Am aware of the issues when comes to composing emails. Why I - near the end of my initial message stated that it will need some further investigation. Wonder if there might be some kind of an extension, or rather perhaps a Theme, for Thunderbird that will bring us closer to a solution. Themes, control things like color schemes, font sizes and so on. To what extent that is where the bird has its nest, I am not sure, but it might be worth playing a bit around.
For those who want a toy store to explore, Thunderbird has their own central for releasing all these kinds of extra gadgets for the software. Something I for one, was not aware of up till very recently. The web address is: wwww.thunderbird.net Here you will find extensions, plug-ins, and themes. You will find different cattegories, depending of what set of main features you are looking for. Unfortunately, it seems to me, not all of he stuff offered up there, is compatible with newer versions of Thunderbird. Meaning that you might end up finding a promising AddOn, download and install it, only to find that it won't start when you fire up Thunderbird. Uninstall, and better luck with your next attempt in searching through the hundreds of alternatives offered to you on their webpage. Again, it might be there would be found some nifty little thing within the settings of Thunderbird. Never really fooled with it, but if Thunderbird is made up on the same basis as its sister program Firefox, you've got a whole story in scrolling throuh, and messing around with, an untold number of settings, which you might not always have a clue what consequences will be. For the sake of ease, I tried doing some searching on the net, hoping that there would be some known tweak to make Thunderbird more accessible for screen readers. Well, your choice of search engine might be more informative than mine. All I found so far, only lists Thunderbird as one of the most accessible Email clients for screen reader users. Amongst the top-ten. Sure, I guess we all knew that much, yet what we here are looking for, would be how to make it really accessible; not just 90 percent, kind of. Try a similar search for Firefox, and see how far you get. Sum it all up, unless someone has stumbled on a solution, I don't know other than we are seeing WinEyes slowly loosing Terrain in the computing landscape of the blind. All knew it would happen, but meanwhile, the best solution for your composing issues that I could come up with, is to write and edit your messages in something like Notepad, and then copy-paste the final result into the composition screen of Thunderbird, before you hit the Send-button. At least, that's what has worked for me, so far. not a real solution, but you get the job done. David On 11/10/2019 11:36 PM, Nick Sarames wrote: > I wish your advice could be beneficial to me, but my issue is more basic > and probably won't be solved until I finally upgrade to Windows-10. I > like Thunderbird a lot. I don't receive a lot of e-mails, so it's easy > for me to scroll down and find e-mails without keyboard shortcuts. My > only issue is the same one I've had for months - when I'm composing an > e-mail, I can only read what I wrote upon pressing the backspace key. > Surely you can see how that could be an inconvenience (smile). But maybe > I'll try your solution, maybe, somehow, it will solve other problems. > > On 11/10/2019 3:18 PM, David via Talk wrote: >> Been playing a bit around, and thought to just share one tiny experience >> with you all. >> >> >> A good while ago, Thunderbird had an update, which included some >> Calendar functionality. If you were in the list of mails, and started to >> tab your way on the screen, you ended up with a load of "empty spots". >> That is, you press the tab-key, and WinEyes reports silence. Going to >> the View-menu, by Alt-V, you could see an entry named Calendar, usually >> reported to be grayed out, so you could not really do much about it. >> Further, you had an entry named "today", and even when you enter this >> submenu, and make sure it is turned off, it still seems to be in your >> way somehow, on the main screen. >> >> >> A day or two ago, I decided to explore the features of plugins and >> extensions for Thunderbird; which in effect, is much what Apps have been >> for WinEyes. They can extend, or expand the functionality of the >> program. Or, they could get very much in our way. Smile. >> >> >> I realized, that Thunderbird - by its own mind - have decided to install >> such a thing on my computer. Likely, this is something that >> automatically comes bundled with newer versions of the software, and >> thereby gets installed without the user's agreeing through the upgrade >> process. Happily, this kind of extra blah-blah can be removed, and I >> will in short terms show you how. >> >> >> 1. In the main screen of Thunderbird, hit Alt-T, to get to the Tools menu. >> >> 2. Arrow down a couple of times, till you get to the AddOn manager, and >> hit Enter. >> >> 3. You end up in a screen, holding a couple of links. Tab once or twice, >> to land on one of them. Turn off Browse Mode, with Ctrl-Shift-A. >> >> 4. The screen has several tabs. To move around between them, maybe the >> best way is to tab your way around the screen, til you land on the >> tab-header line, where you can use your arrows, to choose the desired one. >> >> 5. What you are looking for now, is the extension section of the screen. >> Once you have focused that one, press the tab key till you land on the >> list of installed extensions. >> >> 6. You are specially interested in an extension named "Lightening". >> Arrow your way down the list, till you have focused that one. >> >> 7. You've got two choices here. Either tab till you land on REMOVE, or >> hit the App-key (Shift-F10), and arrow till you get to REMOVE; then hit >> Enter. >> >> 8. You will hear the screen reader telling you that the AddOn will be >> removed upon restart. So, Hit Ctrl-F4, to make sure to close the AddOn >> Manager. >> >> 9. Close Thunderbird altogether, by hitting Alt-F4, and then upon >> waiting for a scond or two, restart your Email program. >> >> >> When restarted, you will find that Thunderbird's main screen, will >> behave a little more like in the "old days". Going to the View menu, >> both the "Today" and "Calendar" entries, will have disappeared >> altogether. And if you use your Tab-key in the main screen, you will no >> longer meet any silent spots. At least one issue has been removed from >> your planet. Smile. >> >> >> Now, if we only could have founde a way of setting up Thunderbird in >> such a way that it will let us edit our outgoing messages, and specially >> so our replying to a message, we could actually have seen Thunderbird >> again becoming a fully accessible piece of software; even for WinEyes >> users. Not sure if such a tweak is possible, but my guess is that a >> theme, or some adjustment in the very settings of the software will be a >> couple of places to look. If anyone have ideas, please share. >> >> >> Hope this might help some of you. >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author >> and do not necessarily represent those of Ai Squared. >> >> For membership options, visit >> http://lists.window-eyes.com/options.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com/nicksarames%40msn.com. >> For subscription options, visit >> http://lists.window-eyes.com/listinfo.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com >> List archives can be found at >> http://lists.window-eyes.com/private.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com >> . >> _______________________________________________ Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Ai Squared. For membership options, visit http://lists.window-eyes.com/options.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com/archive%40mail-archive.com. For subscription options, visit http://lists.window-eyes.com/listinfo.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com List archives can be found at http://lists.window-eyes.com/private.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com
