[Blindmath] new publication about R accessibility

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
Sorry for not getting to this earlier, but good work. I think you 
capture many of the issues one can have well and explain things well.

A few small notes:
* On Linux for console applications I probably would choose to use the 
speakup screen reader http://www.linux-speakup.org/. Orca is really 
designed as a GUI desktop screen reader where as speakup is just a text 
console screenreader and so is optimised for that use. Also 
cross-platform accessibility is a very difficult problem, even toolkits 
like WX can have problems, normally on non-windows platforms, probably 
due to the lower number of users. WX and SWT use native widgets of the 
platform, but to make all features common across platforms sometimes 
they need to use custom controls in which case it depends on whether 
they have done the accessibility stuff for the control. Sun Micro went a 
different route, having a common accessibility API for all platforms and 
needing the user to have access bridges, but we know how that is. While 
I agree cross-platform accessibility is a nice goal to aim for, probably 
realistically for a project where accessibility is not one of the main 
concerns (only a small number of users) then to have it working well on 
one platform may be more achievable.

Michael Whapples
On 27/10/2012 00:01, Jonathan Godfrey wrote:
> Greetings all,
>
> For some time now, I've been working on making the R community more 
> aware of what R has to offer the blind community. (And vice versa also!)
>
> Courtesy of links made via this email list and conferences/workshops 
> attended, I have been able to submit an article to the R Journal. This 
> is the main journal where those people involved with the development 
> of R present their work and findings. After some refereeing processes 
> and some editing, I have just learned that the article will be 
> published in December this year.
>
> The submission now appears online on the journal's web
> site: http://journal.r-project.org/accepted/2012-14/Godfrey.pdf
>
> This is a pre-print so the volume/issue/page numbers will change but I 
> felt that this community deserved to see the fruits of my labour and 
> the snippets of  wisdom collated over the last five or so years. As an 
> academic myself, I think it is important to recognize those whose 
> shoulders you have stood on. Several list participants get an explicit 
> mention (John Gardner and Neil Soiffer) but others will know that they 
> have pointed me and other list members in the right direction to 
> excellent resources.
>
> Let me now extend my sincere thanks to those people: John, Neil, 
> Michael, Susan, Dominique, and those people too numerous to name 
> explicitly whose feedback has been invaluable. Thank you all.
>
> Jonathan
>
> _____
> Dr A. Jonathan R. Godfrey
> Lecturer in Statistics
> Institute of Fundamental Sciences
> Massey University
> Palmerston North
>
> Office: Science Tower B Room 3.15
> Phone: +64-6-356 9099 ext 7705
> Mobile: +64-29-538-9814
> Home Address: 52 Linton St, Palm. Nth.
> Home Phone: +64-6-353 2224 (Just think FLEABAG)
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