Re: [orca-list] braille presentation of links

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

Greetings,

Mike Pedersen wrote:
> Currently in firefox we put the word link after a hyper link In my 
> opinion this will be a real problem when trying to show links in 
> editable documents where layout and formatting are much more important.

> We are currently adding the ability to use combinations of dots 7 and 8
> to underline hyperlink text.  This feature will be user-configurable.
> You will be able to choose none, dot 7, dot8, or both.

That sounds like a good idea to me. However, I think that the whole 
attribute area should be addressed.

Some time ago, on one of the lists, I wrote about my experience with 
Outspoken for Windows and what a good job Peter Korn and his then 
colleagues had done with regard to braille presentation. Thus, I'd like 
to put forward the following suggestions for discussion:

Names of graphics are shown between special brackets which open with 
dots 12378, and close with dots 45678. Between these special brackets 
the name assigned to that graphic symbol is given.

An end of Line indicator is shown on the braille display at the end of 
each actual line of text or graphics, corresponding to the layout on the 
screen. A new line could be indicated by dots 13478.

Symbols such as buttons, check boxes, and combo boxes are enclosed in 
special brackets. Each type of control has its own letter code that 
indicates whether it is a button, radio button, check box, etc. This 
one- or two-character code is shown just inside the opening bracket that 
indicates a control. The beginning of a control is indicated with dots 
2378. Just after this is the letter code that indicates which type of 
control the brackets enclose. The letter codes are underscored with dots 
7 and 8 to indicate that they are part of the bracket, rather than part 
of the control's contents. A suggested list of these codes follows. The 
end of a control is indicated with dots 5678.

Letter codes:

b - button
x - check Box
db - default button 
r - radio bbutton
s - scroll bar.
 
Indicators for text Fonts and Attributes could be assigned to 
highlighted text, underlined text, bold text and 
italics. Such text could be enclosed in brackets. 

Highlighted text - dots 23678...35678
Underlined text - dots 238...567
bold text - dots 68...37,
italics - dots 568...237, etc.

It would also be useful to have different representations for cursor and 
mouse pointer. For instance, the mouse pointer could be represented by 
dot 8.

If these brackets could be user defined, clashes with the different 
braille tables could be avoided.

Other interesting features would be to be able to monitor areas on the 
screen which are not in focus and to provide various types of 
information through the status cells. However, this is enough for now. 

Sorry I was so long in responding.

Regards,

Bertil