[Blindmath] JAWS and Nemeth - Newbie question

[Birkir Rúnar Gunnarsson]

Michael

I am definitely with you on this (and it was brought up somewhere
earlier in this monster thread too).
Duxbury DBT supports 4 major math translators, and the architecure of
the eventual suppurt should allow for implementation of different
braille codes. May be someone may have to volunteer time to do
mapping, testing and proofing for each code, but I am convinced that
people from here, and elsewhere, would be happy to devote time and
efforts to this.
I would word it something along the lines of "refreshable braille
support for math, along with improved speech support is highly
important".
There may be folks who just want LaTeX on their displays, and MathML
could be translated into LaTeX on the fly, and that is not to be
excluded as an option either.
I spoke with Tim, the gentleman who gathered signatures for the
WayFinder project.
He had to write his own code and set up his own web page to gather the
signtures (no other petition pages were accessible).
He may be willing to work on the code for the cause, or a small
payment, and appropriate it so it could be set up and used with other
petitions, such as this one.
Note, I am just looking at the cost and technical options. Once I know
we can do it and, approximately when, we can discuss  the text, the
technicalities, the pros and cons of doing this petition project on
this mailing list.
I hope though, that this can happen sooner rather than later.
I will keep everyone updated.
If someone is a PHP guru and feels happy writing code, may be they
could help out on this, the call is open.
I have very little time myself, unfrotunately, though it sounds like a
fun project.
-B

On 2/20/11, Michael Whapples <mwhapples at aim.com> wrote:
> Hello,
> I realise the following may be a brave thing to say, possibly a
> courageous thing to say, but I ask you read it all first before making a
> comment.
>
> As worded @screen reader vendors to add Nemeth support" I definitely
> could not support or put my name to as its an excluding statement.
> Nemeth is one standard, there are other Braille codes, so its excluding
> to those who are in countries where the default Braille code taught is
> not Nemeth. As someone who lives in the UK, brought up using BAUK, this
> is why I could personally not support an exclusive call for Nemeth as it
> would be irrelevant to me.
>
> Now this is why I asked that you should read all I am going to say
> before commenting. I am not calling for Nemeth not to be supported, but
> rather the call should not be exclusively for Nemeth support. Accepted
> supporting all Braille codes around the world may be a bit much, so a
> call for the major standards to be supported and for it to be possible
> for users to create additional tables so that others may create the
> tables for the less common codes would be a far better wording which I
> feel I could support.
>
> Please carefully consider how you word it, try not to exclude people
> from supporting something so important.
>
> Michael Whapples
> On -10/01/37 20:59, Greg wrote:
>>    Hello,
>> I am all for this.  I would definently support something like this.
>> The frustration I have with the hoops I have to go thru just to take a
>> math class has nearly drove me to stop school.
>> Greg Wocher
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Birkir Rúnar Gunnarsson"
>> <birkir.gunnarsson at gmail.com>
>> To: <SusanOsterhaus at tsbvi.edu>; "Blind Math list for those interested
>> in mathematics" <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 12:34 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] JAWS and Nemeth - Newbie question
>>
>>
>>> What do people think about creating a web-based petition for screen
>>> reader vendors to add Nemeth support for refreshable braille?
>>> I know we may only get a handful of signatures but, perhaps, we could
>>> get a few dozens, even a hundred. But this would create a focus point
>>> for the effort and we could give a specific action item to people who
>>> want to request such accessibility upgrade.
>>> Instead of saying "please ask your screen reader vendor for improved
>>> math support", we could say "we are collecting signatures from those
>>> interested in improve math support, please go to page x and sign the
>>> electronic petition if you want to help".
>>> I know this worked well for the WayFinder refund demand when Vodafone
>>> discontinued the product. They got almost 3000 signatures. This is an
>>> entirely different beast, but the same method might work well, and
>>> might help people who confuse Susan and Steve.
>>> What do people think about this?
>>> -Birkir
>
>
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