[jawsscripts] BX Public Release
- From: Doug Lee <doug.lee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: jawsscripts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:53:04 -0400
Some of you have known for a long time of the utility I am about to
mention; some of you will never have heard of it at all. Since it's
mostly a scripter's assistant though, I thought people might want to
know about it here.
After four and a half years of continuing research, development, and
regular use, the tool I now call BX, the JAWS Toolbox, or just BX for
short, is publicly released! I am placing it under the BSD license, a
copy of which may be found in the manual (such as it is), on the
license screen shown during automatic installation, and at the bottom
of the individual source code files. This tool has been known as BX
since March of 2003 but was then also called the Bart Explorer, which
I mention in case anyone here remembers hearing that name.
The tool can be found at
http://www.dlee.org/bx/
I'll tackle a few questions before anyone asks:
Q: Why is there so terribly little documentation??
A: Because BX came into existence first and foremost as my personal
ways to solve a lot of individual problems I encountered while
scripting and testing. It then became a tool used by my coworkers at
Bartimaeus Group, which is now SSB BART Group; and rather than taking
the time to write a lot of stuff down when they had questions, I just
talked to them. In other words, it evolved just about like any other
thing evolves when born directly of necessity: function came before
form, and form sometimes never came at all. <grin> Honestly, the lack
of documentation was one of the biggest reasons I never publicized
this thing until now.
Q: Is there any support?
A: Officially not at this time. Since I have a full-time job, I
don't have time to support Skype scripts, BX, or anything else to any
great extent in my own time. However, the JAWSScripts list seems a
fine place to encourage questions, because this will, hopefully,
result in more than just me being able to provide answers eventually.
If there is a major issue over support, I may consider offering
support in a room at the For The People web site,
http://www.for-the-people.com
If my company, SSB BART Group, wishes, support may also be offered in
some form by the company. All this is speculation now though.
Q: What JAWS versions are supported?
A: I've run BX myself since JAWS 3.7, but I have not tested it in
JAWS versions older than 6.0 recently. BX is designed to use whatever
it can, so if you get an "Unknown function call" message in an older
JAWS version when you try to do something in BX, this is as they say,
not a bug but a feature. BX will let you try just about anything
without making assumptions about what a particular JAWS version will
allow.
Q: Where do I start?
A: Read the readme.txt file in the Zip file for preliminary
information. Read bxman.htm, which is in the "bin" and "src/doc"
folders in the zip and is installed in settings\enu when you install
BX, for more information on what BX can do, how to get help from
inside it, etc. The installer, jfw_bx.exe, is probably the easiest
way to install BX for the first time. Unfortunately though, I don't
think it works on all systems, as it was written quite some time ago
and I've not found time to work much on keeping it up to date. Manual
installation of BX is similar to manual installation of JGauge.
And finally, though I also do this in longer form in the manual, I wish
to thank the members of the original Bartimaeus Group and of SSB BART
Group as it now stands for helping to form BX. As individuals, they
contributed feedback and suggestions that helped shaped the tool; and
the companies in general, and Jonathan Avila in particular, encouraged
BX's early development in several ways. I should also thank Michael
(Mick) Curran for a central idea to BX, Jamal Mazrui for a number of
suggestions, Victor Tsaran for the installer and a lot of ideas, and a few
testers over the years for their time and thoughts. Last but not least,
I must thank Freedom Scientific, because the JAWS scripting language,
though probably not meant for something quite like this, proved powerful
enough to permit it. Though this may someday change, I now know of no
other screen reader that would have made this thing possible, and no way
to do this half as conveniently for a blind person with an application
or any other approach that is not part of the screen reader itself.
--
Doug Lee, Access Technology Programmer
SSB BART Group
mailto:doug.lee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.ssbbartgroup.com
"While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done,
it was done." --Helen Keller
__________
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