Not sure this is on topic per se, but I'll answer at least part of that message
from a scripter's point of view:
As I understand things, the video intercept gives us at least the following
abilities as scripters:
- Determine location of text on screen.
- Obtain text within a specific rectangle.
- Determine colors of pixels, which I've used in complex cases to get checkbox
states, identify special icons, etc.
In an ideal world, we wouldn't need all that; but the world still uses old apps
without MSAA or UIA support,
and for those, we need the OSM and video intercepts sometimes.
On Tue, May 03, 2016 at 03:37:57PM +0800, Kaveinthran Pulanthran wrote:
hi friends,
Jaws screen reader is now in its 20th year and as for me it needs a
rewrite from scrash.
As a jaws user, I love is feature-rich, customizability and its
smartess on handling things. Jaws is more then a screen reader and it
is a great productivity tool for the blind.
But, we must not forget that as the world is moving so fast,
everything need to be change, and everything need to be rethought for
better compatebility with current world. as for me, an important
aspect that should be considered for a screen reader is portability.
Portability not just means having everywhere access but it also should
be anytime access, lite and easy-to-manage piece.
As I observe jaws more closely, it seems that the engeniers behind it
overlooked it's portability, hence, making it more big in size. The
ubiquitous world had shown to us that we need portability for nearly
every application that we used in our regular computing tasks. In my
opinion, jaws is quite a heavy program because of its garbage coding.
In my thoughts the engeniers just writing new features on top of every
release without doing a clean-up process. This results in obsolete,
old and unuseable script files, mixing of old and new codes and
conflict of out-of-date and new programming technology.
If you go into the shared settings of jaws, there's still script files
for wordperfect and Quattropro which was quite popular in the late
90's and early 2000. But this is not the case now.
Not only that, the garbage of scripts is even larger when there's many
incomplete scripts and out-of -date scripting techniques. As there's
more and more method of writing script, I am sure that old scripts are
not picking up.
If we dig into the drivers and low-level programming of jaws, I am
sure the thing is worst. The logic is simple. Even simplistic tasks of
managing script is not taken care of, so, what are you expecting for
low-level codes?
Moreover, the help files seems to be very large due to many
out-of-date content mixing up with new content.
There's still help available for many unused programs and the keyboard
commands are not updated.
a mature and old screen reader like jaws certainly need a cleaning up
once for 3 or 4 years, and in fact a clean rewrite to make the code to
match the current era. Even further, As engeniers, software developers
should aware of balance movement in their development and keeping all
things current.it is not a balance development if new features are
blindly being edit without making sure to remove the old and obbselete
codes. A clean rewrite will certainly ensure better productivity,
responsiveness and portability of jaws..
As scripters, I am sure everyone have a thought on this issue. Don't
you think jaws is overloaded with so many garbage codes, and need a
fresh rewrite and reborn? don't you think the video intercept
technology should be no longer use as windows8 and windows10 s
conveying enough information to screenreader. I am very sure and
undoubtful that with a fresh rewrite from the scratch jaws could be
more smaller in size, perhaps, 40 or 50 mb. And, I am also in an
opinion that the avoidment of video intercept driver is essential to
bring back the portability of jaws. isn't it nice to bring jaws in a
pendrive, and access it whenever and wherever we want?
thoughts are wellcome
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Doug Lee, Senior Accessibility Programmer
SSB BART Group - Accessibility-on-Demand
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"While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done,
it was done." --Helen Keller
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