Today, the developers of Klango Player have released their new version. many bug fixes and upadates have been made. To read all about Klango Player, you can visit,
www.klango.net.
To read the new features that are present in this update, you can go to,
this link.
First Impressions:
When I looked at this version of Klango, I was excited If you looked at the new features, you will know why. One of the major features in this release is the capability to use Wikipedia. I tried the search and it came up with several results. When reading the article, I noticed that unlike reading the exactly same document in a Web Browser, it does not display any headings or links. Instead, it puts all the links and the sections in a list. I'm not sure which method of displaying the text structure is better but I can tell you that both ways of reading are pretty easy.
I haven't looked at the interface for Amazon.com in detail but it is quite comprehensive and stright forward to use. I searched for an item with it and was able to gather the information about the perticular product. The advantage to using this interface is that you won't need to bypass any clutter at all.
I've been using the
Youttube
search feature that can be found in the media player, for some time. It is also very easy to use and you can find a certain video in a matter of seconds.
There are many other features that I have not covered in this short review but if you are interested, you can explore them on your own. Klango Player has come a long way since it started.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
NVDA 0.6P2 Now Available
Yesterday, the developers of NvDA put up 0.6P2. It is not a stable release but it will give you a look at what will be in 0.6 when the official release comes out.
It has greatly improved since the release of 0.6P1. The most noticeable change is that NVDA now works with Firefox 3 almost flawlessly. Also, the virtual buffer has been improved. You can jump to any element on a page with a key command There were some present in the older version but more has been included. The number of bugs that were present in the older release have now been corrected. To learn about all the changes in detail, you can read
• What's new in 0.6p2"
To download the installer for this version, you can
click here.
To grab the portable version, you can
click this other link.
Finally, to keep up with the latest happenings on NVDA, you can read the
NVDA blog.
It has greatly improved since the release of 0.6P1. The most noticeable change is that NVDA now works with Firefox 3 almost flawlessly. Also, the virtual buffer has been improved. You can jump to any element on a page with a key command There were some present in the older version but more has been included. The number of bugs that were present in the older release have now been corrected. To learn about all the changes in detail, you can read
• What's new in 0.6p2"
To download the installer for this version, you can
click here.
To grab the portable version, you can
click this other link.
Finally, to keep up with the latest happenings on NVDA, you can read the
NVDA blog.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Freedom Scientific Filing Lawsuit Against GWMicro
Recently I have just learned about the lawsuit that Freedom Scientific, the makers of JAWS for Windows has filed on GWMicro, the creaters of Window eyes. This lawsuit is outrageous for the simple reason that GWMicro has put in a place marker feature which Freedom Scientific has supposedly Patented.
Even though I've been using JAWS for a number of years, I have decided to no longer buy JAWS or any of their products because I do not like FS using my money to file meaningless lawsuits. The money that they earn should be used to make their screen reader better. After JFW V8.0 was released, things started going down hill for FS. Their so called major updates seemed like minor ones because of the lakc of innovations in the new features. Their hype about clipboard functionality is just dum because even though it is useful, it is nothing to be estatic about.
I am looking forward to the upcoming release of Window Eyes 7.0 because of it's scripting. Once I have the money to perchase it, I will be more than glad to buy a copy because the screen reader that GWMicro has put out is very stable and packed with innovative features.
The
GWMicro blog
will have some information on this lawsuit.
Also
Blind Access Journal
has a post on this issue.
Even though I've been using JAWS for a number of years, I have decided to no longer buy JAWS or any of their products because I do not like FS using my money to file meaningless lawsuits. The money that they earn should be used to make their screen reader better. After JFW V8.0 was released, things started going down hill for FS. Their so called major updates seemed like minor ones because of the lakc of innovations in the new features. Their hype about clipboard functionality is just dum because even though it is useful, it is nothing to be estatic about.
I am looking forward to the upcoming release of Window Eyes 7.0 because of it's scripting. Once I have the money to perchase it, I will be more than glad to buy a copy because the screen reader that GWMicro has put out is very stable and packed with innovative features.
The
GWMicro blog
will have some information on this lawsuit.
Also
Blind Access Journal
has a post on this issue.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Firefox 3.0 Released
Today, Firefox has come out of beta so it is now stable. There are many improvements over the last version. You can
click here
to view the release notes. You can also
click here
to grab your copy of Firefox.
click here
to view the release notes. You can also
click here
to grab your copy of Firefox.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Urgent News For Canadians
Hello.
Everyone from Canada please go
here
and fill out the form to help us keep our rights. The DMCA is coming to Canada. Please help keep it out.
Those in other countries please pass this on to Canadians so we can express our displeasure. Thanks.
Everyone from Canada please go
here
and fill out the form to help us keep our rights. The DMCA is coming to Canada. Please help keep it out.
Those in other countries please pass this on to Canadians so we can express our displeasure. Thanks.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop Addition Released
Recently, the developers of Ubuntu have announced a new relase of the free and open source operating system named Ubuntu. You can find a full list of features by clicking
here.
One feature that existing blind and visually impaired users should take note is the new you of installing this OS with out sighted assistance. You can learn more and get your own copy by going to
www.ubuntu.com.
To learn how to install Ubuntu with out any sight, head over to
http://live.gnome.org/Orca/UbuntuHardy.
From the same website, you can learn about the screen reader that is used in conjunction with the Gnome Desktop Environment by clicking
here.
here.
One feature that existing blind and visually impaired users should take note is the new you of installing this OS with out sighted assistance. You can learn more and get your own copy by going to
www.ubuntu.com.
To learn how to install Ubuntu with out any sight, head over to
http://live.gnome.org/Orca/UbuntuHardy.
From the same website, you can learn about the screen reader that is used in conjunction with the Gnome Desktop Environment by clicking
here.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
SoundRTS 1.0 Beta 10 e Released
Yesterday, the developer of SoundRTS, released a test version of his popular game. Here are the changes and bugfixes since Beta 9:
- added a map (JS4)• faster multiplayer Internet games
• the food provided by farms is 8 instead of 4
• the training time is divided by 2 (the research time stays the same)
• added an experimental very fast speed (4 times) for multiplayer games (might not work that much, though; try it)
• list players and games after login
• say the registered players list of a game when a player registers or unregisters for this game
• new multiplayer maps
You can click
here
for the multiplatform version or you click
here
for the Windows Installer.
If you would like a more detailed list of changes, you can go to the SoundRTS blog by clicking
here.
- added a map (JS4)• faster multiplayer Internet games
• the food provided by farms is 8 instead of 4
• the training time is divided by 2 (the research time stays the same)
• added an experimental very fast speed (4 times) for multiplayer games (might not work that much, though; try it)
• list players and games after login
• say the registered players list of a game when a player registers or unregisters for this game
• new multiplayer maps
You can click
here
for the multiplatform version or you click
here
for the Windows Installer.
If you would like a more detailed list of changes, you can go to the SoundRTS blog by clicking
here.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Monopoly Version 8 Now Available
I have just recieved an e-mail on a gaming mailing list from Jim Kitchen. The e-mail is below:
Hi,
I have put Monopoly version 8 up on my web site.
In version 8 I fixed the alt tab problem and you can now have custom tokens, currency, houses and hotels. You can also edit the MonopolyCustom.txt file
to change Go, Jail, Free Parking, Income Tax, Luxury Tax, Railroad, Utility, Bank, Community Chest and Chance. I have also added the features to roll
the dice to see who goes first and for a person to resign from the game.
The file winpoly8.exe can be found on my free windows sapi5 text to speech games page.
You can go to his website
http://www.kitchensinc.net
to grab this free game.
Hi,
I have put Monopoly version 8 up on my web site.
In version 8 I fixed the alt tab problem and you can now have custom tokens, currency, houses and hotels. You can also edit the MonopolyCustom.txt file
to change Go, Jail, Free Parking, Income Tax, Luxury Tax, Railroad, Utility, Bank, Community Chest and Chance. I have also added the features to roll
the dice to see who goes first and for a person to resign from the game.
The file winpoly8.exe can be found on my free windows sapi5 text to speech games page.
You can go to his website
http://www.kitchensinc.net
to grab this free game.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Testing Firefox Beta with NVDA Preview Version
I'm currently testing Firefox Beta 3.5 nightly build with NVDA 0.6 P and it's working pretty well except for a few bugs. One of the bugs that I found with NVDA is that it sometimes puts several links on one line so you will have to navigate to the line where the link is on and use your arrow keys to put your cursor on the link you want and hit enter. Also, it has problems activating a link if there is punctuation in front of it.
Even though NVDA doesn't work very well with Internet Explorer, it's still functional. I decided to compare the speed of how fast a document loads with IE with Firefox and the result is that Firefox loads documents much faster. It only takes about a second with Firefox and 5 to 6 seconds to load one in IE.
If you would like to try NVDA you can go to
nvda-project.org.
To get a Beta version of Firefox,
click here.
Even though NVDA doesn't work very well with Internet Explorer, it's still functional. I decided to compare the speed of how fast a document loads with IE with Firefox and the result is that Firefox loads documents much faster. It only takes about a second with Firefox and 5 to 6 seconds to load one in IE.
If you would like to try NVDA you can go to
nvda-project.org.
To get a Beta version of Firefox,
click here.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Dan Z Games Coming To a Close
Today, I have just heard from the people at
audiogames.net
that Dan Z is closing his game company so as a result, he has made all his comercial games on his site free until June 2008. The games that are free now are
Search Party,
Super Deekout
and
Chain Link
Note on the page you will find the demos of the software. To make it a full you version you will need to download and extract a file which you paste in to the game's directory. Those files are found on the main page.
You can go to his website by going to
danzgames.com
audiogames.net
that Dan Z is closing his game company so as a result, he has made all his comercial games on his site free until June 2008. The games that are free now are
Search Party,
Super Deekout
and
Chain Link
Note on the page you will find the demos of the software. To make it a full you version you will need to download and extract a file which you paste in to the game's directory. Those files are found on the main page.
You can go to his website by going to
danzgames.com
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
NVDA 0.6 P Released
NVDA 0.6 Preview has just been released by the NVDA team. Since it is just a preview version, there are still many major bugs that still needs to be fixed. One notable thing in the version is the newly written virtual buffer code for firefox. If you use Firefox, the web pages will load quicker than before. Currently, the code for Internet Explorer is broken so you may not have much success using it.
You can
click here
to get the installer.
You can also go to the official NVDA web site by going to
http://nvda-project.org
You can
click here
to get the installer.
You can also go to the official NVDA web site by going to
http://nvda-project.org
Monday, February 11, 2008
Sound Forge Version 9.0e Available
Sound Forge Version 9.0E Now Available.
Here are the changes in this version:
Fixed a bug that could cause the Wave Hammer and Acoustic Mirror plug-ins to revert to Demo mode.
Fixed a bug that caused the Cut and Copy toolbar buttons to be unavailable after making a selection.
Fixed a bug that caused the Loop Tuner window to ignore vertical zooming and panning in the data window.
You can go to
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/updates/soundforge
to download it.
Here are the changes in this version:
Fixed a bug that could cause the Wave Hammer and Acoustic Mirror plug-ins to revert to Demo mode.
Fixed a bug that caused the Cut and Copy toolbar buttons to be unavailable after making a selection.
Fixed a bug that caused the Loop Tuner window to ignore vertical zooming and panning in the data window.
You can go to
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/updates/soundforge
to download it.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Skype Version 3.6.0.248 Now Available
Skype version 3.6.0.248 is now available and one place where you can download it from is at
www.skype.com.
Here are the changes in this version:
feature: Public API access whitelist/blacklist
improvement: Improved connection speed to Skype network from restrictive network environment
bugfix: Skype cross-zone scripting vulnerability
bugfix: Skype crashed sometimes when leaving group chat
bugfix: Skype crashed when current Skypename field was empty
bugfix: Contacts were occasionally lost when synchronisation failed
bugfix: MySpace tab was not reachable via keyboard navigation
bugfix: Editing avatar resulted in "Cannot focus a disabled or invisible window" error
bugfix: It was not possible to answer second incoming call
bugfix: Dynamic Content message overlaying contact list toolbar and group controls on reduced Skype window
bugfix: Check update web link was incorrect
bugfix: Call on hold image was wrongly displayed
bugfix: USB webcam plugged in while on call did not allow to start video
bugfix: It was not possible to open video settings panel while on video call
bugfix: Skype crashed sometimes when expanding chat history
bugfix: Presence were shown wrongly to conference call participants sometimes
bugfix: Incorrect message was shown when sender cancelled file transfer
bugfix: Voice Mail greeting plays again when viewing profile
bugfix: Wrong flag was displayed for Democratic Republic of the Congo
bugfix: File Transfer relayed message was displayed after File Transfer had finished
bugfix: Language name for Belarusian was wrong
change: Language files updated
www.skype.com.
Here are the changes in this version:
feature: Public API access whitelist/blacklist
improvement: Improved connection speed to Skype network from restrictive network environment
bugfix: Skype cross-zone scripting vulnerability
bugfix: Skype crashed sometimes when leaving group chat
bugfix: Skype crashed when current Skypename field was empty
bugfix: Contacts were occasionally lost when synchronisation failed
bugfix: MySpace tab was not reachable via keyboard navigation
bugfix: Editing avatar resulted in "Cannot focus a disabled or invisible window" error
bugfix: It was not possible to answer second incoming call
bugfix: Dynamic Content message overlaying contact list toolbar and group controls on reduced Skype window
bugfix: Check update web link was incorrect
bugfix: Call on hold image was wrongly displayed
bugfix: USB webcam plugged in while on call did not allow to start video
bugfix: It was not possible to open video settings panel while on video call
bugfix: Skype crashed sometimes when expanding chat history
bugfix: Presence were shown wrongly to conference call participants sometimes
bugfix: Incorrect message was shown when sender cancelled file transfer
bugfix: Voice Mail greeting plays again when viewing profile
bugfix: Wrong flag was displayed for Democratic Republic of the Congo
bugfix: File Transfer relayed message was displayed after File Transfer had finished
bugfix: Language name for Belarusian was wrong
change: Language files updated
Monday, January 21, 2008
Montezuma's Return Beta 9 Released
Recently, after USA Games Interactive moved servers, a new version of the side scroller game came out. You can download it by clicking
here
The bug fixes and improvements are below:
Renamed *.xgs files as *.wav.
Replaced Gardian skull sounds with Guardian eagle sounds.
Updated LoadSounds() function.
Fixed bug where the player can walk over the spike pits.
Fixed bug where player invincibility is reset
when loading a saved game.
Updated sound descriptions menu.
Removed external level data files.
Incorperated external level data into Montezuma.exe.
Fixed bug with wrong death sound being played when falling off of a vanishing platform.
Added invincible monsters for levels 7-11.
Recompiled registration tools from 12/4/2007 backup sources.
Added yes/no prompt for saving games with f3.
Added yes/no prompt when loading games with f4.
here
The bug fixes and improvements are below:
Renamed *.xgs files as *.wav.
Replaced Gardian skull sounds with Guardian eagle sounds.
Updated LoadSounds() function.
Fixed bug where the player can walk over the spike pits.
Fixed bug where player invincibility is reset
when loading a saved game.
Updated sound descriptions menu.
Removed external level data files.
Incorperated external level data into Montezuma.exe.
Fixed bug with wrong death sound being played when falling off of a vanishing platform.
Added invincible monsters for levels 7-11.
Recompiled registration tools from 12/4/2007 backup sources.
Added yes/no prompt for saving games with f3.
Added yes/no prompt when loading games with f4.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Sound Forge 9.0d Available Now
Sony has recently posted an update to Sound Forge. Numerous bug fixes and improvements have been made. Here they are below:
Notable fixes/changes in version 9.0d
• The Loop Tuner window has been reimplemented an independent tool window.
• Added support for LPEC files imported from Digital Voice Editor software.
• Added support for WAV files up to 4 GB. Select the Allow Wave renders up to 4 GB check box on the General page of the Preferences dialog to enable support.
• Several Mix/Replace improvements have been implemented:
• Envelopes are now drawn when performing drag-and-drop mixes to indicate mix and fade-in and fade-out levels.
• If a selection exists in your destination data window, the selection is now preserved after mixing sound data.
• Markers are now added at the correct positions when you perform mixes with Options > Paste Events turned on.
• The end of the file is now used as a snap point when performing drag-and-drop mixes.
• A new setting has been added to the Editing tab in the Preferences dialog. Select the Auto-crossfade Mix with selection check box if you want the Fade
In and Fade Out settings for the Mix tool to pay attention to the destination selection and file length when mixing between files.
• You can now hold Ctrl while dragging in a data window to switch to the Magnify tool temporarily (as in Sound Forge 8.0). Select the Allow Ctrl+drag style
zoom in data windows check box on the General tab of the Preferences dialog to enable this behavior.
• Toggling a selection (using the S or \ key) now restores channel selection.
• The Lock Loop/Region Length command is now honored when multiple markers or regions are selected.
• A bug has been fixed that could cause black frames/silence when overwriting an open MPEG file.
• A bug has been fixed that could cause gapping when playing from the Plug-in Chainer and positioning the cursor if Options > Seek Cursor on Playback was
not selected.
• When selecting up to a marker that occurs on the last sample of a file, the last sample is now included in the selection.
You can download it by clicking
here.
Notable fixes/changes in version 9.0d
• The Loop Tuner window has been reimplemented an independent tool window.
• Added support for LPEC files imported from Digital Voice Editor software.
• Added support for WAV files up to 4 GB. Select the Allow Wave renders up to 4 GB check box on the General page of the Preferences dialog to enable support.
• Several Mix/Replace improvements have been implemented:
• Envelopes are now drawn when performing drag-and-drop mixes to indicate mix and fade-in and fade-out levels.
• If a selection exists in your destination data window, the selection is now preserved after mixing sound data.
• Markers are now added at the correct positions when you perform mixes with Options > Paste Events turned on.
• The end of the file is now used as a snap point when performing drag-and-drop mixes.
• A new setting has been added to the Editing tab in the Preferences dialog. Select the Auto-crossfade Mix with selection check box if you want the Fade
In and Fade Out settings for the Mix tool to pay attention to the destination selection and file length when mixing between files.
• You can now hold Ctrl while dragging in a data window to switch to the Magnify tool temporarily (as in Sound Forge 8.0). Select the Allow Ctrl+drag style
zoom in data windows check box on the General tab of the Preferences dialog to enable this behavior.
• Toggling a selection (using the S or \ key) now restores channel selection.
• The Lock Loop/Region Length command is now honored when multiple markers or regions are selected.
• A bug has been fixed that could cause black frames/silence when overwriting an open MPEG file.
• A bug has been fixed that could cause gapping when playing from the Plug-in Chainer and positioning the cursor if Options > Seek Cursor on Playback was
not selected.
• When selecting up to a marker that occurs on the last sample of a file, the last sample is now included in the selection.
You can download it by clicking
here.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Team Talk V3.4 Released
Thursday, January 3, 2008
My Smartphone
I've recently perchased a smartphone running Window's Mobile 6 using
Mobile Speak Smart
and I find it works really well on the
HTC S720
which is the phone I bought. At first look, it's very tactile with a dot on the five of the number pad and dots on the F and J keys of the QOURTY keyboard. The keys are separated nicely and they are big too. MSS is quite responsive. I may write a more detailed review of it from a blindness perspective when I figure more things out on the phone.
Mobile Speak Smart
and I find it works really well on the
HTC S720
which is the phone I bought. At first look, it's very tactile with a dot on the five of the number pad and dots on the F and J keys of the QOURTY keyboard. The keys are separated nicely and they are big too. MSS is quite responsive. I may write a more detailed review of it from a blindness perspective when I figure more things out on the phone.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Give Away Of The Day
I have recently found a website called Give Away of the day. What it is, is a site that gives away comercial software for free in a limited time. Every day, a new piece of software is put up and people can get it absolutely free with out any restrictions. The copy that you get is legal. The website is
www.giveawayoftheday.com
Merry Christmas from the Ka's Technology Access Blog.
www.giveawayoftheday.com
Merry Christmas from the Ka's Technology Access Blog.
Monday, December 24, 2007
SoundRTS 1.0 beta 9h Released
Just yesterday, another version of the real time strategy game was released. Here are the changes:
- added 4 multiplayer maps by Christoff Eilers (
details here
- added 1 single player map by Christoff Eilers
You can get it from TBRN by
clicking here.
Note it will take you to the SoundRTS index.
If you want to get it from the SoundRTS website you can
click here
to go to the site.
- added 4 multiplayer maps by Christoff Eilers (
details here
- added 1 single player map by Christoff Eilers
You can get it from TBRN by
clicking here.
Note it will take you to the SoundRTS index.
If you want to get it from the SoundRTS website you can
click here
to go to the site.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Announcing Orca v2.21.4
I have recieved an e-mail from the
Orca Mailing List
that tells of a new and improved version of the open source screen reader for Linux using the Gnome Desktop Environment. The e-mail is below:
WOW! THE TEAM HAS BEEN BUSY FOR THIS RELEASE!!! Changes have been made
in the areas of magnification, Firefox, and performance in addition to
keeping up with our aggressive addressing of bugs and quality. Many
thanks to all Orca contributors for their hard work this release.
===============
* What is Orca?
===============
Orca is a free, open source, flexible, and extensible screen reader
that provides access to the graphical desktop via user-customizable
combinations of speech, braille, and/or magnification. Orca
development has been led by the Sun Microsystems, Inc., Accessibility
Program Office via continued engagement with its end users and
generous contributions from wonderful community members.
The Orca v2.21.4 release is targeted for the GNOME v2.21.4 development
release and requires the latest at-spi/pyatspi from GNOME v2.21.4.
You can also read more about Orca at
http://live.gnome.org/Orca.
==================================
* What's changed for Orca v2.21.4?
==================================
2.21.4 - 17-Dec-2007
Magnification:
* Support "live updating" when setting various magnification features
Changes made to the zoomer in the Orca Preferences now update in
real time: it is no longer necessary to press the Apply button to
see if the option you've chosen works for you and then undo it or
adjust it if it doesn't. Note that you must still press the Apply
or the OK button to make your changes permanent.
* Bug #452316 - should have a "fullscreen" checkbox
We've added a Position combo box so that it's easy to select the
position of the zoomer. The options are full screen, left half,
right half, top half, bottom half, and custom. Choosing custom
allows you to specify the location of each edge of the zoomer.
The new default zoomer position is full screen if full screen
magnification is possible. Otherwise, the right half of the
screen will be used by default.
* Bug #463881 - Evaluate other gnome-mag features for inclusion in
Orca prefs
You can now adjust the brightness and contrast levels and use the
colorblind filters from libcolorblind. Basic brightness and
contrast levels can be adjusted through the spin buttons on the
Magnifier pane of the Orca Preferences dialog. If you press the
Advanced Settings button at the bottom of that pane, you'll be
placed in a dialog box where you can customize the red, green, and
blue brightness levels and contrast levels individually. The
Advanced Settings dialog is also where you can choose a color
filter. These options should enable you to create the color
scheme that works best for you. Note that in order for colorblind
filtering to work, you must install libcolorblind and then
re-build gnome-mag.
You can also add a border to your zoomer to help separate it from
the non-magnified area. The border size and color are
customizable. We've also separated the cursor color from the
cross-hair color so you no longer have to find the one color that
works best for both.
* Bug #464705 - Provide option to keep caret in center of magnifier
region of interest
We've added individual tracking and alignment settings for
controls and the text cursor: each can have an alignment of
centered or push (move the magnifier window the least). In
addition, you can now specify an edge margin for the text cursor.
This margin is how close the caret should be allowed to get to the
edge of the screen before it's time to "push." The margin can
range from 0 to 50%, with 50% being the equivalent of choosing
centering. These options should make it easier to keep track of
your location on the screen and ensure that you can always see the
area around your point of focus.
* Bug #501414 - Orca should have (unbound) keybindings for quickly
changing magnification settings
We've added the following new commands:
- Toggle color enhancements
- Toggle mouse enhancements
- Increase magnification level
- Decrease magnification level
- Cycle to the next magnifier position
- Toggle magnifier on/off
These should help you quickly change the zoomer to best access
what you're working on. These commands are "unbound," meaning
they do not have a keystroke assigned to them. You can define the
keystrokes you would like to use on the Key Bindings pane of the
Orca Preferences dialog: locate each command you wish to define a
keystroke for, move to the Key Binding column, and press Return.
You'll be prompted for the new key. Press it (rather than type it
out) and then press Return. Note that these commands do not
permanently change the settings; they merely alter them "on the
fly."
* Bug #503965 - Orca should provide support for the pointer
following focus and the zoomer
If you're using the keyboard to perform a task and then move the
mouse pointer, the zoomer would move away from your task and to
the location of the mouse pointer. We've added two options for
dealing with this:
- Pointer follows zoomer (enabled by default): If the mouse
pointer is not on the screen when you initially move the mouse,
it will be moved into the zoomer so that you can continue to see
what you were working on. If your preferred mouse tracking mode
is centered, the pointer will be moved to the center; otherwise
it will be moved to the item with focus.
- Pointer follows focus (disabled by default): If this option is
enabled, the mouse pointer will follow you as you arrow through
menu items and move among controls in dialog boxes.
We also know we have more work to do and are tracking the work with
these bugs:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=464734
Provide some kind of visual feedback for the item with focus
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=504075
Orca should provide support for smooth/linear panning of the zoomer
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=504077
Orca should support mouse bindings
Please also check
http://live.gnome.org/Orca/Magnification
and
http://live.gnome.org/Orca/ConfigurationGui
for more information in the
coming days. We're planning updates to them soon to match the work above.
Firefox:
* Fix for bug #451988 - Firefox: navigation by landmark
The XHTML role attribute module defines the following roles: banner,
contentinfo, definition, main, navigation, note, search, secondary,
seealso. New functionality in Orca allows you to navigate to the
next and previous landmark on a page via the unbound keybindings:
- Goes to previous landmark
- Goes to next landmark
These commands are "unbound," meaning they do not have a keystroke
assigned to them. You can define the keystrokes you would like to
use on the Key Bindings pane of the Orca Preferences dialog: locate
each command you wish to define a keystroke for, move to the Key
Binding column, and press Return. You'll be prompted for the new
key. Press it (rather than type it out) and then press Return.
* Fix for bug #466251 - Support ARIA live regions in Firefox/Gecko.
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/AJAX:WAI_ARIA_Live_Regions
Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) has recently received a great
amount of attention, and the number of websites using or planning to
use the technique is increasing. AJAX enables web developers to
easily create sites that change areas of their content in response
to user actions (such as in webmail applications) or real world
changes (such as updates of stock prices).
http://www.w3.org/TR/aria-state
is designed to address these
issues. Live region markup allows web page authors to specify when
and how live changes to specific areas of a web page should be
spoken or shown on a Braille display by a screen reader.
The support for live regions in Orca is exposed via these
keybindings:
r and Shift+r: go to the next and previous live region relative to
the current caret position
y: go to the last (or current) live region that spoke
\: cycle through the different levels of politeness
Shift+\: turn monitoring of live regions on and off
Orca+F1, Orca+F2, ..., Orca+F9: review the last nth live region
announcement, where n is the number of the function key (i.e., the
last announcement is obtained via Orca+F1, the 9th last announcement
is obtained via Orca+F9).
* Fix for bug #473009 - Cannot arrow to the end of an HTML entry if
Orca is controlling the caret
* Fix for bug #501447 - Orca sometimes fails to speak our location
when entering FF3 entries
Performance and Quality:
* Much work on performance (bug #491756). If you have specific areas
that you think are slow, please let us know the exact details. These
performance fixes also rely upon fixes being made in other modules
(pyorbit, pyatspi) for the GNOME 2.21.4 release.
* Completed major pylinting work (bug #486726). This helped us
greatly and found a few latent bugs.
General:
* Fix for bug #486970 - Where Am I should let you know you are in a
toolbar
* Fix for bug #496846 - When tabbing to an editable combobox, text
selection should be displayed in braille
* Fix for bug #503527 - Mnemonics are not supported well
New and updated translations (THANKS EVERYONE!!!):
es Spanish Francisco Javier Dorado Martinez and
Jorge Gonzalez
ko Korean Changwoo Ryu
nb Norwegian Bokmã¥L Espes Stefansen and Kjartan Maraas
sl Slovenian Matej UrbanÄiÄ
======================
* Where can I get it ?
======================
You can obtain Orca v2.21.4 in source code form at the following:
http://download.gnome.org/sources/orca/2.21/orca-2.21.4.tar.gz
http://download.gnome.org/sources/orca/2.21/orca-2.21.4.tar.bz2
Enjoy!
The Orca Team
Orca Mailing List
that tells of a new and improved version of the open source screen reader for Linux using the Gnome Desktop Environment. The e-mail is below:
WOW! THE TEAM HAS BEEN BUSY FOR THIS RELEASE!!! Changes have been made
in the areas of magnification, Firefox, and performance in addition to
keeping up with our aggressive addressing of bugs and quality. Many
thanks to all Orca contributors for their hard work this release.
===============
* What is Orca?
===============
Orca is a free, open source, flexible, and extensible screen reader
that provides access to the graphical desktop via user-customizable
combinations of speech, braille, and/or magnification. Orca
development has been led by the Sun Microsystems, Inc., Accessibility
Program Office via continued engagement with its end users and
generous contributions from wonderful community members.
The Orca v2.21.4 release is targeted for the GNOME v2.21.4 development
release and requires the latest at-spi/pyatspi from GNOME v2.21.4.
You can also read more about Orca at
http://live.gnome.org/Orca.
==================================
* What's changed for Orca v2.21.4?
==================================
2.21.4 - 17-Dec-2007
Magnification:
* Support "live updating" when setting various magnification features
Changes made to the zoomer in the Orca Preferences now update in
real time: it is no longer necessary to press the Apply button to
see if the option you've chosen works for you and then undo it or
adjust it if it doesn't. Note that you must still press the Apply
or the OK button to make your changes permanent.
* Bug #452316 - should have a "fullscreen" checkbox
We've added a Position combo box so that it's easy to select the
position of the zoomer. The options are full screen, left half,
right half, top half, bottom half, and custom. Choosing custom
allows you to specify the location of each edge of the zoomer.
The new default zoomer position is full screen if full screen
magnification is possible. Otherwise, the right half of the
screen will be used by default.
* Bug #463881 - Evaluate other gnome-mag features for inclusion in
Orca prefs
You can now adjust the brightness and contrast levels and use the
colorblind filters from libcolorblind. Basic brightness and
contrast levels can be adjusted through the spin buttons on the
Magnifier pane of the Orca Preferences dialog. If you press the
Advanced Settings button at the bottom of that pane, you'll be
placed in a dialog box where you can customize the red, green, and
blue brightness levels and contrast levels individually. The
Advanced Settings dialog is also where you can choose a color
filter. These options should enable you to create the color
scheme that works best for you. Note that in order for colorblind
filtering to work, you must install libcolorblind and then
re-build gnome-mag.
You can also add a border to your zoomer to help separate it from
the non-magnified area. The border size and color are
customizable. We've also separated the cursor color from the
cross-hair color so you no longer have to find the one color that
works best for both.
* Bug #464705 - Provide option to keep caret in center of magnifier
region of interest
We've added individual tracking and alignment settings for
controls and the text cursor: each can have an alignment of
centered or push (move the magnifier window the least). In
addition, you can now specify an edge margin for the text cursor.
This margin is how close the caret should be allowed to get to the
edge of the screen before it's time to "push." The margin can
range from 0 to 50%, with 50% being the equivalent of choosing
centering. These options should make it easier to keep track of
your location on the screen and ensure that you can always see the
area around your point of focus.
* Bug #501414 - Orca should have (unbound) keybindings for quickly
changing magnification settings
We've added the following new commands:
- Toggle color enhancements
- Toggle mouse enhancements
- Increase magnification level
- Decrease magnification level
- Cycle to the next magnifier position
- Toggle magnifier on/off
These should help you quickly change the zoomer to best access
what you're working on. These commands are "unbound," meaning
they do not have a keystroke assigned to them. You can define the
keystrokes you would like to use on the Key Bindings pane of the
Orca Preferences dialog: locate each command you wish to define a
keystroke for, move to the Key Binding column, and press Return.
You'll be prompted for the new key. Press it (rather than type it
out) and then press Return. Note that these commands do not
permanently change the settings; they merely alter them "on the
fly."
* Bug #503965 - Orca should provide support for the pointer
following focus and the zoomer
If you're using the keyboard to perform a task and then move the
mouse pointer, the zoomer would move away from your task and to
the location of the mouse pointer. We've added two options for
dealing with this:
- Pointer follows zoomer (enabled by default): If the mouse
pointer is not on the screen when you initially move the mouse,
it will be moved into the zoomer so that you can continue to see
what you were working on. If your preferred mouse tracking mode
is centered, the pointer will be moved to the center; otherwise
it will be moved to the item with focus.
- Pointer follows focus (disabled by default): If this option is
enabled, the mouse pointer will follow you as you arrow through
menu items and move among controls in dialog boxes.
We also know we have more work to do and are tracking the work with
these bugs:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=464734
Provide some kind of visual feedback for the item with focus
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=504075
Orca should provide support for smooth/linear panning of the zoomer
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=504077
Orca should support mouse bindings
Please also check
http://live.gnome.org/Orca/Magnification
and
http://live.gnome.org/Orca/ConfigurationGui
for more information in the
coming days. We're planning updates to them soon to match the work above.
Firefox:
* Fix for bug #451988 - Firefox: navigation by landmark
The XHTML role attribute module defines the following roles: banner,
contentinfo, definition, main, navigation, note, search, secondary,
seealso. New functionality in Orca allows you to navigate to the
next and previous landmark on a page via the unbound keybindings:
- Goes to previous landmark
- Goes to next landmark
These commands are "unbound," meaning they do not have a keystroke
assigned to them. You can define the keystrokes you would like to
use on the Key Bindings pane of the Orca Preferences dialog: locate
each command you wish to define a keystroke for, move to the Key
Binding column, and press Return. You'll be prompted for the new
key. Press it (rather than type it out) and then press Return.
* Fix for bug #466251 - Support ARIA live regions in Firefox/Gecko.
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/AJAX:WAI_ARIA_Live_Regions
Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) has recently received a great
amount of attention, and the number of websites using or planning to
use the technique is increasing. AJAX enables web developers to
easily create sites that change areas of their content in response
to user actions (such as in webmail applications) or real world
changes (such as updates of stock prices).
http://www.w3.org/TR/aria-state
is designed to address these
issues. Live region markup allows web page authors to specify when
and how live changes to specific areas of a web page should be
spoken or shown on a Braille display by a screen reader.
The support for live regions in Orca is exposed via these
keybindings:
r and Shift+r: go to the next and previous live region relative to
the current caret position
y: go to the last (or current) live region that spoke
\: cycle through the different levels of politeness
Shift+\: turn monitoring of live regions on and off
Orca+F1, Orca+F2, ..., Orca+F9: review the last nth live region
announcement, where n is the number of the function key (i.e., the
last announcement is obtained via Orca+F1, the 9th last announcement
is obtained via Orca+F9).
* Fix for bug #473009 - Cannot arrow to the end of an HTML entry if
Orca is controlling the caret
* Fix for bug #501447 - Orca sometimes fails to speak our location
when entering FF3 entries
Performance and Quality:
* Much work on performance (bug #491756). If you have specific areas
that you think are slow, please let us know the exact details. These
performance fixes also rely upon fixes being made in other modules
(pyorbit, pyatspi) for the GNOME 2.21.4 release.
* Completed major pylinting work (bug #486726). This helped us
greatly and found a few latent bugs.
General:
* Fix for bug #486970 - Where Am I should let you know you are in a
toolbar
* Fix for bug #496846 - When tabbing to an editable combobox, text
selection should be displayed in braille
* Fix for bug #503527 - Mnemonics are not supported well
New and updated translations (THANKS EVERYONE!!!):
es Spanish Francisco Javier Dorado Martinez and
Jorge Gonzalez
ko Korean Changwoo Ryu
nb Norwegian Bokmã¥L Espes Stefansen and Kjartan Maraas
sl Slovenian Matej UrbanÄiÄ
======================
* Where can I get it ?
======================
You can obtain Orca v2.21.4 in source code form at the following:
http://download.gnome.org/sources/orca/2.21/orca-2.21.4.tar.gz
http://download.gnome.org/sources/orca/2.21/orca-2.21.4.tar.bz2
Enjoy!
The Orca Team
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