Re: [orca-list] Website layouts and orca

[Thomas Ward <thomasward1978 gmail com>]

Hi Andy,

As you discovered Orca reads the web page as it is displayed on screen
rather than reformatting them as the Windows screen readers do. Its
really not that difficult once you get use to it.

For instance, if you have a table you can simply use the left and
right arrow keys to move from column to column or row by row.

To give you an example of what I mean in gmail, which I'm using right
now, there are a number of buttons at the top of the e-mail message
such as Reply, Reply to All, Print, and Delete. Since these buttons
are all in a row from left to right all I have to do is first use the
up or down arrow keys to locate that row of buttons, and then once I'm
on it use the left and right arrow keys to cycle through the buttons
in that row. Once I find the one I want i press enter to activate it.

The same thing applies to a table of links. On my website I have a
header on every ppage containing a table of links like Home, News,
Products, etc. All you have to do with Orca is up or down arrow
through the rows of links until you find the correct row and then use
the left or right arrow to move through the columns until you locate
the one you want. Its no biggy.

HTH


On 6/21/11, Andy B. <sonfire11 gmail com> wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I am sort of confused. I do web development for a living. I recently
> migrated to ubuntu permanently because of a Windows crash that wiped my
> drive out totally. I am used to the way that JAWS, WE, NVDA and all of
> the other types of windows based screen readers lay out the pages
> virtual buffer. In this case, by default they are set to display a
> single element on a line by itself. Examples are individual links, table
> columns flash players, headings and so on.
>
> It looks like orca lays it out just like a sighted person were to see
> it. The problem is that it gets very confusing to find/get to different
> places on the page and it is hard to understand the layout of the page
> itself. An example is in drupal 7. When signed in as super user (user1),
> and looking at the homepage of a stock install, it looks like you have
> headings on the left side of the screen and links on the right side of
> the screen that are somehow related to the headings on the left. Like I
> said, I am used to being fed a page with individual elements on a line
> by itself. Does anyone have any ideas how I can get over this and be
> able to get around on pages just as fast?
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