Absolutely, the magnification is usable. I moved From Windows and ZoomText to the mac about five months ago and have been using only the built in magnification and VoiceOver. Certainly many of the features are comparable. There is more fine control over zoom levels. Cursor size, contrast, and brightness can be adjusted and colors can be inverted. On that note, I also use a free application called Nocturne that allows for more flexibility. It lets you invert colors, hues, or both, tint colors or make them monochrome, and disable the desktop wallpaper. These create a profile of sorts that you can switch between with a single click depending on your needs. It is simply invaluable, beating ZoomText in many regards with the exception of replacing individual colors if that is needed. Getting back on topic, the customary options for tracking the pointer are available. Tracking of keyboard focus can be toggled, and a preview rectangle is also available.
The distinguishing feature, though, and the one that brought me to the mac was VoiceOver. Namely it provided full screen reading capabilities that ZoomText lacked while providing options to highlight or magnify position on the screen. The option is not explicit, but allowing the mouse pointer to follow the VoiceOver cursor has resulted in very usable tracking of that as well. The result is a combination I was unable to match on Windows. It is feature rich and certainly usable. With all of that said, there are some features you loose. The xFont smoothing of ZoomText 9 provided superb clarity of text. In contrast the zoom of OS X uses basic smoothing that becomes blurry at high magnification levels. Some have found this unusable. I, personally, have no issues with it. I can only hope the much awaited resolution independence will someday fix this issue. Additionally, if you use different magnification types (i.e. not full screen, but lens, line, or split views) these are not available from the built in zoom. The other significant features you will loose are the DocReader, used to reformat text for reading and magnification zones. The SpeakIt tool, used to read a selected area will also be missing. When I have needed this functionality I just let VoiceOver read what is under the cursor as it moves. This works for me. It may be cumbersome to toggle though, if you use it frequently. An additional nitpick is that there are occasional times when the cursor will jump, causing the view to shift away. To me, these are small issues in comparison with the added power of of VoiceOver and the incredible responsiveness of the system. (Of late, ZoomText has received much criticism for this and its high resource usage.) Certainly mileage may vary with individual needs. I can only provide my experience and some of the quantitative and qualitative differences between ZoomText and the accessibility features of the Mac. Hopefully this is helpful to you, Linzy, and anyone else considering their options. I'll be happy to answer any more specific questions as best I can. Hopefully some others will chime in here, as I am equally interested in hearing others' experiences. ________________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dan [[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2009 5:34 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Zoom Text on Mac Question [was Re: iTunes/iPod Shuffle Problem] Hello, How about the options under Universal access. The mac has accessibility aides for blind, visually empaired and deaf persons. Dan [email protected] On Mar 17, 2009, at 3:22 PM, Dan Eickmeier wrote: > > I'm not a low vision mac user, but would anybody that is, for Linzy's > benefit, say that the magnification offered just in Voiceover alone, > would be enough for low vision users in general? assuming that she > wants to avoid putting Windows on her mac when she does get one? Or > do a lot of low vision users use VisioVoice as well? On Mar 17, 2009, > at 1:51 PM, Esther wrote: > > > Hi Linzy, > > Zoom Text is a Windows only program, so no, it doesn't work on the Mac > unless you are asking whether it will work on Macs that are running > Windows on separate partitions, such as with Bootcamp, or in virtual > environments, such as under VMWare's Fusion. In those instances it > may run only for Windows operating systems operations -- not as part > of Mac's system and not with VoiceOver or any of the built-in Mac > applications. There are Mac based programs like VisioVoice from > AssistiveWare for low vision use. > > Incidentally, you are more likely to get answers related to this > question if you start a new thread. I've changed the subject of this > reply post to match your question, but many list viewers may not read > your question unless they are checking out information on iPod Shuffle > problems. > > Hope this helps. And welcome to the list if this is your first post. > > Cheers, > > Esther > > On Mar 17, 2009, at 7:35 AM, linzy buhr wrote: > >> does anyone know if zoom text works with mac's > > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
