Rick and the rest,
This discussion, altogether reminds me the one that every now and than,
has popped up around USB NumPads.
Rick, how much we would love a list provided, for all keyboards on the
market, and their compatibility, it will never work. I am going to deal
with but a couple of reasons, some of them likely brand new to some of you.
First of all, it is true, some keyboards need hardware specific drivers.
Even Microsoft has a line of keyboards, which will need drivers,
particularly designed for the keyboard to work fully. In some cases, the
driver has a menu, or some sort of a control panel, to setup the exact
behavior. For instance, my one Microsoft keyboard here, comes with a set
of "Quick keys", for launching your favorite net browser, your standard
Email client, your desirable music player and so forth. Trouble is, the
control panel provided by the driver, simply is useless with a screen
reader, due to a totally graphical interface. Another Microsoft keyboard
I have, is somehow doable to program, since the control panel for
setting it up, is partially labelled with text on the screen.In both
cases, should you decide you don't want to change the quick keys and
their standard (default) behavior, you can run both these keyboards as
plug-and-play. Plug them in, and enjoy the standard features, including
an app-key, a numlock key, and standard behavior of the numeric keypad.
My one Logitech keyboard, does not have a right-hand windows key, but
does have an application key. My one Dell laptop has no app-key, no
right windows key, but has an FN-key. The wireless keyboard I am on at
this instance, has an app-key, a numlock-key, but has no Ctrl-key on the
right hand, only on the left - which cause certain keystrokes no longer
possible as one-handed strokes. What puzzles, is that all these
keyboards are told - from the manufacturer and advertisers - to be
standard keyboards. Might be worth to notice, that a desktop keyboard is
considered "standard", when it has anything between 101 and 105 keys,
and that is except from quick-keys and multimedia keys.
My point here is, that there is a literal jungle of manufacturers, and
it would be hard to determine if each and everyone of them keeps to a
"full" standard. Even one and same manufacturer may have different
keyboards, often with more or less identical names and model numbers. As
already described above, my two Microsoft keyboards, are somehow
different in accessibility. And the history of some other users, buying
three different Dell keyboards, before they landed on one that could do,
will tell the same point quite well. A list of functional keyboards,
should it take into consideration only the hardware, leaving the driver,
control panel or other software for the keyboard out of the story?
I did ask the local dealer of WE here, as well as the former GW staff,
why they did not sell USB NumPads, which would have greatly increased
the functionality of laptops. The answer I got both places, may well
enough apply in the case of why they don't sell full keyboards either.
The local dealer told me, they had found one USB NumPad, completely
working with the screen reader. they wanted to play the safe part, and
ordered in a good stock of this particular keypad, same brand, same
model, same design. Only to realize, that half the keypads were useless,
as they did not work properly with the screen reader. Why? Because the
processor used inside the keypad, that is the very electronic part that
sends the keystrokes to the computer for further handling, would alter
from one production batch, to the other. That means in effect, you order
three keyboards from one and same manufacturer, one each day. Day1, the
keypad will work faultlessly with the screen reader. Day2, no chance.
Day3, the same as day1.
Now lets take a look on how the industry works. You buy a Dell computer,
I buy an HP. Our grandmothers both decide to go for a Linovo. It is easy
enough to determine that the dell comes with an AMD processor, the HP
and Linovo both base their operation on Intel processors. This is
something clearly stated on the box, and even in the advertisement.
Window-Eyes is designed to be running likewise on both processors. Yet,
no matter how close they are in design and specifications, you might
once in a while end up with cases where a piece of software does work on
one, but not so on the other. Was more of a challenge 15 years ago, but
still may apply in very specific cases. The processor then does not
matter much. but what about all the other one hundred pieces of hardware
inside your computer. do you think that HP manufactur each and every
component on their own, and so does Dell and Linovo? Promise you, the
technology to manufacture just one of those electronic tiny pieces, is a
technolgy that none of us on the list has the money and knowledge to
build, manufacture and otherwise engineer. And before you claim me to be
a hobbiest, let me tell you that I am educated inside this industry, so
I do know what I am telling you. Bottom-line is, any computer
manufacturer on this globe, basically only is shopping components from
big production mills. That is why, for an example, you can get one HP
computer today with an Intel processor, next year's model may have its
processor from AMD and both will be sold with the same model and brand
name. Same goes with the keyboard. Today they buy it from a Chineese
factory, tomorrow it was from Hong Kong, and next week they get if from
the USA, because it happened that the air-plane from Asia could not land
due to foggy weather. In other words, the days of each manufacturer
keeping strictly to his own specifications, are long time gone. A list
of what keyboards would work and which would not, simply is a daydream
that we who have been in the industry for the last three decades or
more, will have burried many ice-creams ago. :)
Then, let me give all you English singular-languaged people a tiny bit
of a shock. Did you know, that the keyboard standard you so dependingly
have come to rely on, simply has not been the standard in other places
around the globe or the last 25 years? Take a plain straight-forward
standard 101-keys keyboard. Let's turn on the NumLock, and now hit the
key just to the right of the 0-key. On your English-lingual keyboard,
you will get a period-sign. this due to the way you write a decimal
number, like 3.45. In many European languages, the decimal point is a
comma, like 3,45, and hence, the decimal-key on the Numeric keypad, will
produce a Comma, and have a Comma printed on the physical key. Now, how
would you define a Scandinavian keyboard, compared to an American
keyboard, on the list you so eagerly call for? Which of them should be
considered "Standard"? On a typical Scandinavian keyboard, you will find
a separate key, which will give you the less-than and greater-than
symbols. On all the American keyboards I have here, you will have to
press the Shift, along with the Comma and Period-keys respectively - to
get these symbols. On a German keyboard, you will find several extra
keys, covering their accentuated characters. These keys have to either
be added on to the American standard for a keyboard. Or, what is more
commonly found, they wil replace other keys that the manufacturer
considers less used in that country. For instance, the Less- and
Greater-than key, that I mentioned on the Scandinavian keyboards,
typically will be located immediately to the left of your Z-key, leaving
the Left-Shift-Key, somehow smaller sized. I am ready to claim, Rick and
many of you American users, that I could put a non-American keyboard in
front of you, and you would soon enough get lost on some of the
keystrokes you are relying on, for your screen reader. Now then, does
that mean, we could have one list of accessible keyboards, for each
language or country? Sorry, that is not how easy the world is.
For instance, many people shop over the net. That means, I live in
Europe, but may buy a computer from North-America, and a keyboard from
Asia. Secondly, even if I go to the local Dell store, they may collect
their components from all over the globe. Why? Money, restrictions of
what components are allowed crossing the boarder, contracts, local
preferences (like the decimal-point example above), lingual dependency
and so forth. How in the world, do you expect AISquared or anyone else,
to compile a list that would cover all of these credencials? And since
either of these factors could be changed tomorrow, next week, next month
- you ould ncould not even do with an annually update of the list.
Surprising to some of you. But long as there does not exist ONE
industrial standard, unfortunately little to do. The FN-issue, where
the standard F-keys cannot be accessed without combining them with the
FN-key of a laptop, is another example of how the manufacturers
sometimes make decissions, that even the sighted market disagrees in.
Sorry to wake you from the daydreams, but that is the realities of
today's technologic world.
David
On 4/25/2015 11:59 PM, Rick Thomas via Talk wrote:
Hi Steve:
It is incumbent on a piece of software to work with a given platform
including operating systems and, in the case of a screen reader, the
keyboard which is the primary interface for their clients and the only thing
they have to use the features of the software.
A simple list of manufacturers and hardware that works well with WindowEyes
might be the easiest and least costly solution.
Also, a list of settings for various other gotchyas like audio cards should
also be available for the more common choices a WindowEyes client may make.
This needs to be available on a WebPage and not burried in some technical,
or many technical, articles requiring a long search effort by a new user and
available before a user buys a new machine with the intent of using
WindowEyes on it.
Just a part of having a professional piece of software and considering the
target audience.
Another choice would be to act as a ReSeller of compatible hardware and
software products but I can see AI Squared selling at a much higher markup
than other standard retailers and thus things costing us more.
I give up. I don't run that company, am not in their management team nor do
I sit on the Board so any further comments might be beetching the whale and
I will just drop this thread and go listen to Red Wing Hockey and Ken and
Paul call the game - smile.
Later and have a good weekend!
Rick USA
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