Hi all,
Thanks Steve and Chris for replying to my messages. I tried your
suggestions to no avail.
This is for the Online Bible program. It's a hotspot that matches the
focused window with the exact original name TRichBox. I know the
following about how this works:
1. The keys one would normally use to work with text in a passage window
really ought to be like navigating a word processor, but the individual
who maintains it has his own ideas about that. These are read-only
custom type rich edit boxes that contain the Bible passages/verses. Left
and right arrows navigate between verses. Up and down arrows appear to
do the same thing rather than navigating the cursor by line.
Incidentally, the detect cursor hotkey informs me that this uses the
system cursor.
2. Each and every single verse has two spaces just before the actual
verse text. Sometimes this follows the verse number directly, and other
times there is a space, a paragraph mark/pilcro symbol, and then two
spaces followed by the verse text. The two spaces are absolutely
consistent. I was trying to use this to my advantage with the Hotspot
app to get the left or right arrows or up or down arrows, which appear
to do the same thing as the left or right arrows, moving the cursor
between the verses, to read the entire verse, wich may or may not appear
on multiple lines.
4. whenever a passage window is open, the top boundary of the focused
window is right where the cursor is, which is always at the beginning of
the line where the verse begins, which in turn is always right on the
verse number. I was also hoping to use this to my advantage by executing
the top to mouse hotkey as part of the hotspot. Alternatively, I suppose
the cursor to mouse hotkey could work.
Here is what I had the hotspot do:
1. Execute the cursor ke with the insert key action. I did end up having
to pick a different hotkey from the key being inserted, which I discuss
below.
2. Execute the route mouse to focus hotkey.
3. Search for the second occurrence of two spaces in this window, which
apparently can't be done, as far as I can tell. Mouse boundary = focused
window.
4. Execute the mouse to beginning of line hotkey.
5. Execute the top to mouse hotkey.
What ends up happening is that all I hear is the verse number because
the mouse doesn't move to the second occurrence of the two spaces, which
should put the text of the verse I want to hear Window-Eyes read between
the beginning of the window boundary and the mouse position. This
doesn't work because there is no way to find the second occurrence of a
string with the Hotspot app as far as I can tell.
It would have been so nice if the programmer who maintains this program
were more receptive to making changes to the way the cursor moves and
the cursoring keys used to navigate, but when I have spoken to him about
it, he has just tried to get me to change program settings like
shrinking the font to bandage the problem and either doesn't understand
or isn't interested in making the necessary changes to make standard
type keyboard/cursor navigation possible. I sure don't have a problem
with built-in cursoring keys to move between verses, but it would be
nice if they were not the left and right arrows, and it would be nice if
up and down arrow as well as control left and control right arrow would
move the cursor in a standard fashion. He has put in place a "visually
impaired mode" that sets up some accommodations, but his notions about
cursoring seem to be immovable. It doesn't help that he doesn't use
iDispatch, COM, MSAA, UI automation, or anything else that exposes
object properties that would aid in dealing with this problem.
There is also an issue with the Hotspot app itself, which I wouldn't
call a bug, but a missing feature. It doesn't appear to be possible to
create a hotspot where the hotkey is the same as the cursor key in
question. Perhaps it would be possible to add this to the next version
of the app or to add an item called Execute Hotspot to the list of
definable actions for cursor keys to the Window-Eyes control panel. As I
wrote before, when I attempt this, it causes a feedback loop if I, for
instance, add an insert key action where the captured key is the same as
the hotkey.
Each verse does begin after what looks like a carriage return, but there
is no new line character or carriage return that I can find between
verses. The mouse search function doesn't find either, so using the read
paragraph function only reads the whole window. I've never asked the
developer to put this in place, so maybe he would, but he has been so
resistent or stubborn or uncomprehending about making changes to the
navigation, hard to tell which, that I fail to see the point of
approaching him about it.
Does anyone have any suggestions or any thoughts at all about this?
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