Re: Gnome and support for the visually impaired

[Bill Haneman <Bill Haneman Sun COM>]

Hi Thomas!

I see that you and I both had the same problem, we didn't realize our 
CapsLock key was on, so WE WERE SHOUTING.  Thanks for the positive words. 

There is something else I want to make clear though; I am not trying to 
say that this is easy.  Every time I use my desktop with the monitor 
off, or with a head tracker and an onscreen keyboard, my admiration and 
respect for the folks who use _any_ assistive technology every day 
increases.  It takes determination to use a graphical desktop this way.  
And I agree that we have a long way to go before we can make use of the 
graphical desktop really efficient for end users.  But I am very happy 
to have honest feedback from early adopters such as yourself, even 
though sometimes I am the other folks working on accessibility for the 
free desktop don't have time to fix problems as soon as they are reported. 

I guess it would be dishonest to say that I really _enjoy_ reading bug 
reports, but all the same I look forward to getting them, hopefully the 
high priority ones first, from users like yourself.  It's frustrating 
that I can't always help much with configuration issues, this is a known 
weakness.  For other bugs though, one of the most helpful and valuable 
contributions I can receive is hearing exactly which bugs are the most 
troublesome, i.e. for which fixes would have the biggest positive impact.

Best regards,

Bill


Thomas Ward wrote:

> hI,
> i CAN'T SPEAK FOR BRAILLE SUPPORT, BUT i CAN SSPEAK FOR SPEECH. i HAVE
> USED GNGNOPERNICUS FOR MONTHS USING FESTIVAL AS MY SOFTWARE TTS TO GO ON
> LINE USING mOZILLA aPRIL 20005 TO BUY AND SELL ON THE LINE, PAY BILLS,
> USE EVOLUTION FOR EMAIL, WORK WITH oPENWRITER, AND GEDIT. i USE GAIM FOR
> aol INSTANT MESSENGING, AND A FEW OTHER ODDS AND ENDS.
> nO MY ACCESS DIDN'T COME RIGHT OF THE BOX. i HAD TO COCOMPILE THINGS
> FROM RAW SOURCE ETC, BUT ONCE SRUNG TOGETHER i AM QUITE EFFECTIVE IN
> GNOME FOR WORKING. 
> hERE IS AN INTERESTING THING TO CHEW ON. iN jUNE MY wINDOWS xp SYSTEM
> GOT WHIPED OUT BY A VIRUS.
> i WAS STUCK IN GNOME FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK. yOU KNOW WHAT?
> i WASN'T EFFECTED MUCH AS i HAD MOZILLA FOR WEB, EVOLUTION FOR MAIL,
> GEDIT FOR PROGRAMMING, ooPoPENWRITER, ETC.
> i WON'T CLAME ACCESS TWAS PERFECT OR AS GOOD AS IT SHOULD BE, BUT IT IS
> POSSIBLE TO USE.
>
> On Fri, 2005-09-30 at 10:40 +0200, Sébastien Hinderer wrote:
>  
>
> > Hi Bill,
> >
> > Congratulations ! You did it !
> > And it's nearly as well written as what you would produce with eyes
> > opened, I guess.
> >
> > My guess is that Gnopernicus' support for speech is much, much better
> > than what it is for braille, cause I could certainly not do what you did
> > in braille, I think.
> >
> > My personal conclusion is that, indeed, it seems thas a11y of graphical
> > applications is in progress. But still: I don't believe it is as good as
> > a11yof text mode apps, for the moment.
> > That said, and as other underlined already, open source is a wonderful
> > opportunity to produce a fully accessible system, and we _must_ take
> > advantage of such an opportunity.
> >
> > By the yay, Bill: since you seem verygood at doing things blindly with
> > your computer, I might suggest you other challenges in the future (like
> > ordering products on the web). If you are kind enough to accept them,
> > your success will be a wonderfully strong motivation for me to try
> > Gnopernicus myself.
> >
> > Cheers, and congratulations again,
> > Sébastien.
> > _______________________________________________
> > gnome-accessibility-list mailing list
> > gnome-accessibility-list gnome org
> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-list
> >    
>
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