file. Cheers, Sent with thunderbird 17.0.8 portableOn 7/25/2014 4:54 PM, Nicol wrote: Hi tom Well, in jaws15 you press alt plus windows key plus s to mute the speech but I don't know if that will remove the keyboard hook while playing games. I know for sure it mutes speech until you switch focus to another application. -Original Message- From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: 25 July 2014 12:36 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman Hi Dark, That's a good question, and I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask. I rarely use Jaws any more myself. That said, I do know in the versions of Jaws I've used I can't just flick speech on and off the way I can with NVDA or the way you can with Supernova. At least, that has been my experience. there may be a way to do what you want to do, but I'm just not familiar with any current Jaws releases to give you an answer without downloading the Jaws demo, installing it, and playing around with it to find out if what you are asking is possible or not. In NVDA one can press insert+s until it disables speech or enables speech which is quick and easy. Cheers! --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi I have only a flash game the blind swordsmen. Thanks Ishan On 7/26/14, Josh joshknnd1...@gmail.com wrote: what kinds of flash games do you play? The hungry robot ate my signature so that is why I no longer have one! Teresa Cochran wrote: I would have given up Windows long before I did if NVDA hadn't come out. I really like that screen-reader. (yes, I donated LOL). It's easy to play flash games with it still running, though I haven't tried stand-alone games yet. I'm an occasional Windows user. Teresa Winging its way from my iPod On Jul 25, 2014, at 6:01 AM, Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Dark, Yeah, I understand that. I certainly had no illusions about you wanting to change screen readers. However, the basic thing I wanted to say is that there isn't a quick and easy way to switch speech on and off in Jaws the way you can in Supernova. Come to think of it I'm not sure there is a quick way to do it in Window-Eyes either without specially assigning a key for that purpose. So all and all I think Supernova is a bit unique in its built-in ability to switch speech on and off with a quick and easy keyboard command. The only other screen reader I can think of that has a similar feature is NVDA. Cheers! On 7/25/14, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi Tom. It was really only idle curiosity sinse I certainly have no plans to switch to Jaws. it's just that as I said I flick supernova's speech on and off all the time (the key is ctrl )zero). For example I am currently watching Star trek deep space 9. Obviously I don't want to interupt dvd playback by supernova saying spacebar everytime I play and paws etc, so I have the voice off. I did however configure the time skip key to exactly the length of the theme tune, so that once I've watched the initial teaser I can just hit pagedown and instantly skip to the end without having to sit through the opening titles for 100 odd episodes. This was fairly easy, I just hit ctrl c to bring Up Power dvd's configuration settings and play with the number of seconds that the time skip function actually skips, however obviously I had to go from opening the configuration pannel (which I needed supernova for), to playing the dvd, which I didn't to see if my time skip worked. This is why I am curious sinse flicking the speech on and off is something I always take for granted in supernova and use very frequently. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi Ishan,, I think you missed the point of this thread. Yes, we all know about putting Jaws to sleep via configuring it in the settings manager, but what Dark was concerned about was being able to simply turn speech on and off the way he does in Supernova. What you stated below was what we already know. :D By the way the command to silence speech in NVDA is insert+s not insert+shift+s. Do be careful when giving out information that it is accurate as possible as people are being entirely too casual about freely giving out false information of late. Cheers! On 7/26/14, ishan dhami ishan1dha...@gmail.com wrote: Hi even if you can add freedom scientific vocaliser voices like ava and danielle as far as the concern of MR Charles and our moderator MR Thomas sir If you use both window like chatting and games JAWS will absolutely work no need to unload or shut down your screen reader If you want to really shut down the JAWS without any kind of warning press insert windows and f4 If you have problem from NVDA press insert shift s to sleep NVDA When I got my sod key I first register my name with JAWS and put it in the deep sleep and then I pasted my key and press enter. If you are chatting and playing games and you have configure JAWS for your game there will be no problem in chatting JAWS will really work. Thanks Ishan --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Ishan said: If you have problem from NVDA press insert shift s to sleep NVDA Thomas said: By the way the command to silence speech in NVDA is insert+s not insert+shift+s. Do be careful when giving out information that it is accurate as possible as people are being entirely too casual about freely giving out false information of late. I say: Ishan's statement was true. Insert + shift + S puts NVDA into sleep mode for the current application. Insert + S toggles speech output, which is what I usually use, but the fact remains that insert + shift + S does what he stated. Cheers, Ian Reed Try my free games at http://BlindAudioGames.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi Ian, Well, all I can say is I have NVDA 2014.2 and insert+shift+s does nothing on my system. I don't know what the problem or issue is, but that command does nothing for me. So based on that is why I said what I said. Cheers! On 7/27/14, Ian Reed supp...@blindaudiogames.com wrote: Ishan said: If you have problem from NVDA press insert shift s to sleep NVDA Thomas said: By the way the command to silence speech in NVDA is insert+s not insert+shift+s. Do be careful when giving out information that it is accurate as possible as people are being entirely too casual about freely giving out false information of late. I say: Ishan's statement was true. Insert + shift + S puts NVDA into sleep mode for the current application. Insert + S toggles speech output, which is what I usually use, but the fact remains that insert + shift + S does what he stated. Cheers, Ian Reed Try my free games at http://BlindAudioGames.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi Tom, Ah, that makes sense then. I just installed NVDA 2014.2 and insert + shift + S does still toggle sleep mode on and off for me. I opened the NVDA 2014.2 Commands Quick Reference. In the ninth row of the first table of that document I find this: Toggle application sleep mode on and off NVDA+shift+s (desktop key) NVDA+shift+z (laptop key) none sleep mode disables all NVDA commands and speech/braille output for the current application. This is most useful in applications that provide their own speech or screen reading features. Press this command again to disable self voicing mode. So it looks like insert + shift + S is only for the desktop keyboard layout. Perhaps you are using the laptop keyboard layout and that's why it didn't work for you? Thanks for the clarification. I'd also like to note that I do appreciate your efforts to ensure people are giving out accurate information. I only brought this up to help. Thanks, Ian Reed Try my free games at http://BlindAudioGames.com On 7/27/2014 3:23 PM, Thomas Ward wrote: Hi Ian, Well, all I can say is I have NVDA 2014.2 and insert+shift+s does nothing on my system. I don't know what the problem or issue is, but that command does nothing for me. So based on that is why I said what I said. Cheers! On 7/27/14, Ian Reed supp...@blindaudiogames.com wrote: Ishan said: If you have problem from NVDA press insert shift s to sleep NVDA Thomas said: By the way the command to silence speech in NVDA is insert+s not insert+shift+s. Do be careful when giving out information that it is accurate as possible as people are being entirely too casual about freely giving out false information of late. I say: Ishan's statement was true. Insert + shift + S puts NVDA into sleep mode for the current application. Insert + S toggles speech output, which is what I usually use, but the fact remains that insert + shift + S does what he stated. Cheers, Ian Reed Try my free games at http://BlindAudioGames.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi Ian, Ah, I stand corrected then. You are correct. I am using a laptop with NVDA in laptop keyboard mode so that is why NVDA+shift+s doesn't work. Upon checking the keyboard reference it is NVDA+shift+z which is why it didn't work for me. So apparently I owe Ishan an apology as it was my mistake not his. However, thanks for correcting me as it is both useful information to know, and I hate making false statements even though I had a legitimate excuse at the time. Cheers! On 7/27/14, Ian Reed supp...@blindaudiogames.com wrote: Hi Tom, Ah, that makes sense then. I just installed NVDA 2014.2 and insert + shift + S does still toggle sleep mode on and off for me. I opened the NVDA 2014.2 Commands Quick Reference. In the ninth row of the first table of that document I find this: Toggle application sleep mode on and off NVDA+shift+s (desktop key) NVDA+shift+z (laptop key) none sleep mode disables all NVDA commands and speech/braille output for the current application. This is most useful in applications that provide their own speech or screen reading features. Press this command again to disable self voicing mode. So it looks like insert + shift + S is only for the desktop keyboard layout. Perhaps you are using the laptop keyboard layout and that's why it didn't work for you? Thanks for the clarification. I'd also like to note that I do appreciate your efforts to ensure people are giving out accurate information. I only brought this up to help. Thanks, Ian Reed Try my free games at http://BlindAudioGames.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi Danielle, Go to https://vocalizer-nvda.com/? that's where you can download demos, purchase voices, etc for NVDA. Cheers! On 7/26/14, Danielle Antoine singingmywa...@gmail.com wrote: Oh okay I'll have to look into it and play around with NVDA some more. Where do I get the Vocalizer voices? And I'm done with the off-topic post. Danielle --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
what kinds of flash games do you play? The hungry robot ate my signature so that is why I no longer have one! Teresa Cochran wrote: I would have given up Windows long before I did if NVDA hadn't come out. I really like that screen-reader. (yes, I donated LOL). It's easy to play flash games with it still running, though I haven't tried stand-alone games yet. I'm an occasional Windows user. Teresa Winging its way from my iPod On Jul 25, 2014, at 6:01 AM, Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Dark, Yeah, I understand that. I certainly had no illusions about you wanting to change screen readers. However, the basic thing I wanted to say is that there isn't a quick and easy way to switch speech on and off in Jaws the way you can in Supernova. Come to think of it I'm not sure there is a quick way to do it in Window-Eyes either without specially assigning a key for that purpose. So all and all I think Supernova is a bit unique in its built-in ability to switch speech on and off with a quick and easy keyboard command. The only other screen reader I can think of that has a similar feature is NVDA. Cheers! On 7/25/14, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi Tom. It was really only idle curiosity sinse I certainly have no plans to switch to Jaws. it's just that as I said I flick supernova's speech on and off all the time (the key is ctrl )zero). For example I am currently watching Star trek deep space 9. Obviously I don't want to interupt dvd playback by supernova saying spacebar everytime I play and paws etc, so I have the voice off. I did however configure the time skip key to exactly the length of the theme tune, so that once I've watched the initial teaser I can just hit pagedown and instantly skip to the end without having to sit through the opening titles for 100 odd episodes. This was fairly easy, I just hit ctrl c to bring Up Power dvd's configuration settings and play with the number of seconds that the time skip function actually skips, however obviously I had to go from opening the configuration pannel (which I needed supernova for), to playing the dvd, which I didn't to see if my time skip worked. This is why I am curious sinse flicking the speech on and off is something I always take for granted in supernova and use very frequently. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Nope, it hasn't changed. My fingers didn't cooperate. Otherwise known as a typo. (grin) --- Be positive! When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 10:20 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman Charles, I thought the command to unload Jaws was insert+f4 not insert+j. Last time I used Jaws insert+j opened the Jaws main window. Has that changed or something? Cheers! On 7/25/14, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote: Assign a hot key, such as control alt j for starting JAWS from anywhere. Insert j removes JAWS from memory. I think that's as close as you're gonna get. --- Be positive! When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi. Ok I'm a pretty expert jaws user, I'd like to lay this out. To mute speech, press, depending on keyboard layout, caps lock space, or, if desktop layout insert+space. Once you heard the click noise, press s. This turns speech off. On my lenovo Yoga 2 pro tablet laptop thingy, that takes less than a second to accomplish. caps lock space, then s turns it off. pressing that again turns it on just as quickly as it was turned off. On slower computers it may take a couple of seconds for speech to restart when toggling it back on. This actually unloads the synthesizer, so if you use eloquence and someone crashes it, you can often use this to quickly recover, provided the crash didn't drag jaws down with it. Secondly, with later versions of jaws that use the settings center instead of the configuration manager, setting jaws to sleep for specific applications is ridiculously easy. Open the game and press insert+6 (same regardless of keyboard layout). Depending on whether jaws had a configuration file for this game already it may ask you what you'd like to call the new configuration file. If it does, just hit enter to accept what it suggested by default. Now you'll be in the settings center,, focused on an edit box. in that edit box, type sleep without the quotes. Now down arrow until you hear sleep mode disable. Press space till it says enable. If you really want too you can space again to make it unload the synthesizer as well, but this usually is not a good idea if you have a slower computer it will take a while to get speech back once focus leaves the game, plus, usually, the speech synthesizer itself doesn't do anything that would actually interfere with game play, that includes the fact that when jaws is sleeping, it's not sending stuff to the synthesizer to be spoken, so the synthesizer sits idle, which is as good as using no resources of your machine right? So to summarize, with our Traders of Known Space game, I can launch the game, and while sitting in the game press insert+6. It asks what I'd like to call the configuration, I press enter to accept what's already suggested. Then I type sleep, down arrow twice, press space once, tab to the ok button and hit enter. That's all. Takes less time to do it now that I know how to do it so well than it does to describe it. What's more, if I open Traders of Known Space but I need jaws to speak while in the game for some reason, I can repeat the exact same steps to bring jaws out of sleep mode for this application, save in that situation, I would never need to press enter at first to accept a suggested configuration file name, as if it's sleeping, it obviously has a configuration file. Cheers, Sent with thunderbird 17.0.8 portableOn 7/25/2014 4:54 PM, Nicol wrote: Hi tom Well, in jaws15 you press alt plus windows key plus s to mute the speech but I don't know if that will remove the keyboard hook while playing games. I know for sure it mutes speech until you switch focus to another application. -Original Message- From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: 25 July 2014 12:36 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman Hi Dark, That's a good question, and I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask. I rarely use Jaws any more myself. That said, I do know in the versions of Jaws I've used I can't just flick speech on and off the way I can with NVDA or the way you can with Supernova. At least, that has been my experience. there may be a way to do what you want to do, but I'm just not familiar with any current Jaws releases to give you an answer without downloading the Jaws demo, installing it, and playing around with it to find out if what you are asking is possible or not. In NVDA one can press insert+s until it disables speech or enables speech which is quick and easy. Cheers! --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Yup thanks Valiant. Works like a charm. Danielle On 7/26/14, valiant8086 valiant8...@gmail.com wrote: Hi. Ok I'm a pretty expert jaws user, I'd like to lay this out. To mute speech, press, depending on keyboard layout, caps lock space, or, if desktop layout insert+space. Once you heard the click noise, press s. This turns speech off. On my lenovo Yoga 2 pro tablet laptop thingy, that takes less than a second to accomplish. caps lock space, then s turns it off. pressing that again turns it on just as quickly as it was turned off. On slower computers it may take a couple of seconds for speech to restart when toggling it back on. This actually unloads the synthesizer, so if you use eloquence and someone crashes it, you can often use this to quickly recover, provided the crash didn't drag jaws down with it. Secondly, with later versions of jaws that use the settings center instead of the configuration manager, setting jaws to sleep for specific applications is ridiculously easy. Open the game and press insert+6 (same regardless of keyboard layout). Depending on whether jaws had a configuration file for this game already it may ask you what you'd like to call the new configuration file. If it does, just hit enter to accept what it suggested by default. Now you'll be in the settings center,, focused on an edit box. in that edit box, type sleep without the quotes. Now down arrow until you hear sleep mode disable. Press space till it says enable. If you really want too you can space again to make it unload the synthesizer as well, but this usually is not a good idea if you have a slower computer it will take a while to get speech back once focus leaves the game, plus, usually, the speech synthesizer itself doesn't do anything that would actually interfere with game play, that includes the fact that when jaws is sleeping, it's not sending stuff to the synthesizer to be spoken, so the synthesizer sits idle, which is as good as using no resources of your machine right? So to summarize, with our Traders of Known Space game, I can launch the game, and while sitting in the game press insert+6. It asks what I'd like to call the configuration, I press enter to accept what's already suggested. Then I type sleep, down arrow twice, press space once, tab to the ok button and hit enter. That's all. Takes less time to do it now that I know how to do it so well than it does to describe it. What's more, if I open Traders of Known Space but I need jaws to speak while in the game for some reason, I can repeat the exact same steps to bring jaws out of sleep mode for this application, save in that situation, I would never need to press enter at first to accept a suggested configuration file name, as if it's sleeping, it obviously has a configuration file. Cheers, Sent with thunderbird 17.0.8 portableOn 7/25/2014 4:54 PM, Nicol wrote: Hi tom Well, in jaws15 you press alt plus windows key plus s to mute the speech but I don't know if that will remove the keyboard hook while playing games. I know for sure it mutes speech until you switch focus to another application. -Original Message- From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: 25 July 2014 12:36 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman Hi Dark, That's a good question, and I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask. I rarely use Jaws any more myself. That said, I do know in the versions of Jaws I've used I can't just flick speech on and off the way I can with NVDA or the way you can with Supernova. At least, that has been my experience. there may be a way to do what you want to do, but I'm just not familiar with any current Jaws releases to give you an answer without downloading the Jaws demo, installing it, and playing around with it to find out if what you are asking is possible or not. In NVDA one can press insert+s until it disables speech or enables speech which is quick and easy. Cheers! --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read
[Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi Dark, That's a good question, and I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask. I rarely use Jaws any more myself. That said, I do know in the versions of Jaws I've used I can't just flick speech on and off the way I can with NVDA or the way you can with Supernova. At least, that has been my experience. there may be a way to do what you want to do, but I'm just not familiar with any current Jaws releases to give you an answer without downloading the Jaws demo, installing it, and playing around with it to find out if what you are asking is possible or not. In NVDA one can press insert+s until it disables speech or enables speech which is quick and easy. Cheers! On 7/25/14, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi. I do get you can configure jaws to stop working for particular programs, what I meant is what do you do say if you want to read one specific thing in a program but want the screen reader off most of the time? Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi Shaun, To be honest I don't see what Jaws having a scripting language has anything to do with this discussion of screen readers and games. Sure, its true that Jaws was one of the first screen readers to support a scripting language which made it very powerful, and helped push it to the forefront of screen reader technology, but that in of itself has little to do with this discussion here. Equally true NVDA is written in Python which in of itself is basically an all purpose scripting language, but has very little to do with the discussion at hand. NVDA basically just wraps the various accessibility libraries and functionality of Windows and is a very small and robust little screen reader. However, contrary to your message below it does not use any screen or keyboard hooks. Based on what I've seen NVDA merely monitors the Windows messages and events and then processes that information into spoken or braille feedback for the blind user. In short, it is all event driven and does not use any keyboard intercepts or off-screen displays like Jaws uses which was there long before Windows had its own accessibility APIs. NVDA is a new screen reader using newer up to date techniques for handling Windows access so has none of the bad hacks and workarounds found in older screen readers like Jaws that had no other access to the information until now. Since NVDA uses a stock event driven keyboard interface it naturally does not interfere with something like DirectX. NVDA doesn't try to intercept and take control over the keyboard the way Jaws does. I think a lot of the things Jaws does is now deprecated and to be honest I think the screen reader needs a good rewrite to get with the times. Once done Jaws would be more compatible with games using DirectX as well as not be so sluggish in certain apps and games where its keyboard hooks slows down input drastically. Cheers! On 7/25/14, shaun everiss sm.ever...@gmail.com wrote: well tom going slightly off topic but not much. Though jaws is quite bloated now it was the first reader to have scripting of any sort and the fact still is that if something works with jaws its probably true that it works with everything else. Nvda is closely linked with the os using os compatible stuff builtin libraries but its writen in python a scripting language. Everything starts somewhere. I can not comment on windoweyes but like jaws and dolphin they had a dos reader. Though I can not speak for dolphin versions over 12.0, I can say that dolphin stuff was the first lot of stuff that I used spaciffic synths made by dolphin for the reader in question first a gemini and then orpheus. THe interface has been alwas easy to handle and its never been bloated though with everyone going ocr that may have changed ofcause. As for hooks, with the acception of jaws I think nvda uses keyboard and screen hooks but they are not really intifeering with anything as such. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Jaws does not have a speech off function, unless you count setting the synthesizer to no speech. Excluding that, the closest you're going to get without disabling it entirely is sleep mode. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Date sent: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 06:35:46 -0400 Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman Hi Dark, That's a good question, and I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask. I rarely use Jaws any more myself. That said, I do know in the versions of Jaws I've used I can't just flick speech on and off the way I can with NVDA or the way you can with Supernova. At least, that has been my experience. there may be a way to do what you want to do, but I'm just not familiar with any current Jaws releases to give you an answer without downloading the Jaws demo, installing it, and playing around with it to find out if what you are asking is possible or not. In NVDA one can press insert+s until it disables speech or enables speech which is quick and easy. Cheers! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
The only thing I see you can do is either unload jaws or put it to sleep. At 06:35 AM 7/25/2014, you wrote: Hi Dark, That's a good question, and I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask. I rarely use Jaws any more myself. That said, I do know in the versions of Jaws I've used I can't just flick speech on and off the way I can with NVDA or the way you can with Supernova. At least, that has been my experience. there may be a way to do what you want to do, but I'm just not familiar with any current Jaws releases to give you an answer without downloading the Jaws demo, installing it, and playing around with it to find out if what you are asking is possible or not. In NVDA one can press insert+s until it disables speech or enables speech which is quick and easy. Cheers! On 7/25/14, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi. I do get you can configure jaws to stop working for particular programs, what I meant is what do you do say if you want to read one specific thing in a program but want the screen reader off most of the time? Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi John, That's pretty much what I thought. Although, it should be possible to create a Jaws script that enables and disables sleep mode globally with a single hot key. I've never tried it before, but the Jaws scripting interface is fairly flexible in a lot of cases to add features like this as needed. Cheers! On 7/25/14, john jpcarnemo...@gmail.com wrote: Jaws does not have a speech off function, unless you count setting the synthesizer to no speech. Excluding that, the closest you're going to get without disabling it entirely is sleep mode. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi Tom. It was really only idle curiosity sinse I certainly have no plans to switch to Jaws. it's just that as I said I flick supernova's speech on and off all the time (the key is ctrl )zero). For example I am currently watching Star trek deep space 9. Obviously I don't want to interupt dvd playback by supernova saying spacebar everytime I play and paws etc, so I have the voice off. I did however configure the time skip key to exactly the length of the theme tune, so that once I've watched the initial teaser I can just hit pagedown and instantly skip to the end without having to sit through the opening titles for 100 odd episodes. This was fairly easy, I just hit ctrl c to bring Up Power dvd's configuration settings and play with the number of seconds that the time skip function actually skips, however obviously I had to go from opening the configuration pannel (which I needed supernova for), to playing the dvd, which I didn't to see if my time skip worked. This is why I am curious sinse flicking the speech on and off is something I always take for granted in supernova and use very frequently. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
also, I'll add supernova has a scripting language, you can write scripts in Luaa, although most of the time it's not necessary. i don't know what sn does with respect to direct x or wthe windows api, though obviously as I said it doesn't have the keyboard hooks thing. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi Dark, Yeah, I understand that. I certainly had no illusions about you wanting to change screen readers. However, the basic thing I wanted to say is that there isn't a quick and easy way to switch speech on and off in Jaws the way you can in Supernova. Come to think of it I'm not sure there is a quick way to do it in Window-Eyes either without specially assigning a key for that purpose. So all and all I think Supernova is a bit unique in its built-in ability to switch speech on and off with a quick and easy keyboard command. The only other screen reader I can think of that has a similar feature is NVDA. Cheers! On 7/25/14, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi Tom. It was really only idle curiosity sinse I certainly have no plans to switch to Jaws. it's just that as I said I flick supernova's speech on and off all the time (the key is ctrl )zero). For example I am currently watching Star trek deep space 9. Obviously I don't want to interupt dvd playback by supernova saying spacebar everytime I play and paws etc, so I have the voice off. I did however configure the time skip key to exactly the length of the theme tune, so that once I've watched the initial teaser I can just hit pagedown and instantly skip to the end without having to sit through the opening titles for 100 odd episodes. This was fairly easy, I just hit ctrl c to bring Up Power dvd's configuration settings and play with the number of seconds that the time skip function actually skips, however obviously I had to go from opening the configuration pannel (which I needed supernova for), to playing the dvd, which I didn't to see if my time skip worked. This is why I am curious sinse flicking the speech on and off is something I always take for granted in supernova and use very frequently. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
In a lot of cases, even if you turn speech off for JAWS, you still have all the keyboard hooks digging into whatever application you're running, and they'll still interfere. That's why JAWS has a sleep mode. I know there's a way to simply disable speech, but I don't remember it. It's been seven years since I last used JAWS, and any information I might pull out of my dusty brain might be outdated, anyhow. :) Teresa Winging its way from my iPod On Jul 25, 2014, at 3:35 AM, Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Dark, That's a good question, and I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask. I rarely use Jaws any more myself. That said, I do know in the versions of Jaws I've used I can't just flick speech on and off the way I can with NVDA or the way you can with Supernova. At least, that has been my experience. there may be a way to do what you want to do, but I'm just not familiar with any current Jaws releases to give you an answer without downloading the Jaws demo, installing it, and playing around with it to find out if what you are asking is possible or not. In NVDA one can press insert+s until it disables speech or enables speech which is quick and easy. Cheers! On 7/25/14, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi. I do get you can configure jaws to stop working for particular programs, what I meant is what do you do say if you want to read one specific thing in a program but want the screen reader off most of the time? Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
I would have given up Windows long before I did if NVDA hadn't come out. I really like that screen-reader. (yes, I donated LOL). It's easy to play flash games with it still running, though I haven't tried stand-alone games yet. I'm an occasional Windows user. Teresa Winging its way from my iPod On Jul 25, 2014, at 6:01 AM, Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Dark, Yeah, I understand that. I certainly had no illusions about you wanting to change screen readers. However, the basic thing I wanted to say is that there isn't a quick and easy way to switch speech on and off in Jaws the way you can in Supernova. Come to think of it I'm not sure there is a quick way to do it in Window-Eyes either without specially assigning a key for that purpose. So all and all I think Supernova is a bit unique in its built-in ability to switch speech on and off with a quick and easy keyboard command. The only other screen reader I can think of that has a similar feature is NVDA. Cheers! On 7/25/14, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi Tom. It was really only idle curiosity sinse I certainly have no plans to switch to Jaws. it's just that as I said I flick supernova's speech on and off all the time (the key is ctrl )zero). For example I am currently watching Star trek deep space 9. Obviously I don't want to interupt dvd playback by supernova saying spacebar everytime I play and paws etc, so I have the voice off. I did however configure the time skip key to exactly the length of the theme tune, so that once I've watched the initial teaser I can just hit pagedown and instantly skip to the end without having to sit through the opening titles for 100 odd episodes. This was fairly easy, I just hit ctrl c to bring Up Power dvd's configuration settings and play with the number of seconds that the time skip function actually skips, however obviously I had to go from opening the configuration pannel (which I needed supernova for), to playing the dvd, which I didn't to see if my time skip worked. This is why I am curious sinse flicking the speech on and off is something I always take for granted in supernova and use very frequently. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
NvDA does have an add-on that will do this. -Original Message- From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 9:01 AM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman Hi Dark, Yeah, I understand that. I certainly had no illusions about you wanting to change screen readers. However, the basic thing I wanted to say is that there isn't a quick and easy way to switch speech on and off in Jaws the way you can in Supernova. Come to think of it I'm not sure there is a quick way to do it in Window-Eyes either without specially assigning a key for that purpose. So all and all I think Supernova is a bit unique in its built-in ability to switch speech on and off with a quick and easy keyboard command. The only other screen reader I can think of that has a similar feature is NVDA. Cheers! On 7/25/14, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi Tom. It was really only idle curiosity sinse I certainly have no plans to switch to Jaws. it's just that as I said I flick supernova's speech on and off all the time (the key is ctrl )zero). For example I am currently watching Star trek deep space 9. Obviously I don't want to interupt dvd playback by supernova saying spacebar everytime I play and paws etc, so I have the voice off. I did however configure the time skip key to exactly the length of the theme tune, so that once I've watched the initial teaser I can just hit pagedown and instantly skip to the end without having to sit through the opening titles for 100 odd episodes. This was fairly easy, I just hit ctrl c to bring Up Power dvd's configuration settings and play with the number of seconds that the time skip function actually skips, however obviously I had to go from opening the configuration pannel (which I needed supernova for), to playing the dvd, which I didn't to see if my time skip worked. This is why I am curious sinse flicking the speech on and off is something I always take for granted in supernova and use very frequently. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi tom Well, in jaws15 you press alt plus windows key plus s to mute the speech but I don't know if that will remove the keyboard hook while playing games. I know for sure it mutes speech until you switch focus to another application. -Original Message- From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: 25 July 2014 12:36 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman Hi Dark, That's a good question, and I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask. I rarely use Jaws any more myself. That said, I do know in the versions of Jaws I've used I can't just flick speech on and off the way I can with NVDA or the way you can with Supernova. At least, that has been my experience. there may be a way to do what you want to do, but I'm just not familiar with any current Jaws releases to give you an answer without downloading the Jaws demo, installing it, and playing around with it to find out if what you are asking is possible or not. In NVDA one can press insert+s until it disables speech or enables speech which is quick and easy. Cheers! --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
No, that just shuts off speech. It has nothing to do with the keyboard hook. Oh freddled gruntbuggly, thy micturations are to me as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee. GroupI implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes, And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't! -Original Message- From: Nicol Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 2:54 PM To: 'Gamers Discussion list' Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman Hi tom Well, in jaws15 you press alt plus windows key plus s to mute the speech but I don't know if that will remove the keyboard hook while playing games. I know for sure it mutes speech until you switch focus to another application. -Original Message- From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: 25 July 2014 12:36 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman Hi Dark, That's a good question, and I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask. I rarely use Jaws any more myself. That said, I do know in the versions of Jaws I've used I can't just flick speech on and off the way I can with NVDA or the way you can with Supernova. At least, that has been my experience. there may be a way to do what you want to do, but I'm just not familiar with any current Jaws releases to give you an answer without downloading the Jaws demo, installing it, and playing around with it to find out if what you are asking is possible or not. In NVDA one can press insert+s until it disables speech or enables speech which is quick and easy. Cheers! --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
The way to do it is to set up a configuration for the game, and then go into miscellaneous settings in settings, and enable sleep mode. -Original Message- From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Bryan Peterson Sent: 25 July 2014 22:28 To: 'Gamers Discussion list' Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman No, that just shuts off speech. It has nothing to do with the keyboard hook. Oh freddled gruntbuggly, thy micturations are to me as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee. GroupI implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes, And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't! -Original Message- From: Nicol Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 2:54 PM To: 'Gamers Discussion list' Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman Hi tom Well, in jaws15 you press alt plus windows key plus s to mute the speech but I don't know if that will remove the keyboard hook while playing games. I know for sure it mutes speech until you switch focus to another application. -Original Message- From: Gamers [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: 25 July 2014 12:36 PM To: Gamers Discussion list Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman Hi Dark, That's a good question, and I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask. I rarely use Jaws any more myself. That said, I do know in the versions of Jaws I've used I can't just flick speech on and off the way I can with NVDA or the way you can with Supernova. At least, that has been my experience. there may be a way to do what you want to do, but I'm just not familiar with any current Jaws releases to give you an answer without downloading the Jaws demo, installing it, and playing around with it to find out if what you are asking is possible or not. In NVDA one can press insert+s until it disables speech or enables speech which is quick and easy. Cheers! --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Keep in mind that if you put JAWS to sleep, it is still using resources, and still resides in memory. This is why I prefer using insert f4 to turn it completely off. --- Be positive! When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished! - Original Message - From: tim z200...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 6:33 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman The only thing I see you can do is either unload jaws or put it to sleep. At 06:35 AM 7/25/2014, you wrote: Hi Dark, That's a good question, and I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask. I rarely use Jaws any more myself. That said, I do know in the versions of Jaws I've used I can't just flick speech on and off the way I can with NVDA or the way you can with Supernova. At least, that has been my experience. there may be a way to do what you want to do, but I'm just not familiar with any current Jaws releases to give you an answer without downloading the Jaws demo, installing it, and playing around with it to find out if what you are asking is possible or not. In NVDA one can press insert+s until it disables speech or enables speech which is quick and easy. Cheers! On 7/25/14, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi. I do get you can configure jaws to stop working for particular programs, what I meant is what do you do say if you want to read one specific thing in a program but want the screen reader off most of the time? Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Assign a hot key, such as control alt j for starting JAWS from anywhere. Insert j removes JAWS from memory. I think that's as close as you're gonna get. --- Be positive! When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Friday, July 25, 2014 8:01 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman Hi Dark, Yeah, I understand that. I certainly had no illusions about you wanting to change screen readers. However, the basic thing I wanted to say is that there isn't a quick and easy way to switch speech on and off in Jaws the way you can in Supernova. Come to think of it I'm not sure there is a quick way to do it in Window-Eyes either without specially assigning a key for that purpose. So all and all I think Supernova is a bit unique in its built-in ability to switch speech on and off with a quick and easy keyboard command. The only other screen reader I can think of that has a similar feature is NVDA. Cheers! On 7/25/14, dark d...@xgam.org wrote: Hi Tom. It was really only idle curiosity sinse I certainly have no plans to switch to Jaws. it's just that as I said I flick supernova's speech on and off all the time (the key is ctrl )zero). For example I am currently watching Star trek deep space 9. Obviously I don't want to interupt dvd playback by supernova saying spacebar everytime I play and paws etc, so I have the voice off. I did however configure the time skip key to exactly the length of the theme tune, so that once I've watched the initial teaser I can just hit pagedown and instantly skip to the end without having to sit through the opening titles for 100 odd episodes. This was fairly easy, I just hit ctrl c to bring Up Power dvd's configuration settings and play with the number of seconds that the time skip function actually skips, however obviously I had to go from opening the configuration pannel (which I needed supernova for), to playing the dvd, which I didn't to see if my time skip worked. This is why I am curious sinse flicking the speech on and off is something I always take for granted in supernova and use very frequently. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi Charles, That's absolutely true. However, some people, myself included, like to multitask while playing games. I might be playing a game and be chatting online over instant messenger with a friend at the same time. So completely unloading the screen reader I am using isn't an option because I need to enable/disable speech rather quickly depending on weather I am in a game or doing something else at the same time. So having Jaws to go to sleep when the game is in the foreground is better than loading and unloading Jaws to send off a reply and back to the game again. Cheers! On 7/25/14, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote: Keep in mind that if you put JAWS to sleep, it is still using resources, and still resides in memory. This is why I prefer using insert f4 to turn it completely off. --- Be positive! When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Charles, I thought the command to unload Jaws was insert+f4 not insert+j. Last time I used Jaws insert+j opened the Jaws main window. Has that changed or something? Cheers! On 7/25/14, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote: Assign a hot key, such as control alt j for starting JAWS from anywhere. Insert j removes JAWS from memory. I think that's as close as you're gonna get. --- Be positive! When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
I was wondering the same thing. I'm still on the fence about NVDA. I would like something other than that almost robotic standard synth it comes with and when I'm doing surveys it doesn't always display the screen or even continue functioning especially if my JAWS demo times out and I launch NVDA. Danielle On 7/25/14, Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com wrote: Charles, I thought the command to unload Jaws was insert+f4 not insert+j. Last time I used Jaws insert+j opened the Jaws main window. Has that changed or something? Cheers! On 7/25/14, Charles Rivard wee1s...@fidnet.com wrote: Assign a hot key, such as control alt j for starting JAWS from anywhere. Insert j removes JAWS from memory. I think that's as close as you're gonna get. --- Be positive! When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Hi Danielle, I don't want to go too far off topic here, but I will say that NVDA supports a large number of software synthesizers besides Espeak which it comes with. If you are willing to put forward a little bit of money you can buy the Vocalizer voices for NVDA which will give you Daniel, Tom, Karen, Lee, and all the other voices you get for Jaws. I think it is like $99 for a Vocalizer license for NVDA which is not bad for a one time fee, and of course if the games support NVDA they can speak using your Vocalizer voices. If you are looking for something more universal NVDA also supports all Sapi 5.x compatible voices. You can get something high quality like the Ivona voices which are a bit on the expensive side, or if you have Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 you can get a number of decent quality voices from Microsoft that work with NVDA as well. The point being if Espeak is the only reason holding you back from joining the NVDA crowd there are plenty of alternatives. You can spend a little money for better voices for NVDA and games and it won't cost you any more than the cost of a Jaws upgrade, and it is typically a one-time fee. Cheers! On 7/26/14, Danielle Antoine singingmywa...@gmail.com wrote: I was wondering the same thing. I'm still on the fence about NVDA. I would like something other than that almost robotic standard synth it comes with and when I'm doing surveys it doesn't always display the screen or even continue functioning especially if my JAWS demo times out and I launch NVDA. Danielle --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games was the Blind Swordsman
Oh okay I'll have to look into it and play around with NVDA some more. Where do I get the Vocalizer voices? And I'm done with the off-topic post. Danielle On 7/26/14, Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Danielle, I don't want to go too far off topic here, but I will say that NVDA supports a large number of software synthesizers besides Espeak which it comes with. If you are willing to put forward a little bit of money you can buy the Vocalizer voices for NVDA which will give you Daniel, Tom, Karen, Lee, and all the other voices you get for Jaws. I think it is like $99 for a Vocalizer license for NVDA which is not bad for a one time fee, and of course if the games support NVDA they can speak using your Vocalizer voices. If you are looking for something more universal NVDA also supports all Sapi 5.x compatible voices. You can get something high quality like the Ivona voices which are a bit on the expensive side, or if you have Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 you can get a number of decent quality voices from Microsoft that work with NVDA as well. The point being if Espeak is the only reason holding you back from joining the NVDA crowd there are plenty of alternatives. You can spend a little money for better voices for NVDA and games and it won't cost you any more than the cost of a Jaws upgrade, and it is typically a one-time fee. Cheers! On 7/26/14, Danielle Antoine singingmywa...@gmail.com wrote: I was wondering the same thing. I'm still on the fence about NVDA. I would like something other than that almost robotic standard synth it comes with and when I'm doing surveys it doesn't always display the screen or even continue functioning especially if my JAWS demo times out and I launch NVDA. Danielle --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Dark, I agree entirely. The Kevin voice is free, but sounds a bit like Robbie the Robot. Hopefully my gang here will give me the time to add a true SAPI interface this summer. It will require going in and modifying the FREE-TTS sourcecode. But I have the technical chops to do it. Just takes a lot of time. Re your writing up changes you'd like to see. Please do. Offline via email if that's easier for you. Despite deadlines and commitments, no one can prevent me from tweaking code to make it more accessible. Hee, hee, hee... John --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi John. I'll have a think about changes. I'm sorry if I was over abrupt about the voice thing, it's just something which for me personally has always made me a litle sad about your games. I look at the design of the games, the audio work that goes into them and the features you add and am impressed, but just cannot get used to the voice. As I said earlier, this might well just be that I have been too spoilt by having good synths to work with, and being used to playing gamebooks and interactive fiction using them. I'll be taking another look at the gamebook soon, and will give it a further try with hal, --- but if you can persuade the markiting bunch to give you the leasure time to add sapi support I think that would be a fantastically good improvement and one which imho is as necessary for selling of accessible games as adding support to jaws. Beware the grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: John Bannick jbann...@7128.com To: gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 10:46 AM Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Dark, I agree entirely. The Kevin voice is free, but sounds a bit like Robbie the Robot. Hopefully my gang here will give me the time to add a true SAPI interface this summer. It will require going in and modifying the FREE-TTS sourcecode. But I have the technical chops to do it. Just takes a lot of time. Re your writing up changes you'd like to see. Please do. Offline via email if that's easier for you. Despite deadlines and commitments, no one can prevent me from tweaking code to make it more accessible. Hee, hee, hee... John --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi. Sapi support would be better than jaws support, as most windows gamers have sapi, but not everyone has jaws. dark wrote: Hi John. I'll have a think about changes. I'm sorry if I was over abrupt about the voice thing, it's just something which for me personally has always made me a litle sad about your games. I look at the design of the games, the audio work that goes into them and the features you add and am impressed, but just cannot get used to the voice. As I said earlier, this might well just be that I have been too spoilt by having good synths to work with, and being used to playing gamebooks and interactive fiction using them. I'll be taking another look at the gamebook soon, and will give it a further try with hal, --- but if you can persuade the markiting bunch to give you the leasure time to add sapi support I think that would be a fantastically good improvement and one which imho is as necessary for selling of accessible games as adding support to jaws. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Thomas is correct, IMHO. Having self-voicing in a game ensures its audio interface is present and works the way you want it to, without the idiosyncracies of JAWS, etc. However, a colleague at the Carrol Center for the Blind long ago convinced us that a game without JAWS won't sell to U.S. blind gamers. I'm not a marketing person so I don't know if he's right or wrong there. I'm certainly not qualified to join the which-screen-reader-is-best wars. But as a sighted programmer, having to code for any screen reader is excellent discipline. It forces me to have at least a basic grasp of some of audio display issues and results in a better audio user interface. However, coding for a screen reader is a lot of work. In order to make a user interface that is pleasing to a blind gamer, a visually-impaired gamer, and a sighted gamer, we often speak stuff that isn't displayed on the screen. That takes not only extra plumbing, as Thomas and other coders know well, but sometimes changes the user interface architecture. And sometimes takes pure magic. JAWS has a clunky, but workable interface to the Java language we use. It also has a Braille interface. Something I'd like to pursue some day with the folks at Helen Keller or SENSE in the UK. The folks in Fort Wayne haven't yet added a Java interface to Windows Eyes, though I suspect that I could access their API via Java's C/C++ interface. But that would take a lot of work, add to the complexity of the code, and increase the probability of bugs. I think Dark at one time told us that he tried one of our games with HAL and it seemed to work. Maybe they use the same Java API as JAWS. However, getting a copy, learning it, and designing and coding for it have the same issues as for Windows Eyes. So self-voicing plus JAWS seems the optimal solution to an audio interface. That being said, I'm personally not satisfied with Kevin, our voice. Though as the real Kevin says, It's free. Don't complain. I know enough now to make the Free-TTS code work with SAPI. However, that's probably over a month of analysis, design, and coding; more for testing and debugging. I'm pushing management here to include SAPI in our summer work. But we're a small mainstream game company with small margins. And the iron jaws of capitalism dictate profit or die. John Bannick Chief Technology Officer 7-128 Software --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi John. Interesting indeed. hal did seem to run with the gamebook fairly well though there were one or two scrolling issues, and a couple of shinanigans with labled images. Sinse though java support has been increasing over the last few versions i'll have to give it another try. I personally would be very pleased to see sapi support in your games. With your publishing of games like inspector cindy and mysterious cities which are essentially gamebooks, or multiple choice based intaeractive fiction if you prefer, the quality of the text and how it is read is a very important factor indeed. Most Vi people will have a fairly good tts voice with sapi for exactly this reason. I'm afraid the free voice you use currently really doesn't show your text to the best advantage, and to me, actually detracts significantly from the enjoyment of the games. To put it bluntly, --- -I would buy a copy of the gamebook and your mystery games myself like a shot if I didn't have to use the voice. whether this is through use of Hal, or sapi, i wouldn't mind. I'm very sorry if this is a bit over abrupt, but sinse you mentioned that your markiting people were hesitant on adding more support, --- -I thought perhaps some clarity would be helpful, and i'd be glad to write this up in a more formal way if you like. I certainly very much hope these issues can be fixed in future, especially with the work your doing on the travelog game, and it's possible textual descriptions. perhaps I am just spoilt from having good synths like Orphius and Alan to work with, certainly the original appolo hardware synth orphius was based on which i used when i was 12 would make any voice sound like a shakespearian actor in comparison, then again, I certainly wouldn't want to go back to that synth now, or anything which sounded similar. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Dark, Oh, now that I know your secret my evil master mind can foil your secret weapon. In my new game I'll put some necessary commands on control+0 and control+8 so you can't use those hot keys any more. Hahahahahahaha! dark wrote: again though Charles, in hal, there's no need to actually unload the program, just flick the voice and or keys of with ctrl zero and ctrl 8 (though as i said, I don't usually turn the keys off unless I need to). The only time I actually have to unload Hal completely, is when upgrading to a new version of Hal, and sinse the installer is self-voicing this isn't quite the same deal. Beware the Grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Dark, As I said with Window Eyes 7.11 I don't have to unload the screen reader to play game x. I just tend to do so for personal reasons. I guess the techie side of me. Although, I am glad to know I don't need to unload Window Eyes when playing as that does free me up to chat on an instent messenger client or check on some task i might be running in the background like a very large download. dark wrote: funny Tom, I've never felt the need to with hal, and haven't experienced slowdown or anything similar. Indeed, there have been occasions when I've played a bit of a game, flicked out of it, turned Hal's voice on to read E-mails or deal with other matters, then gone back to the game. This is especially true of games where I have to wait for some reason, like Che martin's card games waiting for new players, or even waiting for your character to regain health in technoshock (which seems to take ages). I also flick Hal's voice off when watching dvds for the same reason. I'd actually miss this feature quite a lot if it wasn't possible to use. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Dam you tom! Well one evil scheme deserves another. How about I redirect all the links to your games on audiogames.net to point to an ultra virus of doom! Then, everyone will complain that you wiped their harddrives, --- and you'll be sued, sent into exile, and probably mutate into something horrific in the process! guahahaha! one evil scheme deserves another! Either that, or I'll just change Hal's hotkeys, but that would be considderably less evil. Beware the grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 3:36 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Dark, Oh, now that I know your secret my evil master mind can foil your secret weapon. In my new game I'll put some necessary commands on control+0 and control+8 so you can't use those hot keys any more. Hahahahahahaha! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
It's not just in games Tom that I find this useful. in winamp or power dvd I can flick Hal's voice on to deal with config, or selecting a new folder to listen to, then flick it off again and just use keyboard commands as normal, without Hal saying X whenever I start Winamp playing etc. Doing this I was able to actually customize power dvd's time skip feature to exactly 91 seconds, which very nicely skips the voyager opening theme, which I'd otherwise have to sit through many times sinse I've been doing a a full watch through of all 7 series (I'm mid way through series six currently). Pluss, I now know the vastly important information that voyager's opening sequence is exactly 92 seconds long, which obviously was invaluable to learn! Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 3:43 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Dark, As I said with Window Eyes 7.11 I don't have to unload the screen reader to play game x. I just tend to do so for personal reasons. I guess the techie side of me. Although, I am glad to know I don't need to unload Window Eyes when playing as that does free me up to chat on an instent messenger client or check on some task i might be running in the background like a very large download. dark wrote: funny Tom, I've never felt the need to with hal, and haven't experienced slowdown or anything similar. Indeed, there have been occasions when I've played a bit of a game, flicked out of it, turned Hal's voice on to read E-mails or deal with other matters, then gone back to the game. This is especially true of games where I have to wait for some reason, like Che martin's card games waiting for new players, or even waiting for your character to regain health in technoshock (which seems to take ages). I also flick Hal's voice off when watching dvds for the same reason. I'd actually miss this feature quite a lot if it wasn't possible to use. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Dark, Well, I wouldn't go as far to say that institutions here do anything with accessible games. I merely was recounting a case where a couple of people i spoke to knew of Termite Torpedo as they had seen it in the Printing House catalogs for software, and assumed, I guess, that I had gotten my ideas for accessible games from that. They were holy ignorant of GMA, BSC,and some of the other developers who been on the scene for quite a while. My over all point in that post was to explain that there is no central source for gathering information for what is out there for the blind, and you generally hear about these things by word of mouth or a specific product is promoted by one of the major players in the adaptive technology industry. Certain institutions have adopted those products, and are unwilling to look at newer alternatives. For example, There can be no doubt that a company like Freedom Scientific has the lion's share of the accessibility market. If they were to promote Jaws friendly games, such as creating a few themselves, and selling them they would probably do well. They could even say they were the first to come up with a audio based side-scroller and the majority of Jaws users would whole-heartedly take their word for it, because the current accessible games market is rather limited. I've not found a way to even come close to marketing my games to the number of people who own Jaws for example. Clearly there is a problem with communicating and educating the majority of people around the world about what products and services are out there. Only those who have the lion's share like Freedom Scientific have the ability to make their products well known. They have several advantages I don't have such as financial resources for marketing, they have a reputation that has been growing since the mid to late 80's, they get state sponcering for their products, and so on. One way or another they have ways of getting their name and products out there where I have to rely on lists like this one and web sites like audiogames.net to bring in most of my customers. There is no PC World type magazine where various vendors like GW Micro, Dolphin, USA Games, or anyone else can place adds and write about there new products. There are things like ACB Radio that helps, but still I don't know how large an audience they really have. There are still the problem of people who have computers, but who may not have internet access. How are they to hear about these other products and services? --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Dark, Hmmm...Perhaps I won't block your favorite control+0 and control+8 keys after all. I'll just put a virus in my next game download that works as a seek and destroy bot which will disable Hal forever and install Window-Eyes on your system. The demo of course. Can't give you the commercial one. Muhahahahaha! dark wrote: Dam you tom! Well one evil scheme deserves another. How about I redirect all the links to your games on audiogames.net to point to an ultra virus of doom! Then, everyone will complain that you wiped their harddrives, --- and you'll be sued, sent into exile, and probably mutate into something horrific in the process! guahahaha! one evil scheme deserves another! Either that, or I'll just change Hal's hotkeys, but that would be considderably less evil. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
well tom, that is a serious threat indeed! I think in that case I'll register with the patant office the names tomb hunter, angela carter and mysteries of the ancients. Thenk, either you'll have to pay me lots of money to release your games, or, I'll sue you when they're released, --- and you'll have to sit in a small broom cupboard for the next 50 years while you rename and rewrite them entirely in assembler!! ha! ha! ha! Yes I know, this is a low and dirty trick, --- but all's fair in love, war and screen reader related threatenings! Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 4:51 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Dark, Hmmm...Perhaps I won't block your favorite control+0 and control+8 keys after all. I'll just put a virus in my next game download that works as a seek and destroy bot which will disable Hal forever and install Window-Eyes on your system. The demo of course. Can't give you the commercial one. Muhahahahaha! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
The one thing is I've played around with Jamal Masry's SayTools where you can get a program to talk using their screenreaders voice, or sapi if you want to. Other joke is thought about creating a game using actual jaws scripts, but, for example, to generate a random number, you'd have to make a call to an external DLL or something. Stay well Jacob Kruger Blind Biker Skype: BlindZA '...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...' - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 12:44 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games I've never actually tried using Window-Eyes with Lone Wolf. I tend to use Sapi. But I am glad the game offers that option in case I ever decided to mix things up a bit for variety. And if I was to start developing games I would try to include options for as many screen readers as I could right from the outset so as not to seem like I was targetting one specific group of users. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 3:32 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Bryan, Well, don't forget GMA. As of Lonewolf 3.5 the game has Window Eyes API support. That happened because us non-Jaws users nagged David Greenwood until he realized not all of his Lonewolf customers are Jaws users, and we want the same access to the game as Jaws users. If he could use the JFW API for the game he could use the same for Window Eyes too. In the end he finally added Window Eyes and Sapi 5 support in version 3.5. However, that might not have happened if there were not enough non-Jaws users to maret such an upgrade. However, this is clearly a good case of how the developer uses Jaws, developed the game initially for a Jaws user base, and finally was asked to include other screen readers as part of the games speech output. Cases like this sets a president that we can't assume what access technology, if any, is present on the target computer. These days it could be a free and open source solution like NVDA for all we know. Therefore the game itself should provide all that is necessary for providing accessibility to itself independant of any specific screen reader or speech software that may or may not be present. Bryan Peterson wrote: The only company I've seen make allownaces is BSC Games, and that wasn't even a game. It was actually one of their Blindsoftware products, that Day-by-day Professional which offers support for Window-Eyes. But I still don't think they realize how well Window-Eyes meshes with games. I remember I forgot to unload WIndow-Eyes, which as I said I still do out of habbit, and I played a full game of Classic Pipe and didn't even realize Window-Eyes was still running until I'd quit Pipe. That was a welcome surprise. So I'm trying to unload Window-Eyes less when I play most audio games. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. __ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4649 (20091130) __ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4649 (20091130) __ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
well let's just say you could call me a screen reader expert or close to that. I worked with nearly everything available on windows and had a few experiences with orca on the gnome desktop. when I started out I was running wineyes 4.5 and needless to say the control panel was very! confusing, the option names sorta weird. especially the keyboard echo. instead of having 4 levels you have 1 long list with keys, words, both and then keys, words and both with out interrupt instead of putting these 2 separately. I also at first had troubles applying changes globally, but as for day to day use (when I'm not digging in the thing) window-eyes was all in all a plezent experience to work with. then when I ended up on vista I started to use jaws daily. it was an easier thing to learn I'll admit and I got used to it quite a lot. dolphin's products, hmm. have these at school. I find them weird. the hot keys are especially confusing, sometimes requiring left, or specifrically, right, control, making me getting hal announcing the key instead of performing the function I expected it to do. I do, however, like its... uh. what was it called. verbosity schemes I think. it allows full modification of just about anything the thing says. for instance I changed it to say checked/unchecked instead of its default selected/unselected on checkboxes, that sort of thing. I wish though they made a seaprate buffer for msaa content instead of using their mouse emulation with some DOM thrown in to do the job. I did also test system access and nvda and I find I don't have to comment, the 2 are really nice readers. sorry if I went off topic at 1 point or another and sorry for the long message, and take care! - Original Message - From: Hayden Presley hdpres...@hotmail.com To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 1:51 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Really? That's a feature I've come to like in JAWS myself. __ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4333 (20090813) __ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
well thats why I like to use hal over jaws, one thing I like is you can turn hotkeys and voice off with a couple keystrokes then go through and process say a game or something yet the speech is there on demand. At 04:59 a.m. 1/12/2009, you wrote: It's not just in games Tom that I find this useful. in winamp or power dvd I can flick Hal's voice on to deal with config, or selecting a new folder to listen to, then flick it off again and just use keyboard commands as normal, without Hal saying X whenever I start Winamp playing etc. Doing this I was able to actually customize power dvd's time skip feature to exactly 91 seconds, which very nicely skips the voyager opening theme, which I'd otherwise have to sit through many times sinse I've been doing a a full watch through of all 7 series (I'm mid way through series six currently). Pluss, I now know the vastly important information that voyager's opening sequence is exactly 92 seconds long, which obviously was invaluable to learn! Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 3:43 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Dark, As I said with Window Eyes 7.11 I don't have to unload the screen reader to play game x. I just tend to do so for personal reasons. I guess the techie side of me. Although, I am glad to know I don't need to unload Window Eyes when playing as that does free me up to chat on an instent messenger client or check on some task i might be running in the background like a very large download. dark wrote: funny Tom, I've never felt the need to with hal, and haven't experienced slowdown or anything similar. Indeed, there have been occasions when I've played a bit of a game, flicked out of it, turned Hal's voice on to read E-mails or deal with other matters, then gone back to the game. This is especially true of games where I have to wait for some reason, like Che martin's card games waiting for new players, or even waiting for your character to regain health in technoshock (which seems to take ages). I also flick Hal's voice off when watching dvds for the same reason. I'd actually miss this feature quite a lot if it wasn't possible to use. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
weird where do you get the say tools from? I have most of the empowermentzone tools thanks to top tech tidbits but hmmm. At 06:32 a.m. 1/12/2009, you wrote: The one thing is I've played around with Jamal Masry's SayTools where you can get a program to talk using their screenreaders voice, or sapi if you want to. Other joke is thought about creating a game using actual jaws scripts, but, for example, to generate a random number, you'd have to make a call to an external DLL or something. Stay well Jacob Kruger Blind Biker Skype: BlindZA '...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...' - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 12:44 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games I've never actually tried using Window-Eyes with Lone Wolf. I tend to use Sapi. But I am glad the game offers that option in case I ever decided to mix things up a bit for variety. And if I was to start developing games I would try to include options for as many screen readers as I could right from the outset so as not to seem like I was targetting one specific group of users. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 3:32 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Bryan, Well, don't forget GMA. As of Lonewolf 3.5 the game has Window Eyes API support. That happened because us non-Jaws users nagged David Greenwood until he realized not all of his Lonewolf customers are Jaws users, and we want the same access to the game as Jaws users. If he could use the JFW API for the game he could use the same for Window Eyes too. In the end he finally added Window Eyes and Sapi 5 support in version 3.5. However, that might not have happened if there were not enough non-Jaws users to maret such an upgrade. However, this is clearly a good case of how the developer uses Jaws, developed the game initially for a Jaws user base, and finally was asked to include other screen readers as part of the games speech output. Cases like this sets a president that we can't assume what access technology, if any, is present on the target computer. These days it could be a free and open source solution like NVDA for all we know. Therefore the game itself should provide all that is necessary for providing accessibility to itself independant of any specific screen reader or speech software that may or may not be present. Bryan Peterson wrote: The only company I've seen make allownaces is BSC Games, and that wasn't even a game. It was actually one of their Blindsoftware products, that Day-by-day Professional which offers support for Window-Eyes. But I still don't think they realize how well Window-Eyes meshes with games. I remember I forgot to unload WIndow-Eyes, which as I said I still do out of habbit, and I played a full game of Classic Pipe and didn't even realize Window-Eyes was still running until I'd quit Pipe. That was a welcome surprise. So I'm trying to unload Window-Eyes less when I play most audio games. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. __ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4649 (20091130) __ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4649 (20091130) __ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
http://www.empowermentzone.com/saysetup.exe Stay well Jacob Kruger Blind Biker Skype: BlindZA '...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...' - Original Message - From: shaun everiss shau...@xtra.co.nz To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 10:43 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games weird where do you get the say tools from? I have most of the empowermentzone tools thanks to top tech tidbits but hmmm. At 06:32 a.m. 1/12/2009, you wrote: The one thing is I've played around with Jamal Masry's SayTools where you can get a program to talk using their screenreaders voice, or sapi if you want to. Other joke is thought about creating a game using actual jaws scripts, but, for example, to generate a random number, you'd have to make a call to an external DLL or something. Stay well Jacob Kruger Blind Biker Skype: BlindZA '...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...' - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 12:44 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games I've never actually tried using Window-Eyes with Lone Wolf. I tend to use Sapi. But I am glad the game offers that option in case I ever decided to mix things up a bit for variety. And if I was to start developing games I would try to include options for as many screen readers as I could right from the outset so as not to seem like I was targetting one specific group of users. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 3:32 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Bryan, Well, don't forget GMA. As of Lonewolf 3.5 the game has Window Eyes API support. That happened because us non-Jaws users nagged David Greenwood until he realized not all of his Lonewolf customers are Jaws users, and we want the same access to the game as Jaws users. If he could use the JFW API for the game he could use the same for Window Eyes too. In the end he finally added Window Eyes and Sapi 5 support in version 3.5. However, that might not have happened if there were not enough non-Jaws users to maret such an upgrade. However, this is clearly a good case of how the developer uses Jaws, developed the game initially for a Jaws user base, and finally was asked to include other screen readers as part of the games speech output. Cases like this sets a president that we can't assume what access technology, if any, is present on the target computer. These days it could be a free and open source solution like NVDA for all we know. Therefore the game itself should provide all that is necessary for providing accessibility to itself independant of any specific screen reader or speech software that may or may not be present. Bryan Peterson wrote: The only company I've seen make allownaces is BSC Games, and that wasn't even a game. It was actually one of their Blindsoftware products, that Day-by-day Professional which offers support for Window-Eyes. But I still don't think they realize how well Window-Eyes meshes with games. I remember I forgot to unload WIndow-Eyes, which as I said I still do out of habbit, and I played a full game of Classic Pipe and didn't even realize Window-Eyes was still running until I'd quit Pipe. That was a welcome surprise. So I'm trying to unload Window-Eyes less when I play most audio games. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. __ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4649 (20091130) __ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __ Information from ESET
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
When I began regularly using NVDA I was thrilled to find out that it didn't conflict with games at all. JFW hogs the keyboard, making working with programs slow and uncomfortable at times especially if they're memory-intensive (Sound Forge). There are ways to subdue JFW programatically. Maybe developers should investigate them as I think JFW is the only screenreader which really makes it hard to play games without putting it to sleep or unloading. On 11/30/09, Jacob Kruger jac...@mailzone.co.za wrote: http://www.empowermentzone.com/saysetup.exe Stay well Jacob Kruger Blind Biker Skype: BlindZA '...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...' - Original Message - From: shaun everiss shau...@xtra.co.nz To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 10:43 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games weird where do you get the say tools from? I have most of the empowermentzone tools thanks to top tech tidbits but hmmm. At 06:32 a.m. 1/12/2009, you wrote: The one thing is I've played around with Jamal Masry's SayTools where you can get a program to talk using their screenreaders voice, or sapi if you want to. Other joke is thought about creating a game using actual jaws scripts, but, for example, to generate a random number, you'd have to make a call to an external DLL or something. Stay well Jacob Kruger Blind Biker Skype: BlindZA '...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...' - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 12:44 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games I've never actually tried using Window-Eyes with Lone Wolf. I tend to use Sapi. But I am glad the game offers that option in case I ever decided to mix things up a bit for variety. And if I was to start developing games I would try to include options for as many screen readers as I could right from the outset so as not to seem like I was targetting one specific group of users. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 3:32 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Bryan, Well, don't forget GMA. As of Lonewolf 3.5 the game has Window Eyes API support. That happened because us non-Jaws users nagged David Greenwood until he realized not all of his Lonewolf customers are Jaws users, and we want the same access to the game as Jaws users. If he could use the JFW API for the game he could use the same for Window Eyes too. In the end he finally added Window Eyes and Sapi 5 support in version 3.5. However, that might not have happened if there were not enough non-Jaws users to maret such an upgrade. However, this is clearly a good case of how the developer uses Jaws, developed the game initially for a Jaws user base, and finally was asked to include other screen readers as part of the games speech output. Cases like this sets a president that we can't assume what access technology, if any, is present on the target computer. These days it could be a free and open source solution like NVDA for all we know. Therefore the game itself should provide all that is necessary for providing accessibility to itself independant of any specific screen reader or speech software that may or may not be present. Bryan Peterson wrote: The only company I've seen make allownaces is BSC Games, and that wasn't even a game. It was actually one of their Blindsoftware products, that Day-by-day Professional which offers support for Window-Eyes. But I still don't think they realize how well Window-Eyes meshes with games. I remember I forgot to unload WIndow-Eyes, which as I said I still do out of habbit, and I played a full game of Classic Pipe and didn't even realize Window-Eyes was still running until I'd quit Pipe. That was a welcome surprise. So I'm trying to unload Window-Eyes less when I play most audio games. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
for thr brazilian games we translate from you guys, with authorisation of the companies, we use jaws scripts to make jaws shut up when playing, heh -Mensagem original- De: James Dietz james.j.di...@gmail.com Para: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Data: Segunda, 30 de Novembro de 2009 17:38 Assunto: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games When I began regularly using NVDA I was thrilled to find out that it didn't conflict with games at all. JFW hogs the keyboard, making working with programs slow and uncomfortable at times especially if they're memory-intensive (Sound Forge). There are ways to subdue JFW programatically. Maybe developers should investigate them as I think JFW is the only screenreader which really makes it hard to play games without putting it to sleep or unloading. On 11/30/09, Jacob Kruger jac...@mailzone.co.za wrote: http://www.empowermentzone.com/saysetup.exe Stay well Jacob Kruger Blind Biker Skype: BlindZA '...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...' - Original Message - From: shaun everiss shau...@xtra.co.nz To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 10:43 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games weird where do you get the say tools from? I have most of the empowermentzone tools thanks to top tech tidbits but hmmm. At 06:32 a.m. 1/12/2009, you wrote: The one thing is I've played around with Jamal Masry's SayTools where you can get a program to talk using their screenreaders voice, or sapi if you want to. Other joke is thought about creating a game using actual jaws scripts, but, for example, to generate a random number, you'd have to make a call to an external DLL or something. Stay well Jacob Kruger Blind Biker Skype: BlindZA '...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...' - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 12:44 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games I've never actually tried using Window-Eyes with Lone Wolf. I tend to use Sapi. But I am glad the game offers that option in case I ever decided to mix things up a bit for variety. And if I was to start developing games I would try to include options for as many screen readers as I could right from the outset so as not to seem like I was targetting one specific group of users. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 3:32 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Bryan, Well, don't forget GMA. As of Lonewolf 3.5 the game has Window Eyes API support. That happened because us non-Jaws users nagged David Greenwood until he realized not all of his Lonewolf customers are Jaws users, and we want the same access to the game as Jaws users. If he could use the JFW API for the game he could use the same for Window Eyes too. In the end he finally added Window Eyes and Sapi 5 support in version 3.5. However, that might not have happened if there were not enough non-Jaws users to maret such an upgrade. However, this is clearly a good case of how the developer uses Jaws, developed the game initially for a Jaws user base, and finally was asked to include other screen readers as part of the games speech output. Cases like this sets a president that we can't assume what access technology, if any, is present on the target computer. These days it could be a free and open source solution like NVDA for all we know. Therefore the game itself should provide all that is necessary for providing accessibility to itself independant of any specific screen reader or speech software that may or may not be present. Bryan Peterson wrote: The only company I've seen make allownaces is BSC Games, and that wasn't even a game. It was actually one of their Blindsoftware products, that Day-by-day Professional which offers support for Window-Eyes. But I still don't think they realize how well Window-Eyes meshes with games. I remember I forgot to unload WIndow-Eyes, which as I said I still do out of habbit, and I played a full game of Classic Pipe and didn't even realize Window-Eyes was still running until I'd quit Pipe. That was a welcome surprise. So I'm trying to unload Window-Eyes less when I play most audio games. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
thanks At 09:52 a.m. 1/12/2009, you wrote: http://www.empowermentzone.com/saysetup.exe Stay well Jacob Kruger Blind Biker Skype: BlindZA '...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...' - Original Message - From: shaun everiss shau...@xtra.co.nz To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 10:43 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games weird where do you get the say tools from? I have most of the empowermentzone tools thanks to top tech tidbits but hmmm. At 06:32 a.m. 1/12/2009, you wrote: The one thing is I've played around with Jamal Masry's SayTools where you can get a program to talk using their screenreaders voice, or sapi if you want to. Other joke is thought about creating a game using actual jaws scripts, but, for example, to generate a random number, you'd have to make a call to an external DLL or something. Stay well Jacob Kruger Blind Biker Skype: BlindZA '...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...' - Original Message - From: Bryan Peterson bpeterson2...@cableone.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 12:44 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games I've never actually tried using Window-Eyes with Lone Wolf. I tend to use Sapi. But I am glad the game offers that option in case I ever decided to mix things up a bit for variety. And if I was to start developing games I would try to include options for as many screen readers as I could right from the outset so as not to seem like I was targetting one specific group of users. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 3:32 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Bryan, Well, don't forget GMA. As of Lonewolf 3.5 the game has Window Eyes API support. That happened because us non-Jaws users nagged David Greenwood until he realized not all of his Lonewolf customers are Jaws users, and we want the same access to the game as Jaws users. If he could use the JFW API for the game he could use the same for Window Eyes too. In the end he finally added Window Eyes and Sapi 5 support in version 3.5. However, that might not have happened if there were not enough non-Jaws users to maret such an upgrade. However, this is clearly a good case of how the developer uses Jaws, developed the game initially for a Jaws user base, and finally was asked to include other screen readers as part of the games speech output. Cases like this sets a president that we can't assume what access technology, if any, is present on the target computer. These days it could be a free and open source solution like NVDA for all we know. Therefore the game itself should provide all that is necessary for providing accessibility to itself independant of any specific screen reader or speech software that may or may not be present. Bryan Peterson wrote: The only company I've seen make allownaces is BSC Games, and that wasn't even a game. It was actually one of their Blindsoftware products, that Day-by-day Professional which offers support for Window-Eyes. But I still don't think they realize how well Window-Eyes meshes with games. I remember I forgot to unload WIndow-Eyes, which as I said I still do out of habbit, and I played a full game of Classic Pipe and didn't even realize Window-Eyes was still running until I'd quit Pipe. That was a welcome surprise. So I'm trying to unload Window-Eyes less when I play most audio games. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. __ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4649 (20091130) __ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
I actually prefer both the way hal Handles virtual focus and screen recognition and interaction myself, I actually found the jaws multiple modes system rather confusing. In Hal for example, it's so natural for me to be in virtual focus for web pages, I'm quite familiar with all it's short cuts and nuances, and thus when I have to use it for a game like smugglers, or for an unusual application, it's controls for reading and navigation are very familiar, even if the html specific stuff isn't available. Likewise, I don't mind the double control system either. These though, are very much simply part of me having been such a long time Hal user, heck, i stil remember when what later became virtual focus and is now the dolphin curser was called screen reading mode, and could do nothing more than literally read what text was on screen in the currently focused window, and not interact with it, that was back in Hal version 3. I was also amused (and a litle disturbed), when Dolphin announced that version 10 would no longer come with the version four keyset, sinse they felt that keyset was no longer needed as keys had been standardized for so long, though could stil be dwnloaded from teir sie. I had to laugh, sinse I stil remember upgrading from version 4 to version 5 9 years ago, and after trying the version four keyset, deciding it'd be more worth my while to get used to the new version 5 keys than persist with the version 4 ones which didn't seem to let me access some of version 5's new features. That's quite scary in a way! Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: peter Mahach piterm...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 7:58 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games well let's just say you could call me a screen reader expert or close to that. I worked with nearly everything available on windows and had a few experiences with orca on the gnome desktop. when I started out I was running wineyes 4.5 and needless to say the control panel was very! confusing, the option names sorta weird. especially the keyboard echo. instead of having 4 levels you have 1 long list with keys, words, both and then keys, words and both with out interrupt instead of putting these 2 separately. I also at first had troubles applying changes globally, but as for day to day use (when I'm not digging in the thing) window-eyes was all in all a plezent experience to work with. then when I ended up on vista I started to use jaws daily. it was an easier thing to learn I'll admit and I got used to it quite a lot. dolphin's products, hmm. have these at school. I find them weird. the hot keys are especially confusing, sometimes requiring left, or specifrically, right, control, making me getting hal announcing the key instead of performing the function I expected it to do. I do, however, like its... uh. what was it called. verbosity schemes I think. it allows full modification of just about anything the thing says. for instance I changed it to say checked/unchecked instead of its default selected/unselected on checkboxes, that sort of thing. I wish though they made a seaprate buffer for msaa content instead of using their mouse emulation with some DOM thrown in to do the job. I did also test system access and nvda and I find I don't have to comment, the 2 are really nice readers. sorry if I went off topic at 1 point or another and sorry for the long message, and take care! - Original Message - From: Hayden Presley hdpres...@hotmail.com To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 1:51 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Really? That's a feature I've come to like in JAWS myself. __ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4333 (20090813) __ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
hmmm I like the way jaws handles the web, just like a standard page, also how it handles advanced word and excell functions. However I don't care about how it handles winamp or eudora and some other apps. At 01:44 p.m. 1/12/2009, you wrote: I actually prefer both the way hal Handles virtual focus and screen recognition and interaction myself, I actually found the jaws multiple modes system rather confusing. In Hal for example, it's so natural for me to be in virtual focus for web pages, I'm quite familiar with all it's short cuts and nuances, and thus when I have to use it for a game like smugglers, or for an unusual application, it's controls for reading and navigation are very familiar, even if the html specific stuff isn't available. Likewise, I don't mind the double control system either. These though, are very much simply part of me having been such a long time Hal user, heck, i stil remember when what later became virtual focus and is now the dolphin curser was called screen reading mode, and could do nothing more than literally read what text was on screen in the currently focused window, and not interact with it, that was back in Hal version 3. I was also amused (and a litle disturbed), when Dolphin announced that version 10 would no longer come with the version four keyset, sinse they felt that keyset was no longer needed as keys had been standardized for so long, though could stil be dwnloaded from teir sie. I had to laugh, sinse I stil remember upgrading from version 4 to version 5 9 years ago, and after trying the version four keyset, deciding it'd be more worth my while to get used to the new version 5 keys than persist with the version 4 ones which didn't seem to let me access some of version 5's new features. That's quite scary in a way! Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: peter Mahach piterm...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 7:58 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games well let's just say you could call me a screen reader expert or close to that. I worked with nearly everything available on windows and had a few experiences with orca on the gnome desktop. when I started out I was running wineyes 4.5 and needless to say the control panel was very! confusing, the option names sorta weird. especially the keyboard echo. instead of having 4 levels you have 1 long list with keys, words, both and then keys, words and both with out interrupt instead of putting these 2 separately. I also at first had troubles applying changes globally, but as for day to day use (when I'm not digging in the thing) window-eyes was all in all a plezent experience to work with. then when I ended up on vista I started to use jaws daily. it was an easier thing to learn I'll admit and I got used to it quite a lot. dolphin's products, hmm. have these at school. I find them weird. the hot keys are especially confusing, sometimes requiring left, or specifrically, right, control, making me getting hal announcing the key instead of performing the function I expected it to do. I do, however, like its... uh. what was it called. verbosity schemes I think. it allows full modification of just about anything the thing says. for instance I changed it to say checked/unchecked instead of its default selected/unselected on checkboxes, that sort of thing. I wish though they made a seaprate buffer for msaa content instead of using their mouse emulation with some DOM thrown in to do the job. I did also test system access and nvda and I find I don't have to comment, the 2 are really nice readers. sorry if I went off topic at 1 point or another and sorry for the long message, and take care! - Original Message - From: Hayden Presley hdpres...@hotmail.com To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 1:51 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Really? That's a feature I've come to like in JAWS myself. __ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4333 (20090813) __ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Fair enough sean. I admit, I found the jaws method of totally restructuring web pages not to be to my taste at all, especially for online games which feature links in specific places at the top or bottom to be helpful to the player. I'll also say, it makes things easier when i've got my sighted friends here doing things with the mouse, to be able to flick Hal off and on as needed and have the screen display web pages, or indeed anything else, in a way which they can also read quite successfully. I've had some fun playing through online gamebooks like project.aon using these methods. Again though, this is probably just a case of me being much more used to doing things with Hal. Beware the grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: shaun everiss shau...@xtra.co.nz To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 12:49 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games hmmm I like the way jaws handles the web, just like a standard page, also how it handles advanced word and excell functions. However I don't care about how it handles winamp or eudora and some other apps. At 01:44 p.m. 1/12/2009, you wrote: I actually prefer both the way hal Handles virtual focus and screen recognition and interaction myself, I actually found the jaws multiple modes system rather confusing. In Hal for example, it's so natural for me to be in virtual focus for web pages, I'm quite familiar with all it's short cuts and nuances, and thus when I have to use it for a game like smugglers, or for an unusual application, it's controls for reading and navigation are very familiar, even if the html specific stuff isn't available. Likewise, I don't mind the double control system either. These though, are very much simply part of me having been such a long time Hal user, heck, i stil remember when what later became virtual focus and is now the dolphin curser was called screen reading mode, and could do nothing more than literally read what text was on screen in the currently focused window, and not interact with it, that was back in Hal version 3. I was also amused (and a litle disturbed), when Dolphin announced that version 10 would no longer come with the version four keyset, sinse they felt that keyset was no longer needed as keys had been standardized for so long, though could stil be dwnloaded from teir sie. I had to laugh, sinse I stil remember upgrading from version 4 to version 5 9 years ago, and after trying the version four keyset, deciding it'd be more worth my while to get used to the new version 5 keys than persist with the version 4 ones which didn't seem to let me access some of version 5's new features. That's quite scary in a way! Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: peter Mahach piterm...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 7:58 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games well let's just say you could call me a screen reader expert or close to that. I worked with nearly everything available on windows and had a few experiences with orca on the gnome desktop. when I started out I was running wineyes 4.5 and needless to say the control panel was very! confusing, the option names sorta weird. especially the keyboard echo. instead of having 4 levels you have 1 long list with keys, words, both and then keys, words and both with out interrupt instead of putting these 2 separately. I also at first had troubles applying changes globally, but as for day to day use (when I'm not digging in the thing) window-eyes was all in all a plezent experience to work with. then when I ended up on vista I started to use jaws daily. it was an easier thing to learn I'll admit and I got used to it quite a lot. dolphin's products, hmm. have these at school. I find them weird. the hot keys are especially confusing, sometimes requiring left, or specifrically, right, control, making me getting hal announcing the key instead of performing the function I expected it to do. I do, however, like its... uh. what was it called. verbosity schemes I think. it allows full modification of just about anything the thing says. for instance I changed it to say checked/unchecked instead of its default selected/unselected on checkboxes, that sort of thing. I wish though they made a seaprate buffer for msaa content instead of using their mouse emulation with some DOM thrown in to do the job. I did also test system access and nvda and I find I don't have to comment, the 2 are really nice readers. sorry if I went off topic at 1 point or another and sorry for the long message, and take care! - Original Message - From: Hayden Presley hdpres...@hotmail.com To: 'Gamers Discussion list' gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 1:51 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Really? That's a feature
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
I'll keep this message for blackmailing purposes. It'll prove that Thomas Ward did not do it. It will show who did it. Now, I'm sure we can come up with a suitable arrangement of payment for my silence? Mwah, ah, ah, ah, ah! --- In God we trust! - Original Message - From: dark d...@xgam.org To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 5:49 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Dam you tom! Well one evil scheme deserves another. How about I redirect all the links to your games on audiogames.net to point to an ultra virus of doom! Then, everyone will complain that you wiped their harddrives, --- and you'll be sued, sent into exile, and probably mutate into something horrific in the process! guahahaha! one evil scheme deserves another! Either that, or I'll just change Hal's hotkeys, but that would be considderably less evil. Beware the grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 3:36 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Dark, Oh, now that I know your secret my evil master mind can foil your secret weapon. In my new game I'll put some necessary commands on control+0 and control+8 so you can't use those hot keys any more. Hahahahahahaha! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Send him a special edition of a game as a Hal oh een? gift. There goes his screen reader. --- In God we trust! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 6:51 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Dark, Hmmm...Perhaps I won't block your favorite control+0 and control+8 keys after all. I'll just put a virus in my next game download that works as a seek and destroy bot which will disable Hal forever and install Window-Eyes on your system. The demo of course. Can't give you the commercial one. Muhahahahaha! dark wrote: Dam you tom! Well one evil scheme deserves another. How about I redirect all the links to your games on audiogames.net to point to an ultra virus of doom! Then, everyone will complain that you wiped their harddrives, --- and you'll be sued, sent into exile, and probably mutate into something horrific in the process! guahahaha! one evil scheme deserves another! Either that, or I'll just change Hal's hotkeys, but that would be considderably less evil. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hmm. This is getting fun! --- In God we trust! - Original Message - From: dark d...@xgam.org To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 7:31 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games well tom, that is a serious threat indeed! I think in that case I'll register with the patant office the names tomb hunter, angela carter and mysteries of the ancients. Thenk, either you'll have to pay me lots of money to release your games, or, I'll sue you when they're released, --- and you'll have to sit in a small broom cupboard for the next 50 years while you rename and rewrite them entirely in assembler!! ha! ha! ha! Yes I know, this is a low and dirty trick, --- but all's fair in love, war and screen reader related threatenings! Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 4:51 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Dark, Hmmm...Perhaps I won't block your favorite control+0 and control+8 keys after all. I'll just put a virus in my next game download that works as a seek and destroy bot which will disable Hal forever and install Window-Eyes on your system. The demo of course. Can't give you the commercial one. Muhahahahaha! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
hmmm I may have an older version but hal does not always show me everything and it chooses to crash loads more than jaws. hal has its uses though. I suppose I navigate via headdings loads these days. At 02:29 p.m. 1/12/2009, you wrote: Fair enough sean. I admit, I found the jaws method of totally restructuring web pages not to be to my taste at all, especially for online games which feature links in specific places at the top or bottom to be helpful to the player. I'll also say, it makes things easier when i've got my sighted friends here doing things with the mouse, to be able to flick Hal off and on as needed and have the screen display web pages, or indeed anything else, in a way which they can also read quite successfully. I've had some fun playing through online gamebooks like project.aon using these methods. Again though, this is probably just a case of me being much more used to doing things with Hal. Beware the grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: shaun everiss shau...@xtra.co.nz To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 12:49 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games hmmm I like the way jaws handles the web, just like a standard page, also how it handles advanced word and excell functions. However I don't care about how it handles winamp or eudora and some other apps. At 01:44 p.m. 1/12/2009, you wrote: I actually prefer both the way hal Handles virtual focus and screen recognition and interaction myself, I actually found the jaws multiple modes system rather confusing. In Hal for example, it's so natural for me to be in virtual focus for web pages, I'm quite familiar with all it's short cuts and nuances, and thus when I have to use it for a game like smugglers, or for an unusual application, it's controls for reading and navigation are very familiar, even if the html specific stuff isn't available. Likewise, I don't mind the double control system either. These though, are very much simply part of me having been such a long time Hal user, heck, i stil remember when what later became virtual focus and is now the dolphin curser was called screen reading mode, and could do nothing more than literally read what text was on screen in the currently focused window, and not interact with it, that was back in Hal version 3. I was also amused (and a litle disturbed), when Dolphin announced that version 10 would no longer come with the version four keyset, sinse they felt that keyset was no longer needed as keys had been standardized for so long, though could stil be dwnloaded from teir sie. I had to laugh, sinse I stil remember upgrading from version 4 to version 5 9 years ago, and after trying the version four keyset, deciding it'd be more worth my while to get used to the new version 5 keys than persist with the version 4 ones which didn't seem to let me access some of version 5's new features. That's quite scary in a way! Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: peter Mahach piterm...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 7:58 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games well let's just say you could call me a screen reader expert or close to that. I worked with nearly everything available on windows and had a few experiences with orca on the gnome desktop. when I started out I was running wineyes 4.5 and needless to say the control panel was very! confusing, the option names sorta weird. especially the keyboard echo. instead of having 4 levels you have 1 long list with keys, words, both and then keys, words and both with out interrupt instead of putting these 2 separately. I also at first had troubles applying changes globally, but as for day to day use (when I'm not digging in the thing) window-eyes was all in all a plezent experience to work with. then when I ended up on vista I started to use jaws daily. it was an easier thing to learn I'll admit and I got used to it quite a lot. dolphin's products, hmm. have these at school. I find them weird. the hot keys are especially confusing, sometimes requiring left, or specifrically, right, control, making me getting hal announcing the key instead of performing the function I expected it to do. I do, however, like its... uh. what was it called. verbosity schemes I think. it allows full modification of just about anything the thing says. for instance I changed it to say checked/unchecked instead of its default selected/unselected on checkboxes, that sort of thing. I wish though they made a seaprate buffer for msaa content instead of using their mouse emulation with some DOM thrown in to do the job. I did also test system access and nvda and I find I don't have to comment, the 2 are really nice readers. sorry if I went off topic at 1 point or another and sorry for the long message, and take care! - Original
[Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Bryan, That's not so surprising really. When I first went blind the first thing they showed me was Jaws. As a result that is what I ended up with for school, college, and being new to blindness and screen readers in general I really didn't know anything different. I just assumed Jaws was the only show in town. It was only after I got to college not only did I discover there were several other screen readers out there, I found Jaws really wasn't so hot. Yeah, it was a decent screen reader, but Window eyes has always been a fairly decent product itself. The more current versions are a superior product in my opinion. However, this brings me to my point. If I assume most blind computer users in the United States were handled the same way I was they were given Jaws through some state or school agency, and it was assumed it was the best product for the person it was given to. As a result the blind computer user has no experience in using Hal, Window Eyes, or anything else. They may not even been shown their options to pick or choose the product they wanted. It was just assumed Jaws was what they would use for work, school, college, whatever. So as it happens most of our game developers are Jaws users. When they say turn off your screen reader in the manual I half to assume they know Jaws conflicts with games, and they have no personal experience with anything other than Jaws. Else you might get directions for how to set the game up with Jaws, Window Eyes, Hal, System Access, etc. As has been pointed out here Hal and Window Eyes don't really have serious conflicts with existing accessible games. Jaws, on the other hand, does. Therefore it might help if we educate the game developers out there on how various screen readers works with their games so that the manuals can be updated to reflect this more specifically. Smile Bryan Peterson wrote: Doubtless Dark the reason for that is that while they may say your screen reader, a lot of game developers probably assume most of their customer base uses JAWS. I myself was a staunch JAWS user until two years ago, when I discovered that JAWS won't let me use the NeoSpeach voices and Window-Eyes will. Then as I experimented I discovered that Window-Eyes worked so much better with just about every program I used. The bit with games was just an accidental discovery, but I still turn off Window-Eyes out of habbit when I play games. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
[Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Dark, Actually, Jaws has the ability to fully customize what punctuation is read, but it is buried very deep in the Jaws configuration manager. Unless you are a highly skilled or advanced Jaws user you will never find or be able to configure the punctuation exactly the way you want in a game or any other application. That's actually one of the screen reader's major short comings. The configuration manager has a lot of advanced and powerful features, but most of the Jaws users I know or have met aren't aware of what features are actually in the configuration manager, and a few are a bit intimidated about the amount of options in there. You know, I better not mess with it or I'll break it, type fear people have about any piece of complicated software. I think it is too complex and overly bloated for your average home user when it comes to actually using the configuration manager. Window Eyes is much more user friendly in that from the Window Eyes control panel you have various pulldown menus along the menu bar such as File, Screen, Mouse, Keyboard, Global, etc that are easy to find and just as easy to configure. When done just save the set file. There is no need to dig through a complicated configuration manager just to find a certain check box, or a series of check boxes, to do this or that. Anyway, I'm sure a few Jaws users are about to hang me out to dry for knocking their beloved screen reader, but I'm merely calling them as I see them. I've found Window Eyes a much easier product to configure for interactive fiction games, muds, whatever than Jaws. It seams every time I want to specifically configure the punctuation to speak these symbols and not these symbols I have to plow through an endless amount of dialog boxes and check boxes to get it setup correctly for my needs. That's why I find it a more unwieldy and overly complex screen reader for my tastes. dark wrote: That is probably true Bryan, I've noticed that some people tend to assume every person using a screen reader will automatically use Jaws. I was for instance a trifle irritated when during one of my first experiments with muds, I wrote to the admins of Alterean to get things working, and they sent me a link to some Jaws script files, despite the fact that i'd clearly stated in my E-mail I was using Hal. i must confess, during my one try out with jaws, I wasn't a fan, but given the amount of time I've used Hal that's not surprising, and I'm fairly certain there are people who would say the same thing upon trying Hal after using another screen reader. One option I missed for instance, was Hal's ability to customize what punctuation is read when. i have Hal for instance set to read all punctuation when reviewing via arrow keys, sinse that's what I use when editing, some punctuation when typing so i can remember sentence structure, and none at all when i'm reading using continuous document read, sinse the last thing I want to here in a text adventure, story, --- or even someone's post or E-mail is constant repeats of period comma or dash. I was a litle bothered that Jaws didn't have these options, sinse I rely on them for a lot of things i do involving text, --- in fact without them I'm not sure if I would be quite as much a fan of text adventures and gamebooks as I am now. As I said this isn't intended as a Jaws bash, or a Hal promo, merely noting things I've got used to having in hal which I'd miss in another program. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Bryan, Well, don't forget GMA. As of Lonewolf 3.5 the game has Window Eyes API support. That happened because us non-Jaws users nagged David Greenwood until he realized not all of his Lonewolf customers are Jaws users, and we want the same access to the game as Jaws users. If he could use the JFW API for the game he could use the same for Window Eyes too. In the end he finally added Window Eyes and Sapi 5 support in version 3.5. However, that might not have happened if there were not enough non-Jaws users to maret such an upgrade. However, this is clearly a good case of how the developer uses Jaws, developed the game initially for a Jaws user base, and finally was asked to include other screen readers as part of the games speech output. Cases like this sets a president that we can't assume what access technology, if any, is present on the target computer. These days it could be a free and open source solution like NVDA for all we know. Therefore the game itself should provide all that is necessary for providing accessibility to itself independant of any specific screen reader or speech software that may or may not be present. Bryan Peterson wrote: The only company I've seen make allownaces is BSC Games, and that wasn't even a game. It was actually one of their Blindsoftware products, that Day-by-day Professional which offers support for Window-Eyes. But I still don't think they realize how well Window-Eyes meshes with games. I remember I forgot to unload WIndow-Eyes, which as I said I still do out of habbit, and I played a full game of Classic Pipe and didn't even realize Window-Eyes was still running until I'd quit Pipe. That was a welcome surprise. So I'm trying to unload Window-Eyes less when I play most audio games. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Exactly. I hated using JAWS with Sryth. I'm the sort of person that generally doesn't like keyboard echo on, especially not for every character, and I also don't like punctuation read out at me. Getting JAWS to remember those settings was always a pain. And it was more than a little distracting to be playing Sryth and hear, The gobblin strikes at you with his sword exclaim! Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 3:20 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Dark, Actually, Jaws has the ability to fully customize what punctuation is read, but it is buried very deep in the Jaws configuration manager. Unless you are a highly skilled or advanced Jaws user you will never find or be able to configure the punctuation exactly the way you want in a game or any other application. That's actually one of the screen reader's major short comings. The configuration manager has a lot of advanced and powerful features, but most of the Jaws users I know or have met aren't aware of what features are actually in the configuration manager, and a few are a bit intimidated about the amount of options in there. You know, I better not mess with it or I'll break it, type fear people have about any piece of complicated software. I think it is too complex and overly bloated for your average home user when it comes to actually using the configuration manager. Window Eyes is much more user friendly in that from the Window Eyes control panel you have various pulldown menus along the menu bar such as File, Screen, Mouse, Keyboard, Global, etc that are easy to find and just as easy to configure. When done just save the set file. There is no need to dig through a complicated configuration manager just to find a certain check box, or a series of check boxes, to do this or that. Anyway, I'm sure a few Jaws users are about to hang me out to dry for knocking their beloved screen reader, but I'm merely calling them as I see them. I've found Window Eyes a much easier product to configure for interactive fiction games, muds, whatever than Jaws. It seams every time I want to specifically configure the punctuation to speak these symbols and not these symbols I have to plow through an endless amount of dialog boxes and check boxes to get it setup correctly for my needs. That's why I find it a more unwieldy and overly complex screen reader for my tastes. dark wrote: That is probably true Bryan, I've noticed that some people tend to assume every person using a screen reader will automatically use Jaws. I was for instance a trifle irritated when during one of my first experiments with muds, I wrote to the admins of Alterean to get things working, and they sent me a link to some Jaws script files, despite the fact that i'd clearly stated in my E-mail I was using Hal. i must confess, during my one try out with jaws, I wasn't a fan, but given the amount of time I've used Hal that's not surprising, and I'm fairly certain there are people who would say the same thing upon trying Hal after using another screen reader. One option I missed for instance, was Hal's ability to customize what punctuation is read when. i have Hal for instance set to read all punctuation when reviewing via arrow keys, sinse that's what I use when editing, some punctuation when typing so i can remember sentence structure, and none at all when i'm reading using continuous document read, sinse the last thing I want to here in a text adventure, story, --- or even someone's post or E-mail is constant repeats of period comma or dash. I was a litle bothered that Jaws didn't have these options, sinse I rely on them for a lot of things i do involving text, --- in fact without them I'm not sure if I would be quite as much a fan of text adventures and gamebooks as I am now. As I said this isn't intended as a Jaws bash, or a Hal promo, merely noting things I've got used to having in hal which I'd miss in another program. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
I've never actually tried using Window-Eyes with Lone Wolf. I tend to use Sapi. But I am glad the game offers that option in case I ever decided to mix things up a bit for variety. And if I was to start developing games I would try to include options for as many screen readers as I could right from the outset so as not to seem like I was targetting one specific group of users. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 3:32 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Bryan, Well, don't forget GMA. As of Lonewolf 3.5 the game has Window Eyes API support. That happened because us non-Jaws users nagged David Greenwood until he realized not all of his Lonewolf customers are Jaws users, and we want the same access to the game as Jaws users. If he could use the JFW API for the game he could use the same for Window Eyes too. In the end he finally added Window Eyes and Sapi 5 support in version 3.5. However, that might not have happened if there were not enough non-Jaws users to maret such an upgrade. However, this is clearly a good case of how the developer uses Jaws, developed the game initially for a Jaws user base, and finally was asked to include other screen readers as part of the games speech output. Cases like this sets a president that we can't assume what access technology, if any, is present on the target computer. These days it could be a free and open source solution like NVDA for all we know. Therefore the game itself should provide all that is necessary for providing accessibility to itself independant of any specific screen reader or speech software that may or may not be present. Bryan Peterson wrote: The only company I've seen make allownaces is BSC Games, and that wasn't even a game. It was actually one of their Blindsoftware products, that Day-by-day Professional which offers support for Window-Eyes. But I still don't think they realize how well Window-Eyes meshes with games. I remember I forgot to unload WIndow-Eyes, which as I said I still do out of habbit, and I played a full game of Classic Pipe and didn't even realize Window-Eyes was still running until I'd quit Pipe. That was a welcome surprise. So I'm trying to unload Window-Eyes less when I play most audio games. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Just a quick note here... The Veterens administration gives computers to those blind veterens who can handle it. They only give jaws to the vets, and there is absolutely no mention of other screen readers. in fact, the VA trainers in the rehab hospitals for the blind have never once told me anything about all the great things the visually impaired has accomplished thru programs, games, email lists and the like. It would have been nice for those computer teachers to give out lots of links to the communities that are on the internet, it would have made my first few years a lot less stressful and difficult. AS a side note, the only game provided by the VA for the blind was a chess set, and bingo. al - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 5:00 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Bryan, That's not so surprising really. When I first went blind the first thing they showed me was Jaws. As a result that is what I ended up with for school, college, and being new to blindness and screen readers in general I really didn't know anything different. I just assumed Jaws was the only show in town. It was only after I got to college not only did I discover there were several other screen readers out there, I found Jaws really wasn't so hot. Yeah, it was a decent screen reader, but Window eyes has always been a fairly decent product itself. The more current versions are a superior product in my opinion. However, this brings me to my point. If I assume most blind computer users in the United States were handled the same way I was they were given Jaws through some state or school agency, and it was assumed it was the best product for the person it was given to. As a result the blind computer user has no experience in using Hal, Window Eyes, or anything else. They may not even been shown their options to pick or choose the product they wanted. It was just assumed Jaws was what they would use for work, school, college, whatever. So as it happens most of our game developers are Jaws users. When they say turn off your screen reader in the manual I half to assume they know Jaws conflicts with games, and they have no personal experience with anything other than Jaws. Else you might get directions for how to set the game up with Jaws, Window Eyes, Hal, System Access, etc. As has been pointed out here Hal and Window Eyes don't really have serious conflicts with existing accessible games. Jaws, on the other hand, does. Therefore it might help if we educate the game developers out there on how various screen readers works with their games so that the manuals can be updated to reflect this more specifically. Smile Bryan Peterson wrote: Doubtless Dark the reason for that is that while they may say your screen reader, a lot of game developers probably assume most of their customer base uses JAWS. I myself was a staunch JAWS user until two years ago, when I discovered that JAWS won't let me use the NeoSpeach voices and Window-Eyes will. Then as I experimented I discovered that Window-Eyes worked so much better with just about every program I used. The bit with games was just an accidental discovery, but I still turn off Window-Eyes out of habbit when I play games. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
My thought is that, maybe it should be a general practice to unload your screen reader regardless of which one you use, just to make sure that there are no keyboard or voicing conflicts. --- In God we trust! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 12:00 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Bryan, That's not so surprising really. When I first went blind the first thing they showed me was Jaws. As a result that is what I ended up with for school, college, and being new to blindness and screen readers in general I really didn't know anything different. I just assumed Jaws was the only show in town. It was only after I got to college not only did I discover there were several other screen readers out there, I found Jaws really wasn't so hot. Yeah, it was a decent screen reader, but Window eyes has always been a fairly decent product itself. The more current versions are a superior product in my opinion. However, this brings me to my point. If I assume most blind computer users in the United States were handled the same way I was they were given Jaws through some state or school agency, and it was assumed it was the best product for the person it was given to. As a result the blind computer user has no experience in using Hal, Window Eyes, or anything else. They may not even been shown their options to pick or choose the product they wanted. It was just assumed Jaws was what they would use for work, school, college, whatever. So as it happens most of our game developers are Jaws users. When they say turn off your screen reader in the manual I half to assume they know Jaws conflicts with games, and they have no personal experience with anything other than Jaws. Else you might get directions for how to set the game up with Jaws, Window Eyes, Hal, System Access, etc. As has been pointed out here Hal and Window Eyes don't really have serious conflicts with existing accessible games. Jaws, on the other hand, does. Therefore it might help if we educate the game developers out there on how various screen readers works with their games so that the manuals can be updated to reflect this more specifically. Smile Bryan Peterson wrote: Doubtless Dark the reason for that is that while they may say your screen reader, a lot of game developers probably assume most of their customer base uses JAWS. I myself was a staunch JAWS user until two years ago, when I discovered that JAWS won't let me use the NeoSpeach voices and Window-Eyes will. Then as I experimented I discovered that Window-Eyes worked so much better with just about every program I used. The bit with games was just an accidental discovery, but I still turn off Window-Eyes out of habbit when I play games. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
I agree that, while the configuration manager is too complex, it is very customizable. As for hanging you out to dry, I will not buy MOTA. Why not?? I already did. Ha ha. Dang, it's going to be a great game! The waiting is tougher than good beef jerky! --- In God we trust! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 12:20 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Dark, Actually, Jaws has the ability to fully customize what punctuation is read, but it is buried very deep in the Jaws configuration manager. Unless you are a highly skilled or advanced Jaws user you will never find or be able to configure the punctuation exactly the way you want in a game or any other application. That's actually one of the screen reader's major short comings. The configuration manager has a lot of advanced and powerful features, but most of the Jaws users I know or have met aren't aware of what features are actually in the configuration manager, and a few are a bit intimidated about the amount of options in there. You know, I better not mess with it or I'll break it, type fear people have about any piece of complicated software. I think it is too complex and overly bloated for your average home user when it comes to actually using the configuration manager. Window Eyes is much more user friendly in that from the Window Eyes control panel you have various pulldown menus along the menu bar such as File, Screen, Mouse, Keyboard, Global, etc that are easy to find and just as easy to configure. When done just save the set file. There is no need to dig through a complicated configuration manager just to find a certain check box, or a series of check boxes, to do this or that. Anyway, I'm sure a few Jaws users are about to hang me out to dry for knocking their beloved screen reader, but I'm merely calling them as I see them. I've found Window Eyes a much easier product to configure for interactive fiction games, muds, whatever than Jaws. It seams every time I want to specifically configure the punctuation to speak these symbols and not these symbols I have to plow through an endless amount of dialog boxes and check boxes to get it setup correctly for my needs. That's why I find it a more unwieldy and overly complex screen reader for my tastes. dark wrote: That is probably true Bryan, I've noticed that some people tend to assume every person using a screen reader will automatically use Jaws. I was for instance a trifle irritated when during one of my first experiments with muds, I wrote to the admins of Alterean to get things working, and they sent me a link to some Jaws script files, despite the fact that i'd clearly stated in my E-mail I was using Hal. i must confess, during my one try out with jaws, I wasn't a fan, but given the amount of time I've used Hal that's not surprising, and I'm fairly certain there are people who would say the same thing upon trying Hal after using another screen reader. One option I missed for instance, was Hal's ability to customize what punctuation is read when. i have Hal for instance set to read all punctuation when reviewing via arrow keys, sinse that's what I use when editing, some punctuation when typing so i can remember sentence structure, and none at all when i'm reading using continuous document read, sinse the last thing I want to here in a text adventure, story, --- or even someone's post or E-mail is constant repeats of period comma or dash. I was a litle bothered that Jaws didn't have these options, sinse I rely on them for a lot of things i do involving text, --- in fact without them I'm not sure if I would be quite as much a fan of text adventures and gamebooks as I am now. As I said this isn't intended as a Jaws bash, or a Hal promo, merely noting things I've got used to having in hal which I'd miss in another program. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Charles, That's a good point. I generally unload my screen reader, Window Eyes, anyway when playing a game for the simple fact it frees the CPU and memory up for the game. I will however keep it running if I'm debugging a game, so I can read error mesages, or I happen to be playing a game while chatting on line. However, usually I just unload it while playing to free up system resources. Charles Rivard wrote: My thought is that, maybe it should be a general practice to unload your screen reader regardless of which one you use, just to make sure that there are no keyboard or voicing conflicts. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Mmm, jerky. LOL. Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. - Original Message - From: Charles Rivard woofer...@sbcglobal.net To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 9:04 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games I agree that, while the configuration manager is too complex, it is very customizable. As for hanging you out to dry, I will not buy MOTA. Why not?? I already did. Ha ha. Dang, it's going to be a great game! The waiting is tougher than good beef jerky! --- In God we trust! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 12:20 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Dark, Actually, Jaws has the ability to fully customize what punctuation is read, but it is buried very deep in the Jaws configuration manager. Unless you are a highly skilled or advanced Jaws user you will never find or be able to configure the punctuation exactly the way you want in a game or any other application. That's actually one of the screen reader's major short comings. The configuration manager has a lot of advanced and powerful features, but most of the Jaws users I know or have met aren't aware of what features are actually in the configuration manager, and a few are a bit intimidated about the amount of options in there. You know, I better not mess with it or I'll break it, type fear people have about any piece of complicated software. I think it is too complex and overly bloated for your average home user when it comes to actually using the configuration manager. Window Eyes is much more user friendly in that from the Window Eyes control panel you have various pulldown menus along the menu bar such as File, Screen, Mouse, Keyboard, Global, etc that are easy to find and just as easy to configure. When done just save the set file. There is no need to dig through a complicated configuration manager just to find a certain check box, or a series of check boxes, to do this or that. Anyway, I'm sure a few Jaws users are about to hang me out to dry for knocking their beloved screen reader, but I'm merely calling them as I see them. I've found Window Eyes a much easier product to configure for interactive fiction games, muds, whatever than Jaws. It seams every time I want to specifically configure the punctuation to speak these symbols and not these symbols I have to plow through an endless amount of dialog boxes and check boxes to get it setup correctly for my needs. That's why I find it a more unwieldy and overly complex screen reader for my tastes. dark wrote: That is probably true Bryan, I've noticed that some people tend to assume every person using a screen reader will automatically use Jaws. I was for instance a trifle irritated when during one of my first experiments with muds, I wrote to the admins of Alterean to get things working, and they sent me a link to some Jaws script files, despite the fact that i'd clearly stated in my E-mail I was using Hal. i must confess, during my one try out with jaws, I wasn't a fan, but given the amount of time I've used Hal that's not surprising, and I'm fairly certain there are people who would say the same thing upon trying Hal after using another screen reader. One option I missed for instance, was Hal's ability to customize what punctuation is read when. i have Hal for instance set to read all punctuation when reviewing via arrow keys, sinse that's what I use when editing, some punctuation when typing so i can remember sentence structure, and none at all when i'm reading using continuous document read, sinse the last thing I want to here in a text adventure, story, --- or even someone's post or E-mail is constant repeats of period comma or dash. I was a litle bothered that Jaws didn't have these options, sinse I rely on them for a lot of things i do involving text, --- in fact without them I'm not sure if I would be quite as much a fan of text adventures and gamebooks as I am now. As I said this isn't intended as a Jaws bash, or a Hal promo, merely noting things I've got used to having in hal which I'd miss in another program. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Charles, Exactly my point. Jaws is extremely customizable, but the options are buried in the configuration manager and you have to know what to look for and where to find it in the configuration manager. As a part time user of Jaws I'm not, shall we say a daily Jaws user, so it takes me a long time to find settings and configurations I want in Jaws. Part of the problem is the complexity of the configuration manager itself, and things aren't where I personally would expect to find them. It just isn't a user friendly user interface although I can certainly use it if I absolutely need to. On the other hand when I converted over to Window Eyes I had no problem finding things in Window Eyes. As I said before all of the menus are pretty self-explanatory and if you set the difficulty level to advanced there is a lot of options there that are easy to find, are usually self-explanatory, and I just found it easier from the get go. However, I think we are drifting off the topic of how screen readers relate to games so I'll drift back on topic here. Thing is Jaws has a lot of features I simply don't like turned on. Such as the fact ever since Jaws 10 whenever you are on a web page, such as an on line game, you pass over a edit box and Jaws goes boop, boop, boop, as it turns off MSAA so you can type data into the field. Then, I manually have to turn MSAA back on by moving off the edit box, and continue on my way. I can't say how frustrating and annoying that feature is, and it clearly didn't have on line games in mind as it slows you down quite a lot. So I've had to go into the configuration manager, dig around a while, until I found that little feature and turn it off. Charles Rivard wrote: I agree that, while the configuration manager is too complex, it is very customizable. As for hanging you out to dry, I will not buy MOTA. Why not?? I already did. Ha ha. Dang, it's going to be a great game! The waiting is tougher than good beef jerky! --- In God we trust! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 12:20 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Dark, Actually, Jaws has the ability to fully customize what punctuation is read, but it is buried very deep in the Jaws configuration manager. Unless you are a highly skilled or advanced Jaws user you will never find or be able to configure the punctuation exactly the way you want in a game or any other application. That's actually one of the screen reader's major short comings. The configuration manager has a lot of advanced and powerful features, but most of the Jaws users I know or have met aren't aware of what features are actually in the configuration manager, and a few are a bit intimidated about the amount of options in there. You know, I better not mess with it or I'll break it, type fear people have about any piece of complicated software. I think it is too complex and overly bloated for your average home user when it comes to actually using the configuration manager. Window Eyes is much more user friendly in that from the Window Eyes control panel you have various pulldown menus along the menu bar such as File, Screen, Mouse, Keyboard, Global, etc that are easy to find and just as easy to configure. When done just save the set file. There is no need to dig through a complicated configuration manager just to find a certain check box, or a series of check boxes, to do this or that. Anyway, I'm sure a few Jaws users are about to hang me out to dry for knocking their beloved screen reader, but I'm merely calling them as I see them. I've found Window Eyes a much easier product to configure for interactive fiction games, muds, whatever than Jaws. It seams every time I want to specifically configure the punctuation to speak these symbols and not these symbols I have to plow through an endless amount of dialog boxes and check boxes to get it setup correctly for my needs. That's why I find it a more unwieldy and overly complex screen reader for my tastes. dark wrote: That is probably true Bryan, I've noticed that some people tend to assume every person using a screen reader will automatically use Jaws. I was for instance a trifle irritated when during one of my first experiments with muds, I wrote to the admins of Alterean to get things working, and they sent me a link to some Jaws script files, despite the fact that i'd clearly stated in my E-mail I was using Hal. i must confess, during my one try out with jaws, I wasn't a fan, but given the amount of time I've used Hal that's not surprising, and I'm fairly certain there are people who would say the same thing upon trying Hal after using another screen reader. One option I missed for instance, was Hal's ability to customize what punctuation is read when. i have Hal for instance set to read all punctuation when reviewing via arrow
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Really? That's a feature I've come to like in JAWS myself. -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 6:27 PM To: Charles Rivard; Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Charles, Exactly my point. Jaws is extremely customizable, but the options are buried in the configuration manager and you have to know what to look for and where to find it in the configuration manager. As a part time user of Jaws I'm not, shall we say a daily Jaws user, so it takes me a long time to find settings and configurations I want in Jaws. Part of the problem is the complexity of the configuration manager itself, and things aren't where I personally would expect to find them. It just isn't a user friendly user interface although I can certainly use it if I absolutely need to. On the other hand when I converted over to Window Eyes I had no problem finding things in Window Eyes. As I said before all of the menus are pretty self-explanatory and if you set the difficulty level to advanced there is a lot of options there that are easy to find, are usually self-explanatory, and I just found it easier from the get go. However, I think we are drifting off the topic of how screen readers relate to games so I'll drift back on topic here. Thing is Jaws has a lot of features I simply don't like turned on. Such as the fact ever since Jaws 10 whenever you are on a web page, such as an on line game, you pass over a edit box and Jaws goes boop, boop, boop, as it turns off MSAA so you can type data into the field. Then, I manually have to turn MSAA back on by moving off the edit box, and continue on my way. I can't say how frustrating and annoying that feature is, and it clearly didn't have on line games in mind as it slows you down quite a lot. So I've had to go into the configuration manager, dig around a while, until I found that little feature and turn it off. Charles Rivard wrote: I agree that, while the configuration manager is too complex, it is very customizable. As for hanging you out to dry, I will not buy MOTA. Why not?? I already did. Ha ha. Dang, it's going to be a great game! The waiting is tougher than good beef jerky! --- In God we trust! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 12:20 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Dark, Actually, Jaws has the ability to fully customize what punctuation is read, but it is buried very deep in the Jaws configuration manager. Unless you are a highly skilled or advanced Jaws user you will never find or be able to configure the punctuation exactly the way you want in a game or any other application. That's actually one of the screen reader's major short comings. The configuration manager has a lot of advanced and powerful features, but most of the Jaws users I know or have met aren't aware of what features are actually in the configuration manager, and a few are a bit intimidated about the amount of options in there. You know, I better not mess with it or I'll break it, type fear people have about any piece of complicated software. I think it is too complex and overly bloated for your average home user when it comes to actually using the configuration manager. Window Eyes is much more user friendly in that from the Window Eyes control panel you have various pulldown menus along the menu bar such as File, Screen, Mouse, Keyboard, Global, etc that are easy to find and just as easy to configure. When done just save the set file. There is no need to dig through a complicated configuration manager just to find a certain check box, or a series of check boxes, to do this or that. Anyway, I'm sure a few Jaws users are about to hang me out to dry for knocking their beloved screen reader, but I'm merely calling them as I see them. I've found Window Eyes a much easier product to configure for interactive fiction games, muds, whatever than Jaws. It seams every time I want to specifically configure the punctuation to speak these symbols and not these symbols I have to plow through an endless amount of dialog boxes and check boxes to get it setup correctly for my needs. That's why I find it a more unwieldy and overly complex screen reader for my tastes. dark wrote: That is probably true Bryan, I've noticed that some people tend to assume every person using a screen reader will automatically use Jaws. I was for instance a trifle irritated when during one of my first experiments with muds, I wrote to the admins of Alterean to get things working, and they sent me a link to some Jaws script files, despite the fact that i'd clearly stated in my E-mail I was using Hal. i must confess, during my one try out with jaws, I wasn't a fan, but given
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Al, That's whya document like Michael Feir's excellently written Personal Power book is a very good help to the blind. If every rehab center or state agency could hand that out to a totally new blind computer user it would go a long ways to solving a lot of problems in terms of exposing them to all the things available to them. Especially, to accessible games of which I am always eager to find new markets and customers. Instead it seams each new generation of blind computer users have to find these things out the hard way by searching for it. Allan Thompson wrote: Just a quick note here... The Veterens administration gives computers to those blind veterens who can handle it. They only give jaws to the vets, and there is absolutely no mention of other screen readers. in fact, the VA trainers in the rehab hospitals for the blind have never once told me anything about all the great things the visually impaired has accomplished thru programs, games, email lists and the like. It would have been nice for those computer teachers to give out lots of links to the communities that are on the internet, it would have made my first few years a lot less stressful and difficult. AS a side note, the only game provided by the VA for the blind was a chess set, and bingo. al --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Bryan, Personally, I feel self-voicing the games is a better solution. Not all screen readers have a ready to use API like Window-Eyes and Jaws does. NVDA, for example, doesn't have an API you could just tap into making it more difficult to insure your game works with that screen reader. Therefore you would still have to use Sapi or some other method to make the game accessible to those customers who aren't using Jaws or Window-Eyes anyway. So why not adopt a solution that works for everyone from the outset? Bryan Peterson wrote: I've never actually tried using Window-Eyes with Lone Wolf. I tend to use Sapi. But I am glad the game offers that option in case I ever decided to mix things up a bit for variety. And if I was to start developing games I would try to include options for as many screen readers as I could right from the outset so as not to seem like I was targetting one specific group of users. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Hayden, I'm sure that little feature of Jaws works out ok for day to day use for most people. However, there are also times it just plane gets in the way. Like if you want to log into Sryth, you already have a kooky with your user name and password saved, so all you have to do is press enter on the login button, and your set. However, the second Jaws lands on the user name field it does the little boop, boop, boop thing and knocks you out of MSAA mode when all you wanted to do is down arrow strait to the login button instead of being dropped right into the edit field which is already filled in. I can think of another case like when you are creating a character on Sryth and you have to fill in your stats on the form. I'd prefer to enter an edit field when I find the one I want to fill in instead of Jaws automatically dropping me in the first edit field it finds and assuming I want to type information there which I may or may not want to do. I'm sure I can give several more examples here, but you get the basic drift. Window-Eyes doesn't do this, and I'm perfectly happy with pressing enter on an edit field if and when I want to enter something into the field. Otherwise don't assume I'm going to type something there just because it happens to be an edit field. As a result of features like that little automatic forms mode, or whatever Jaws calls it, I'm finding I have to turn more and more stuff off in the screen reader just to get back to a basic sscreen reader without a million extras I could care less about. Smile Hayden Presley wrote: Really? That's a feature I've come to like in JAWS myself. -Original Message- From: gamers-boun...@audyssey.org [mailto:gamers-boun...@audyssey.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Ward Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 6:27 PM To: Charles Rivard; Gamers Discussion list Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Charles, Exactly my point. Jaws is extremely customizable, but the options are buried in the configuration manager and you have to know what to look for and where to find it in the configuration manager. As a part time user of Jaws I'm not, shall we say a daily Jaws user, so it takes me a long time to find settings and configurations I want in Jaws. Part of the problem is the complexity of the configuration manager itself, and things aren't where I personally would expect to find them. It just isn't a user friendly user interface although I can certainly use it if I absolutely need to. On the other hand when I converted over to Window Eyes I had no problem finding things in Window Eyes. As I said before all of the menus are pretty self-explanatory and if you set the difficulty level to advanced there is a lot of options there that are easy to find, are usually self-explanatory, and I just found it easier from the get go. However, I think we are drifting off the topic of how screen readers relate to games so I'll drift back on topic here. Thing is Jaws has a lot of features I simply don't like turned on. Such as the fact ever since Jaws 10 whenever you are on a web page, such as an on line game, you pass over a edit box and Jaws goes boop, boop, boop, as it turns off MSAA so you can type data into the field. Then, I manually have to turn MSAA back on by moving off the edit box, and continue on my way. I can't say how frustrating and annoying that feature is, and it clearly didn't have on line games in mind as it slows you down quite a lot. So I've had to go into the configuration manager, dig around a while, until I found that little feature and turn it off. Charles Rivard wrote: I agree that, while the configuration manager is too complex, it is very customizable. As for hanging you out to dry, I will not buy MOTA. Why not?? I already did. Ha ha. Dang, it's going to be a great game! The waiting is tougher than good beef jerky! --- In God we trust! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 12:20 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Dark, Actually, Jaws has the ability to fully customize what punctuation is read, but it is buried very deep in the Jaws configuration manager. Unless you are a highly skilled or advanced Jaws user you will never find or be able to configure the punctuation exactly the way you want in a game or any other application. That's actually one of the screen reader's major short comings. The configuration manager has a lot of advanced and powerful features, but most of the Jaws users I know or have met aren't aware of what features are actually in the configuration manager, and a few are a bit intimidated about the amount of options in there. You know, I better not mess with it or I'll break it, type fear people have about any piece of complicated software. I think it is too complex and overly bloated for your average home user when
[Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Dark, Unfortunately, it is pretty much like anything else. It all comes down to how it is marketed to the masses. Unfortunately, the blind don't have some central goto source for things like screen readers and accessible games and they hear about them via word of mouth or through agencies that have their pet product to give you. For example, take a game like Termite Torpedo. You and I might agree it probably isn't the best accessible game ever made, but it happens to be produced by American Printing House who is well known by state agencies, schools for the blind, whatever. As a result a while back when I was talking to BSVI and mentioned that I was working on my own accessible games the first thing out of their mouth was, you mean a game like Termite Torpedo? The bottom line here is most of those people knew nothing about Audyssey or most of the games that are out here for the blind. The only reason they knew about Termite Torpedo is because it happens to be in their catalogs, and it is made by a well known organization in the first place. As a result that game, which is so so as far as accessible games goes, has a chance of reaching a wider audience just because it is sold by someone of some repute and renown in the blind community. The same problem happens to developers of screen readers and other accessible products. Some companies have an automatic in, and it is hard to change the system because colleges and government agencies have been stuck in that mold. They have designed their entire program around certain products and have no desire to change. When I was at Wright State they offered a special class for both blind and sighted students geared toward accessibility software as an elective. Since I needed the credits and it looked like an easy class to ace I took it. As it turned out the woman who taught the class claimed to be an expert on accessibility software for the blind, but actually was nothing of the sort. As it turned out I knew more than she did on a variety of topics. Anyway, that entire class was based on Freedom Scientific products such as Jaws, Magic, and Openbook. Nothing was said about competing products like K1000, Window-Eyes, Hal, Zoomtext, or anything else that should have been mentioned or covered in that class. The final project for the class was to write a business proposal to be presented to a company or state agency requesting a computer loaded with accessible software, and explain why. Well, for my proposal I set out to write my paper on access software I happened to use and know well such as Window-Eyes as my screen reader, Omnipage Pro for OCR, and Zoomtext for screen enlargement. I did so for two reasons. First, I wanted the instructer to realise there is software out there besides what she covered in class, and maybe by reading my paper she might learn something new. Second, I personally used the software I wrote about, and liked the products better in many cases than the software that was covered in class. Third, in some cases like Omnipage Pro was much cheaper than Openbook, worked well enough for my uses, and I would be saving the agency or company lots of mony on that sale alone. So you want to know what happened? Well, the instructer took several points off my grade simply because I didn't use any of the products covered in class, and it clearly was a case of I was suppose to parot back everything I heard in class in my proposal. As that hadn't been specified by the instructer I naturally took some issue over that, but I honestly don't think she knew how to grade the ppaper objectively. She admited as much in her office she wasn't familiar with Omnipage Pro, Window-Eyes, etc so couldn't evaluate them so knocked points off. However, I think this proves a very important point about how products like Jaws gets an almost legendary following in the United States. It is simply that colleges, state agencies, schools for the blind, and any other large institution has adopted Jaws early on, and it is almost impossible to convince them to maybe take a closer look at Hal, Window-Eyes, or System Access. Even if you can convince someone within that institution, such as a university, to take a closer look at alternative products there is no garentee their superiors will agree to fit the bill for a completely new product. They'd rather stick with what they have regardless of if it is better or worse than the alternatives. dark wrote: Interesting Tom. I admit, i know very litle about window eyes at all, in fact I didn't even know it existed until about 3 years ago. i suspect this is for the same reason that many people in the Us do not know about Hal. I wasn't sure about window eyes and games, though as so much audio games documentation reads turn off your screen reader rather than turn off Jaws I'd vaguely assumed that window eyes had the same trouble. Nice to know it doesn't,
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Thomas, When I first went to the Cleveland Sight Center's computer lab, they showed me Vert Plus by IBM with a DecTalk and Jaws for dos version 1 with an Accent SA. Not only was Henter Joyce a start up company at the time, I liked the Jaws and Accent SA combination better. It wasn't until years later that Vocal Eyes, ASAP, Flipper and other dos screen readers came out. I tried them all just to make sure that my dos games worked with them. They did as long as I had the game write to the console rather than directly to the screen. I am still a Jaws user. Have seen many discussions over the years about screen readers. It usually ended up that people liked the first one that they learned. BTW I often do not use Jaws. You know am using sapi5 for games, Email and other programs on my computer. BFN Jim A Buckeye is just a worthless nut. j...@kitchensinc.net http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hello, Unless you still received an A in the class, did you challenge the grade she gave you since you had proof that her grading of your paper was inappropriately biased? Most people do not challenge inappropriate grading, but every university has a policy in place to deal with such. When it comes to disabilities, the inappropriate grade is most often given by a teacher who does not believe the student with disabilities can do the same work, so the instructor grades the paper with more severity than they grade the rest of the papers. When I worked as a rehab counselor in a university's disabled students office, we would have another professor in the same department grade the student's paper and another paper written for the class. There would be no identifying information on either paper. If the department colleague gave a better grade for the disabled student's paper, or if the disabled student's paper was given a similar grade to the sample paper, we would then take everything to the department chair, or higher if the department chair happened to be the instructor who was showing the bias, and the instructor would then be required to defend their grading. The few times I did this, the instructors always backed down since we were able to prove that they were in the wrong, and if they did not admit their error, the next step would be an instructor's peer review board. Different universities have different procedures, but they all have something similar in place. David Chittenden, MS, CRC, MRCAA Thomas Ward wrote: Hi Dark, Unfortunately, it is pretty much like anything else. It all comes down to how it is marketed to the masses. Unfortunately, the blind don't have some central goto source for things like screen readers and accessible games and they hear about them via word of mouth or through agencies that have their pet product to give you. For example, take a game like Termite Torpedo. You and I might agree it probably isn't the best accessible game ever made, but it happens to be produced by American Printing House who is well known by state agencies, schools for the blind, whatever. As a result a while back when I was talking to BSVI and mentioned that I was working on my own accessible games the first thing out of their mouth was, you mean a game like Termite Torpedo? The bottom line here is most of those people knew nothing about Audyssey or most of the games that are out here for the blind. The only reason they knew about Termite Torpedo is because it happens to be in their catalogs, and it is made by a well known organization in the first place. As a result that game, which is so so as far as accessible games goes, has a chance of reaching a wider audience just because it is sold by someone of some repute and renown in the blind community. The same problem happens to developers of screen readers and other accessible products. Some companies have an automatic in, and it is hard to change the system because colleges and government agencies have been stuck in that mold. They have designed their entire program around certain products and have no desire to change. When I was at Wright State they offered a special class for both blind and sighted students geared toward accessibility software as an elective. Since I needed the credits and it looked like an easy class to ace I took it. As it turned out the woman who taught the class claimed to be an expert on accessibility software for the blind, but actually was nothing of the sort. As it turned out I knew more than she did on a variety of topics. Anyway, that entire class was based on Freedom Scientific products such as Jaws, Magic, and Openbook. Nothing was said about competing products like K1000, Window-Eyes, Hal, Zoomtext, or anything else that should have been mentioned or covered in that class. The final project for the class was to write a business proposal to be presented to a company or state agency requesting a computer loaded with accessible software, and explain why. Well, for my proposal I set out to write my paper on access software I happened to use and know well such as Window-Eyes as my screen reader, Omnipage Pro for OCR, and Zoomtext for screen enlargement. I did so for two reasons. First, I wanted the instructer to realise there is software out there besides what she covered in class, and maybe by reading my paper she might learn something new. Second, I personally used the software I wrote about, and liked the products better in many cases than the software that was covered in class. Third, in some cases like Omnipage Pro was much cheaper than Openbook, worked well enough for my uses, and I would be saving the agency or company lots of mony on that sale alone. So you want to know what happened? Well, the instructer took several points off my grade simply because I didn't use any of the products covered in class, and it clearly was a case of I
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
I would think that if your class instructor was not familiar with the products you wrote about, it was her fault, not yours, and she should not have lowered your grade because of her lack of knowledge, especially if it was right there on paper for her, written by someone who knew what he was talking about through personal experience. This is not rocket science, but good old horse sense. --- In God we trust! - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 4:37 PM Subject: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Dark, Unfortunately, it is pretty much like anything else. It all comes down to how it is marketed to the masses. Unfortunately, the blind don't have some central goto source for things like screen readers and accessible games and they hear about them via word of mouth or through agencies that have their pet product to give you. For example, take a game like Termite Torpedo. You and I might agree it probably isn't the best accessible game ever made, but it happens to be produced by American Printing House who is well known by state agencies, schools for the blind, whatever. As a result a while back when I was talking to BSVI and mentioned that I was working on my own accessible games the first thing out of their mouth was, you mean a game like Termite Torpedo? The bottom line here is most of those people knew nothing about Audyssey or most of the games that are out here for the blind. The only reason they knew about Termite Torpedo is because it happens to be in their catalogs, and it is made by a well known organization in the first place. As a result that game, which is so so as far as accessible games goes, has a chance of reaching a wider audience just because it is sold by someone of some repute and renown in the blind community. The same problem happens to developers of screen readers and other accessible products. Some companies have an automatic in, and it is hard to change the system because colleges and government agencies have been stuck in that mold. They have designed their entire program around certain products and have no desire to change. When I was at Wright State they offered a special class for both blind and sighted students geared toward accessibility software as an elective. Since I needed the credits and it looked like an easy class to ace I took it. As it turned out the woman who taught the class claimed to be an expert on accessibility software for the blind, but actually was nothing of the sort. As it turned out I knew more than she did on a variety of topics. Anyway, that entire class was based on Freedom Scientific products such as Jaws, Magic, and Openbook. Nothing was said about competing products like K1000, Window-Eyes, Hal, Zoomtext, or anything else that should have been mentioned or covered in that class. The final project for the class was to write a business proposal to be presented to a company or state agency requesting a computer loaded with accessible software, and explain why. Well, for my proposal I set out to write my paper on access software I happened to use and know well such as Window-Eyes as my screen reader, Omnipage Pro for OCR, and Zoomtext for screen enlargement. I did so for two reasons. First, I wanted the instructer to realise there is software out there besides what she covered in class, and maybe by reading my paper she might learn something new. Second, I personally used the software I wrote about, and liked the products better in many cases than the software that was covered in class. Third, in some cases like Omnipage Pro was much cheaper than Openbook, worked well enough for my uses, and I would be saving the agency or company lots of mony on that sale alone. So you want to know what happened? Well, the instructer took several points off my grade simply because I didn't use any of the products covered in class, and it clearly was a case of I was suppose to parot back everything I heard in class in my proposal. As that hadn't been specified by the instructer I naturally took some issue over that, but I honestly don't think she knew how to grade the ppaper objectively. She admited as much in her office she wasn't familiar with Omnipage Pro, Window-Eyes, etc so couldn't evaluate them so knocked points off. However, I think this proves a very important point about how products like Jaws gets an almost legendary following in the United States. It is simply that colleges, state agencies, schools for the blind, and any other large institution has adopted Jaws early on, and it is almost impossible to convince them to maybe take a closer look at Hal, Window-Eyes, or System Access. Even if you can convince someone within that institution, such as a university, to take a closer look at alternative products there is no garentee their superiors will agree to fit the bill for a completely new product. They'd rather stick with what
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hello Tom. it doesn't surprise me that this is possible in Jaws, but I'm sad it's such a awful hassle to do. During a couple of hours playing with jaws at a society for the blind, I personally found the config options a pest, but I assumed this was simply due to my unfamiliarity with the setup rather than anything particularly wrong with the program itself. This one's actually come up on the audiogames.net forum, sinse one of the other mods has mentioned my use of dashes to denote a pause in the flow of conversation and stated this is somewhat irritating with Jaws. I asked him why he didn't have Jaws customized the way I do Hal, and he claimed in Jaws it was not possible. I know he's a pretty technically astute chap, and if He! cannot find how to solve this in Jaws config it must be berried very deeply indeed. In Hal, it takes me seconds to make these changes, and I often have to reset them if I upgrade Hal and it restores default settings. Hal actually has a setup with menues for speech etc much as you describe Window eyes does. There are plenty of deep and highly complex settings, I could for instance defign precisely which punctuation I wanted spoken in which reading mode by hand, but the only occasion I've ever used this is when experimenting with roguelikes and ascii graphics, generally I find the all, most, some, and none schemes Hal has by default more than adequate. Hal also has an instant save these settings for a given application or webpage button as well. As to any fear of breaking something, Hal has restore to default buttons in every settings page, so if you mess something up, it's easily fixed. On one occasion for instance, I hit a hotkey I didn't expect and suddenly had Hal's on screen reading language set to finish! and reading English with Finish language rules was completely incomprehensible! Now, I know exactly what that hotkey was (ctrl period in the default settings0, however at the time I had no idea how to get it back to english. I tried reading Hal's hotkey reference list, but found it near impossible. So, I opened the control panel thinking what now to find to my utter releaf, that the language for the control panel was quite independent of the on screen language, which does make sense if you wanted to read your screen in one language and configure Hal in another. It didn't take me long at all to find the appropriate item and change it successfully. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
This is exactly why Tom recorded speech or self-voicing options are better, not to mention Sapi for people using windows. It's for this reason I've never been able to try muds until Vip mud came out with it's Sapi support, sinse I couldn't find a default client which output directly to Hal, and my usual methods with reading the screen in Hal couldn't seem to keep up with what was going on in the Mud. Now Hal has Lua mapping support included, it's possible for developers to write up map files for it easily enough, though I stil agree on access options being a better deal for developers to use, sinse people could be using Nvda or whatever. What really showed this to me, was Smugglers 4. I'm not sure of the technical reasons, but the game seemed to play a lot more smoothly with Hal (and I believe window eyes), than with jaws. We can all remember the hoo har over that one, and Niels had to redo some of the item labeling rules just to get Jaws support added. Hopefully, what he's learnt from smugglers 4 will make the access features of the up coming Tv manager 2 less of a hassle, but it is interesting he had to specifically add Jaws support from reader requests, while as you mention, many devs do not support other screen readers. Beware the grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 10:32 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Bryan, Well, don't forget GMA. As of Lonewolf 3.5 the game has Window Eyes API support. That happened because us non-Jaws users nagged David Greenwood until he realized not all of his Lonewolf customers are Jaws users, and we want the same access to the game as Jaws users. If he could use the JFW API for the game he could use the same for Window Eyes too. In the end he finally added Window Eyes and Sapi 5 support in version 3.5. However, that might not have happened if there were not enough non-Jaws users to maret such an upgrade. However, this is clearly a good case of how the developer uses Jaws, developed the game initially for a Jaws user base, and finally was asked to include other screen readers as part of the games speech output. Cases like this sets a president that we can't assume what access technology, if any, is present on the target computer. These days it could be a free and open source solution like NVDA for all we know. Therefore the game itself should provide all that is necessary for providing accessibility to itself independant of any specific screen reader or speech software that may or may not be present. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
again though Charles, in hal, there's no need to actually unload the program, just flick the voice and or keys of with ctrl zero and ctrl 8 (though as i said, I don't usually turn the keys off unless I need to). The only time I actually have to unload Hal completely, is when upgrading to a new version of Hal, and sinse the installer is self-voicing this isn't quite the same deal. Beware the Grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
funny Tom, I've never felt the need to with hal, and haven't experienced slowdown or anything similar. Indeed, there have been occasions when I've played a bit of a game, flicked out of it, turned Hal's voice on to read E-mails or deal with other matters, then gone back to the game. This is especially true of games where I have to wait for some reason, like Che martin's card games waiting for new players, or even waiting for your character to regain health in technoshock (which seems to take ages). I also flick Hal's voice off when watching dvds for the same reason. I'd actually miss this feature quite a lot if it wasn't possible to use. Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Well, at least in the states agencies acknolidge that blind people can! use computers. In England, it's all nitting circles and bingo! Beware the grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward thomasward1...@gmail.com To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 1:00 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games Hi Al, That's whya document like Michael Feir's excellently written Personal Power book is a very good help to the blind. If every rehab center or state agency could hand that out to a totally new blind computer user it would go a long ways to solving a lot of problems in terms of exposing them to all the things available to them. Especially, to accessible games of which I am always eager to find new markets and customers. Instead it seams each new generation of blind computer users have to find these things out the hard way by searching for it. Allan Thompson wrote: Just a quick note here... The Veterens administration gives computers to those blind veterens who can handle it. They only give jaws to the vets, and there is absolutely no mention of other screen readers. in fact, the VA trainers in the rehab hospitals for the blind have never once told me anything about all the great things the visually impaired has accomplished thru programs, games, email lists and the like. It would have been nice for those computer teachers to give out lots of links to the communities that are on the internet, it would have made my first few years a lot less stressful and difficult. AS a side note, the only game provided by the VA for the blind was a chess set, and bingo. al --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
Re: [Audyssey] Screen Readers and Games
Hi Tom. A rather nasty story about your instructor, though I'm afraid I'm rather amazed institutions in the united states do anything at all regarding accessible games, even if that game is termite torpedo. Over the years I've tried to get the rnib and other institutions in this country to show an interest in gaming at all. Early on, I proposed that sinse tabletop roleplay only takes dice and a manual, it'd be a great thing to create accessible versions of with tactile D10, d20's and d100's, and manuals either in audio or braille form (this was long before I discovered Gma dice). I got the complete brush off and was told this was a minority interest, and that most blind people would not be interested. I pointed out it would be invaluable for students going to uni, and was again, told where to get off. Likewise, I can honestly say that I've never seen any British blind institution own any licenses for accessible games at all. My secondary school, which was an ordinary main stream school with a unit for vi children had no such programs at all, despite several machines running dos and early versions of windows. This might have been excuseable when I started secondary school in 1993, but less so when I left in 1998. I've spoken to some people who went to complete special schools, and from what they said, the schools didn't have access to games either. I'm currently applying for a guide dog, and it'll be interesting to see if the center in sunderland has anything, sinse generally I've found guide dogs to be one of the best organizations for blind people in the country,- and one of the few i've got a lot of time for (the fact that they actually acknolidge having disfuctional eyeballs doesn't affect your brain probably has something to do with it). On the screen reader front, I have noticed the tendency you talk about. My sedcondary school had Hal, and my brother was independently already a supernova user which was how I found the program. When it came to applying to the local authority to buy my equipment for university, I was lucky enough that the officer involved was a long standing family friend, and a very nice fellow, who simply said what do you want, tell me and I'll order it I have heard though, of occasions where people haven't been so lucky. My brother for instance, --- -who applied three years earlier with a different officer was sent for an assassment of what he needed (so he himself didn't have any say), and then was recommended Ie, forced to have, a bunch of stuff. He actually discovered a very nasty litle dodge the counsel were running with a computer systems firm, sinse he was being sold equipment which was two years out of date, but that's another story. Suffice it to say, people aren't always so lucky,a nd local authorities just slap copies of Jaws on people before thinking, and unless the Vi person themselves knows enough to query this, the situation continues. Btw, I've never actually managed to run any of the american printing house games at all. I've tried on my old desktop, my laptop, and my new desktop. This is one reason armadillo army currently has no description on audiogames.net. I could probably cobble something generic togetherjust from reading the manual to the game, but this never really seemed fair, as I do always try my best to play games I write entries for, another reason why game demos are so useful). Beware the grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
