[Blindmath] SVG Draw

Fri Oct 7 13:19:48 UTC 2011

Hello,
A few quick pointers on what John was saying and possible answers. I have to say I agree with much of what John says, things are possibly too verbose (either too many confirmation dialogs or too many actions to achieve one task).

Firstly John mentioned about read only text boxes which one could cursor through. Basically this would be a standard text box or edit box where one might type stuff, however the editable property is set to false (IE. the box is read only, but it still has the text cursor). An example of this, NVDA has such a box in the welcome dialog. I am sure there are other examples, probably even some in SWT. I think a Java swing example would be the MathTrax instruction/graph description box.

As for confirmation sounds, I don't think SWT provides such a facility. However if you want to play your own sound then the standard java sound API which is part of the JDK could be used. The advantage of that would be that the sounds will work on any Java platform and not just windows. Personally I would like to see SVGDraw on other platforms (EG. Mac or Linux).

Michael whapples
On 7 Oct 2011, at 05:19, Richard Baldwin wrote:

> Hello John,
> 
> rgb] Thanks for the excellent suggestions. I will embed my response in your
> text below. Also, it might be useful for you to also post your survey on
> accessibleimage at freelists.org. Some of the folks on that list have also
> shown an interest in SVG Draw.
> 
> Now a comment on color.  There is an undocumented feature in all ViewPlus
> printer drivers that permit one to substitute a tactile pattern of your
> design for a color.  I intend to write an article for Access2Science
> documenting use of this feature - which you can then use with SVG drawings
> created with SVG Draw.
> 
> rgb] I was unaware of this, but I am glad to know about it. That lends
> support to my recent decision to add color. As it stands now, advanced users
> can add color through one of the actions on the Advanced menu, but it's not
> particularly easy to do.
> 
> 
> 
> Finally I have a number of suggestions for Dick Baldwin on improvements to
> SVG Draw, primarily usability.  Let me be very clear that I think this is a
> terrific application, already better than anything ever made for creating
> graphics by blind people.  But you asked for suggestions!
> 
> * It is too wordy in my opinion.
> 
> rgb] I'm glad to hear your opinion on that. Never having used a computer
> based on words alone, it is difficult for me to identify the line between
> too many and too few words. I will definitely go back an do a lot of
> trimming in that area.
> 
> You have a wonderful help file, and it really isn't necessary to be told
> every time that the coordinates are inches multiplied by 100.  And there are
> 'ok' boxes that aren't really needed. When one clicks to get some action
> that can't be damaging, one doesn't need to confirm that this is what one
> really wants.
> 
> rgb] I appreciate what you are saying about too many OK Buttons. It seems
> like it might be useful to have a sound that indicates that the action
> happened without the requirement for the user to respond by pressing an OK
> button. So far, I haven't found anything in SWT that behaves in that manner
> but I haven't done an exhaustive search. Also, I have never tried to play
> Windows sounds, but it shouldn't too difficult. I will look into
> substituting a non-obnoxious confirmation sound in place of the popups for
> non-critical actions.
> 
> 
> 
> It's good to have this for things like "do you really want to exit without
> saving this file?" etc. Interesting, one place that such a question is
> normally asked is when one is saving over an existing file, and SVG Draw
> doesn't seem to do that.  But maybe I just missed it.
> 
> rgb] You didn't miss it, I did.
> 
> 
> 
> *It would be really good if you could use the standard Windows (or Java
> SWT) file open and save dialogues.  Anybody sophisticated enough to use SVG
> Draw uses these routinely, and it is disconcerting not to have them.
> 
> rgb] This one is already on my todo list.
> 
> 
> 
> *Several read-only dialog boxes are less accessible then they could be.  I
> just reviewed the objects in a drawing.  First of all there seems to be an
> id that I didn't put on, and it doesn't help me to identify the object, so I
> suggest that it be suppressed, so that only the object type (ie line,
> polyline) is shown along with coordinates.
> 
> rgb] No problem making this change. I am assuming that you are referring to
> the dialogs that pop up as a result of selecting the Review action on the
> Mod menu, or perhaps the confirmation dialogs that pop up when you mark an
> object for rotation, translation, deletion, etc.
> 
> Secondly this dialog is fairly long, and it cannot be reviewed easily.  One
> can use the mouse, or review mode in NVDA, but this is tedious.  It is
> possible to permit cursor movement in read-only dialog boxes, at least in
> standard windows dialogs, because there are many such. Can you do this for
> these logn dialogs?  If so, screen readers will then be able to review the
> information letter by letter or word by word, a great help for me anyhow.
> 
> rgb] Can you point me to such a dialog in a windows program that I am likely
> to have so that I can see exactly what you have in mind here?
> 
> Thanks all.  This is fun! John Gardner
> 
> And thanks to you John.
> 
> Dick Baldwin
> 
> On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 4:57 PM, John Gardner <john.gardner at orst.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Hello all, I have several questions and comments on SVG Draw.  One question
>> for list members is whether it would be useful to have full IVEO access to
>> SVG files made with SVG Draw.  Presently, because of licensing
>> requirements,
>> you must have IVEO Creator or IVEO Creator Pro to get audio access to the
>> SVG title and description and the object titles and descriptions entered
>> when creating an SVG drawing with SVG Draw.  If many of you would like to
>> have it, I will request that the IVEO authoring license be added to SVG
>> Draw
>> in a special version available only to blind users.  This will make these
>> files IVEO-accessible in the free IVEO Viewer.  Don't know how the
>> distribution would work, but tell me whether it would be useful enough to
>> you for us to spend the effort to work out details.
>> 
>> Now a comment on color.  There is an undocumented feature in all ViewPlus
>> printer drivers that permit one to substitute a tactile pattern of your
>> design for a color.  I intend to write an article for Access2Science
>> documenting use of this feature - which you can then use with SVG drawings
>> created with SVG Draw.
>> 
>> Finally I have a number of suggestions for Dick Baldwin on improvements to
>> SVG Draw, primarily usability.  Let me be very clear that I think this is a
>> terrific application, already better than anything ever made for creating
>> graphics by blind people.  But you asked for suggestions!
>> * It is too wordy in my opinion.  You have a wonderful help file, and it
>> really isn't necessary to be told every time that the coordinates are
>> inches
>> multiplied by 100.  And there are 'ok' boxes that aren't really needed.
>> When one clicks to get some action that can't be damaging, one doesn't need
>> to confirm that this is what one really wants.  It's good to have this for
>> things like "do you really want to exit without saving this file?" etc.
>> Interesting, one place that such a question is normally asked is when one
>> is
>> saving over an existing file, and SVG Draw doesn't seem to do that.  But
>> maybe I just missed it.
>> *It would be really good if you could use the standard Windows (or Java
>> SWT)
>> file open and save dialogues.  Anybody sophisticated enough to use SVG Draw
>> uses these routinely, and it is disconcerting not to have them.
>> *Several read-only dialog boxes are less accessible then they could be.  I
>> just reviewed the objects in a drawing.  First of all there seems to be an
>> id that I didn't put on, and it doesn't help me to identify the object, so
>> I
>> suggest that it be suppressed, so that only the object type (ie line,
>> polyline) is shown along with coordinates.  Secondly this dialog is fairly
>> long, and it cannot be reviewed easily.  One can use the mouse, or review
>> mode in NVDA, but this is tedious.  It is possible to permit cursor
>> movement
>> in read-only dialog boxes, at least in standard windows dialogs, because
>> there are many such.  Can you do this for these logn dialogs?  If so,
>> screen
>> readers will then be able to review the information letter by letter or
>> word
>> by word, a great help for me anyhow.
>> 
>> Thanks all.  This is fun!
>> 
>> John Gardner
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Richard G. Baldwin (Dick Baldwin)
> Home of Baldwin's on-line Java Tutorials
> http://www.DickBaldwin.com
> 
> Professor of Computer Information Technology
> Austin Community College
> (512) 223-4758
> mailto:Baldwin at DickBaldwin.com
> http://www.austincc.edu/baldwin/
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