Re: Orca a couple questions

[Jan and Bertil Smark Nilsson <jbsn tpg com au>]

Good evening,

On Thu, 22 Feb 2007, S James S Stapleton wrote:

> I'm still looking at it, and I had read things a few weeks ago, that
> suggested orca might be beta quality still, however I want to get some more
> information (and make a suggestion if it's not already been
> implemented/made), partially because I know my mom needs a screen reader
> (she's blind and stuck with Windows/JAWS, that latter of which is really
> $2000 pre-alpha software in my experience), and some day I may need a screen
> reader myself... Darn genetics, and I'd rather have my BSD system available
> to me.
I wouldn't characterise Jaws as pre-alpha. Although I avoid Windows like 
the plague, based on thirty years experience of accessing a computer as a 
blind person, I have to say, that both Jaws, Hal and Window-eyes do a 
reasonably good job of giving blind people access to Windows. Since they 
have been around for over ten years, it's very impressive, in my opinion, 
what the developers of Gnopernicus, LSR and Orca have achieved in only a 
couple of years. Full marks to these people.

The very nature of a graphical user interface will always be a challenge 
as far as access for visually impaired people is concerned, be it with 
braille or speech. However, I'm convinced that the approach adopted by the 
developers of AT software such as Gnopernicus, LSR and Orca is the right 
one - and it's free.

Bertil Smark Nilsson