Re: [orca-list] Sight Village Project

[Michael Whapples <mwhapples aim com>]

On Sun, 2007-10-07 at 10:53 -0700, Peter Korn wrote:
My comments in line as well.
> Hi Ian,
>
> Comments in-line below.
>
> > In conjunction with the UK Ubuntu Loco Team, we are proposing to have a
> > stand at this exhibition next year.
> >
> > See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/IdeasPool/Sight_Village_2008
> >
> > There is a lot of preparatory work that needs to be covered off.  In
> > particular are the construction of the "How To" guides.  To this end I have
> > two immiediate questions:
> >
> > A.  Is anyone aware of a convertor that exists to convert documentation
> > produced by Open Office that will enable it to be printed on a brail printer
> > with level 1, non conctatenated, brail support?
> >   
>
> The commercial Duxbury Braille transcript software is the first - and 
> perhaps only - transcription software that reads ODF.  They support 
> Grade 2 as well as Grade 1 Braille.  Our own Joanie Diggs was 
> instrumental in getting that to happen.  See 
> http://www.duxburysystems.com/  The resulting .brl file can be printed 
> with the software that comes with any Braille printer.
> I hope duxbury is better here than with british maths braille, which they claim to do, but in reality its 
> not even sufficiently good to be classed as beta level. May be I am biased, but they caused so much trouble 
> for me to get maths braille for my physics degree.

> I know there is some open source work in this area - I understand that 
> 'nfbtrans' from the National Federation of the Blind in the U.S. is a 
> free (and perhaps open source) Grade 2 Braille translator.  I'm not 
> finding much documentation on it just now with quick Google searches.  
> But perhaps our own Janina Sajka might have more to say there?
> I don't think nfbtrans can do ODF files, and I am not sure it does British braille. Even so, NFBtrans is 
> open source and free, so why not check it out. What's more it can work on Linux.
>
>
> > I am using the Ubuntu Accessability and Orca content pages to provide my
> > background for these documents, and although obvious can I check that:
> >
> > B.  To set up a brail display from either a Live CD or current Ubuntu
> > installation, the display needs to be attached during the setup process?
> >   
>
> I don't know of any UNIX software to print directly to Braille printer.  
> Hopefully it exists and someone will speak up...  However, once you have 
> a .brl file, sending it via a serial port to a Braille printer shouldn't 
> be that difficult...
> Peter I think the question was to do with braille displays not embossers. If it is regarding braille 
> displays, no you don't need it connected while installing linux, but you can have it connected while 
> installing and get braille display output for the install process. Basically it requires brltty to be 
> running, which brltty does on the live ubuntu CD, and then for orca to have its settings changed to include 
> "braille support" to be checked.

Regarding embossers, I know that the tiger printers have a Linux driver
(www.jjb-software.com). There is also some open source braille
translation software there, but british tables are only for liblouis
which is to be used in other apps, so you would need something to
control liblouis.
> > In addition, if there are any centralised content owners for these two
> > sites, and to avoid traffic on the list, would they mind contacting me
> > directly off line?  This is to ensure that we have a two way communication
> > to cover off any potential ambiguity and to advise on the content of the
> > final documents  produced.
> >
> > I hope to share these guides with the community prior to the event to ensure
> > that there are no blufers, and then have them hosted for use by the
> > community as a whole.
>
> Very cool!
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> Peter Korn
> Accessibility Architect,
> Sun Microsystems, Inc.