Re: [orca-list] Compare or not compare was: Re: Page presentation

["Krishnakant Mane" <hackingkk gmail com>]

hi daniel, hi hermann.


On 17/05/2008, Daniel Dalton <d dalton iinet net au> wrote:
> On Sat, 17 May 2008, Hermann wrote:
>
> > How do we learn if not by comparism? How can you explain and improve a
> > world you don't know and you even don't want to know it?
> > If we want to get anywhere, we must know the state of the art, and this
> > means to compare the goals achieved by Windows and also by Mac with those
> > we want to achieve.
>
> Don't we know what is better though? If we had the choice would we take a
> slow browser or a fast browser? (I don't believe orca is slow with ff just
> when search for forms).
> But we have no reason to care about windows, because we can come up with
> things that work for us.
Exactly daniel, that was my point.
for example we can sort out the short comings from many other sources.
 another thread going on this list for example is talking about the
problems with openoffice navigation.
but the solutions are not coming from any windows software for that
matter.  the solutions were in emacs and vim.
so the free software community knows a lot better because firstly,
most of the tools come from the efords of good students schollers and
researchers.  take the example of latex for that matter.
I know there might be some cool accessibility feature in a proprietory
screen reader in windows.
the page reading feature for example is a good feature and many of us
even appreciated that.
but it is wrong to implement certain things just because that's the
way it is done on windows.  and just because a certain screen reader
did it on windows, it does not become the *state-of-the-art*.
probably that screen reader was not developed by taking the views of
community.  probably those brains sitting in a highly well furnished
lab, never went beyond what they think is right.
so we in most cases won't need to care how things are done on windows.
 and if it occurs to any of us that a certain feature is good, we
don't do it because it is coming from windows based proprietory screen
readers, but do it because it was good any ways.

> > I completely disaggree. We have a lot of people here who come from Windows
> > and they want to know Linux with Orca. It's normal that they come with
> > certain aspirations and expectations and perhaps are disappointed to see
> > such differences, to state it newtrally.
We are freedom fighters not marketing people.  orca was made so that
blind users get freedom in accessibility on gnu/linux os with gnome
desktop.  why should a certain thing be done for those "disappointed "
people just because they came from windows and should be given same
kind of accessibility which in many cases is absolutely rubbish.
Why not do things in a better way, not because we have some thing
against a certain proprietory software but because it is a community
view and this is much more state of the art and some thing which gives
better accessibility.
we might think that our roof top is the sky but probably we never
attempted to go beyond that?
and if we know some things better why even care to look at some thing
which does not concern us.
like for example I never knew the concept of vertual buffers etc back
when I was not a programmer.  And orca was not there.  but still I
always used to complain about this vertual buffering and could see the
disadvantages right away.  Only thing was that I had very little
choice.
that time I still had a better option in my mind, and as a matter of
fact when I used the screen reader which vertually buffered the web
pages I was rather surprised and disappointed to see that complete
unscientific and unuserfriendly approach and got some thing else
contrary to the ideas I had in mind.

> > So we have to face their questions, suggestions and their comparism, if we
> > are really willing to convince them of the advantages of Linux.

> Yes, but we won't just do things like windows for that reason.
and why should we pay the cost of doing some things like windows just
to convince some one to use gnulinux.  as I said above we are not here
to market some screen reader business and sell the product to blind
users.  I am not desirous of opening my jaws to let people put
business into my mouth.
We have many better ways of doing things and if windows users can't
understand then I think it is nither their falt nor accessibility of
gnome desktop.  it is we who are at falt because the more we say "ok
this is what windows or mak based screen readers do so let's see how
we can do it ".
this will lead to a common belief that what ever is in windows has
been done so professionally that it "just can't be wrong ".
Why waist time to do a certain thing just because it has been
happening for a long time.  free software gives us freedom to
revaluate things which have been done in a wrong way.  so our valuable
time must go in finding right things.
doesn't matter if a certain screen reader does some good thing, we
will accept it as is untill better option is found.
for example I don't take the page number reading option because it
comes from windows, but because it is necessary.  and I think this
should be the attitude even when we need to compare.
> For example windows I hear buffers the web pages which I would think
> everyone believes is worse than showing the page how it looks which orca
> does.
Exactly, look at my comments about that issue given above.  I have
given my personal experience and I never needed to have orca to tell
me that a "as is " presentation is done there.  I already knew what I
am seeing is wrong.  And mind you I am no great researcher or
scholler.  there might be many who think alike.
> (So if they complain about this since links aren't displayed per line, we
> won't change it because we believe this is better.)
> Since we can see exactly how the page looks.
absolutely daniel.
> --
happy hacking.
Kk
> Daniel Dalton
>
> http://members.iinet.net.au/~ddalton/
> <d dalton iinet net au>
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