I too must confess that I am not a braille user on the Mac so cannot comment on
how frustrating this is. however there do seem to be a lot of people using
Braille happily on the MacVisionaries list so perhaps there is some expertise
you can tap into there to get support. Apart from that I agree with all
Barry has said. I also agree that there are areas that the experience on the
Mac can improve but equally I could compile a much longer list of complaints /
disappointments with Windows and the various Screenreaders and Windows OS
problems. . . Only today I was experiencing the frustration of Jaw’s inability
to accurately copy and paste text to and from ,html content. This is a long
standing annoyance at what should be a basic function which has existed for me
since Jaws 14 and shows no sign of being resolved in 16.
I can work around it by using NVDA but this and other deficiencies definitely
exist on Windows. I still prefer the Mac overwhelmingly for many functions,
including web browsing.
The Mac also provides for free a voice dictation and command interface which
for me personally outperforms anything I have bought on the Windows
platform, including Dragon Naturally Speaking.
I agree that there is a problem with the implementation of advance Office
support on the Mac. However this is to a large extent about the lack of depth
in the compilation of strategies compared to the information, tutorials and
guides available on the Windows side. Apple has relatively little interest in
promoting Microsoft Office and will pay lip service only to supporting this
format in many cases. This is understandable given the competing nature of
their suites.
Hopefully there is a lot to look forward to when the allegedly fully Voiceover
accessible version of Microsoft Office is released later this year.
I am in the fortunate position of having access to Mac and Windows. For some
things only Windows will do. For example Safari seems to fall over with my bank
web site. Equally there are things I will always if given a preference will do
on the Mac side. In general for me as long as it works, I prefer doing things
on the Mac now.
However I want to advance my capability on all platforms. I try to learn as
much as I can about not just Windows and Mac OS, but also iOS and Android.
Unfortunately I have never been able to get a Linux/vinux environment working
properly otherwise I would be delving into that as well. Some might see this
as a geeky approach but my view in the struggle to overcome visual impairment
we should, if we can afford it, utilise every useful option open to us.
In the spectrum of options available I think both MacOs and iOS have defensible
and honourable records.
David Griffith
> On 12 Feb 2015, at 23:29, Barry Hadder <bhad...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, as I don’t use braille, I will not comment to much on that except just
> to say that I think it’s a little odd to seemingly not egknolege the
> significance of an off the shelf system with braille support out of the box
> and not find away to make good use of it.
> With that said, there are some problems with some of your assertions that I
> feel need to be addrest since nobody else has done so yet. I Also should
> point out that it is unclear to me at times whether or not your points are in
> reference to braille or speech. So, there may be some occasional
> misunderstanding on my part.
>
> 1. Third party icons on the status bar are accessible with Voiceover.
> Specifically the Dropbox app. Any problems that may occur will be more to
> due with the third party developer rather than Apple. I don’t understand why
> you said they can’t be accessed with Voiceover.
> 2. The idea that there should be some kind of constant indicator that
> quicknav is turned on is your opinion. It is not an accessibility issue.
> This could be classified as a feature request however.
> 3. What do you mean by network stations? I have no idea what button in
> finder that you are referring to that connects to all available network
> shares at once. I know of no such button nor have I found any reference to
> this function in the help documentation. Finding and connecting to network
> shares in finder is quite easy to do with voiceover and if you want OS X to
> automatically connect to shares on your network, you can easily set this up
> in user preferences. So, I see no accessibility issue here. It’s possible
> however that I’m not understanding what you are referring to, but in any
> event I fail to see how this one thing could impact the usability of OS X for
> blind people to the extent that one would email Tim Cook.
> 4. Your subject is quality of osx with voiceover for people with
> dissablities. However, I don’t see how iWork compatibility with MS office
> has anything to do spasifically with blind people being able to use OS X.
> 5. With regard to manipulating the mouse with vo, there are some valid
> concerns that need to be addressed, but emailing Tim Cook is not the correct
> way to do that. I think it should also be said that flooding Apple with
> invalid complaints will increase the risk that the valid ones will go
> unnoticed or be ignored.
>
> Finally, it’s good to hope for and expect new innovations including ones for
> disabilities, but it is also necessary to egknolege what has been done which
> I think is considerable and to be willing to make good use of what we have.
>
>
> On Feb 11, 2015, at 4:38 PM, William Windels <william.wind...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I am writing to you since the progress of the accessibility features are
> really pour in the last releases of osx 10.10.2.
> The mac is still missing some important features against windows with a
> commercial screenreader, and this after more 6 years of voiceover as
> built-in screenreader.
> Ok, voiceover is still a free, built-in screenreader but on windows , there
> are 2 free screenreader for the windows platform that are better in some
> cases than voiceover.
>
> Braille is still very basicnin osx:
> Some daily problems I discover with voiceover:
> I can’t follow courses with only braille output (without speech) during
> colleges.
> I mean: there is some important information missing on the braille display
> that’s only available with speech.
>
> What is missing:
>>> 1- no option for word wrapping: this can be useful for fast reading
>>> (loudly);
>>> 2- no different modes line, structured, speech (like in jaws): specialy
>>> structured mode in jaws is configurable, type of controls is shown,
>>> interaction-levels could be shown on this way.
>>> It’s e.g. very frustrating if you are in a text area and you can read all
>>> with the braille-line but you can’t edit or simply move the cursor to any
>>> position that is visible on the braille display.
>>>
>>> 3- to know if quicknav is on/off before moving isn’t possible also.
>>> On this way , it’s very easy to lose your position in a text-area or a
>>> window.
>>> The quick-nav option has also some bugs in general but is sometimes very
>>> useful for navigation (and specially on a macbook).
>
>>> 4- In some cases, the text that’s in the voiceover cursor is (always)
>>> underlineed with dots 7-8. On this way , no other attributes are shown and
>>> the cursor isn’t shown. If dots 7,8 are turned off, the cursor isn’t
>>> visible at all and capitals aren’t shown also.
>>>
>>> 5- When i put the cursor on a letter in a text I delete a .(dot) sign on
>>> the left sign of the cursor and voiceover says sometimes something else.
>
>
>
> further braille bugs:
> cursor routing on the first sign of the braille-display: the text on the
> display is gone;
> when composing a message to multiple recipients , while the speech is saying
> correctly the contact that has the focus, the braille display isn’t following.
>
>>> Further:
>
>
> Some bugs since 10.9 aren’t fixed:
> the icons in the statusbar like the third party app dropbox can’t be accessed
> with voiceover from there.
> The drag and drop-function with voiceover is not improved since the
> introduction in osx 10.7 and gives not the same possibilities for blind
> users as for sighted users.
> The button to mount all external (network)-stations at once in finder is not
> accessible with voiceover;
>
> And some different points:
> Ibooks was basically accessible with voiceover after one update from osx 10.9
> to osx 10.10.
>
> iWork’s is mainly accessible but is still missing some important
> compatibility options to work together with ms office.
> (most of the people that work in a administrative job, use windows with ms
> office).
>
> I still love the mac because of some intuïtive features like the trackpad
> with voiceover, time-machine, the possibility to maintain the system as blind
> user on my own.
> But , I don’t know if the newest features for blind users are good and
> innovative enough to spend that much money on.
>
> With so great financial results the last weeks that where announced from
> Apple, I should hope that more innovation is coming for people with
> disabilities.
>
> Keep on the work that Steve Jobs has started.
>
> Kind regards,
> William Windels
>
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> Barry Hadder
> bhad...@gmail.com
>
>
>
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