Re: [orca-list] Page presentation issues

["Krishnakant Mane" <hackingkk gmail com>]

hi garrett and wili.

I had actually decided to put an end to this thread by requesting
every one to stop this war and get back to the problem at hand but
perhaps i will speak for the last time on this issue because to solve
the problems at hand this will be necessary, and you will soon
understand why.
On 17/05/2008, Willie Walker <William Walker sun com> wrote:
> > Regardless, I think we can learn some valuable lessons from the Windows
> > screen readers, even if we don't like some of the approaches taken in
> > them (i.e. virtual buffering of webpages). There seems to be this
> > attitude of, "Oh, well Windows does it, therefore we should steer clear
> > of it and do the exact opposite!"
>
> In my opinion, we should try to focus on the task the user is trying to
> accomplish and work to make that efficient, compelling, and usable.
very true willi.  afterall windows does not mean accuracy and nither
is windows a definition of perfectness.
vertually buffer is an absolutely unscientific approach and looks like
a run-away solution involving sandbox.  and it is not that we oppose
it being a windows concept, it is wrong in the first place, with a few
exceptions of people who want to stic to some thing they saw and can't
dygest things which are much more scientific as is the case with most
free softwares.
> This can mean questioning why things were done the way they were on
> Windows, perhaps adopting some of the idioms, and perhaps abandoning
> others.  I'd like to believe that this user-centered approach has
> resulted in a pretty usable screen reader in a very short period of
> time.
U need not "like to believe it " for your self willi, it is a real
fact.   tell me how much time did a certain screen reader with its
jaws totally open took to come to the level of perfectness where orca
is today?
and why orca? there are some lovely accessibility features in
emacspeak which are not even in any of the big shot proprietory screen
readers.
and remember one thing all you non-hackers on the list, it is this
proprietory approach which has actually held us back on accessibility
improvements.  how much google talk is accessible on windows I really
have no idea but on gnome for exampe I use it happily.  and pidgin
having bugs? absolutely no problem, they will be fixt soon and the
amount of freedom I get here on the gnome desktop, could I ever get
even after paying close to 1000 $s?
the reason behind the attitude of not taking what windows does is in
most cases proper because windows has time and time again proved to be
totally unscientific and also irrisponsible.
we very well know that virus proof arketecture existed even before
both windows and gnu/linux came, yet microsoft never took the
responsibility of adapting the most scientific approach.  same is the
case with accessibility.  I have used windows some years back and
pritty well know that the accessibility of so many apps is still a
question?
till date I don't see one application upto the mark in windows as far
as accessibility is concerned.  not that orca is ultra perfect but
orca will never see the end of development since it is in the hands of
all of us and not a few brains sitting in a very rich computer lab and
asuming things.
so please stop even thinking of doing some thing because "windows did
it so it has to be perfect".
again, windows is not the definition of perfectness.  there are buggs
in free software but they are not just excepted by hackers but they
don't tell you "WAIT TILL THE NEXT VERSION".
and I think many of us including yours truely have either left the
dredded and beggers world of non-free software and meny have not even
seen windows.  so the suggestions which come are from pure live
experience.
happy hacking.
Kk
> Will
>
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