Hi, Probably because I was once a VP at Freedom Scientific, I see the value in and strongly support adding scripting to VO.
I agree that using scripts to launch applications from within a screen reader should be discouraged and I agree that some other things you mention in your email should be avoided as there are other techniques to get the same job. The fear that "VO will turn into JAWS for Macintosh," is mostly unfounded though. The reason JAWS needs scripts for virtually every application it supports is that they have an OSM and, given relative screen coordinates can tease the text drawn directly without MSAA or iAccessible2 involved. This helps make the completely inaccessible into something that is marginally and sometimes very accessible. VO has no OSM. Even with the new scripting facility, it cannot correct the owner drawn interfaces (I've been trying to get VO and MacSpeech Dictate to talk and its a hemorrhoid of a project). What AppleScript gives us is the ability to add features to a combination of programs where the authors did a decent job of making their software accessible but the user would benefit from some very deep contextual information that would be very difficult for a generic API to deliver. I read a post (I think on this list) about reading table headers in the iWork spreadsheet. the post said it works great if the headers are on the top row but starts to fail if they are elsewhere. So, why not write a script that allows multiple tables, each with their own headings to exist in a single spreadsheet? No API is smart enough to do this but, I would think that a script driven communication system between VO and the worksheet could do it in a fairly straight forward manner. This script could also "mangle" the worksheet file name in a manner that is unique so, if you reload the same document, your headers will be there for you. Even cooler, if you open a spreadsheet with a very similar name (Sales Report 1/1/2009, Sales Report 2/1/2009, etc.) they will probably have the same format and the user can be offered the opportunity to load last month's headers. There are lots of ideas that can be expressed in scripts that a generic screen reader cannot understand. Happy Curt Flood Day, cdh On Sep 7, 2009, at 8:52 AM, Jes Smith wrote: > > Hi all. > > I am greatly concerned that voice over now has support for scripting. > Especially now that you can make voice over launch an application with > a single script. I'm not talking about glancing at the time or seeing > how many unread messages you have in mail. I'm talking about opening > up apps like mail or Safari from within Voice OVer. I am concerned > that voice over is starting to become a bit like Jaws, and that if we > don't get a grip on it now, voice over will become Jaws for Macintosh. > I, like Mike Arrigo, don't feel that launching apps is something that > should be implemented in a screen reader. Also, I fear that the use of > apple scripts will replace the responsibility of an application > developer to make their application accessible right out of the box. > On the Windows side, if something isn't accessible with Jaws, you just > download scripts for it. What if you go to another person's computer > and they don't have the scripts for the app you are trying to use? > It's my belief that a certain article from the NFB prompted this > scripting support. Folks, the thing I like about voice over is that it > gives the blind user the same conceptual layout and information as it > appears on the screen to a sighted user. No other screen reader does > this, and we should keep voice over as a screen reader, and let it be. > If we don't, eventually, when we try and contact an Apple developer, > they will either ignore us, or will say, "Well, just download the > scripts for my application and you will have access." > Any thoughts? If someone disagrees with me, I'd love to hear your > arguments, not so that I can persuade you to agree with me, but so > that I can have a new perspective. > > Jes > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
