[Blindmath] new publication about R accessibility

[Jonathan Godfrey]

Thanks Michael,

Such snippets of good information are what makes being on this list so
valuable for me.

Re Orca vs Speak up:
I didn't intend to mention every way we gain access to software and
operating systems as I think this is a conversation that must be had between
a student and their lecturer if required at all. Lecturers do need to know
that we can do something not necessarily how we do it.
 
Re wx vs any other useful GUI creation tools.
I mentioned wx because it links to software of a similar kind to R. I also
don't know of software built using any other toolkit in such an explicit way
as does the Maxima project. Again, I wanted to show what is possible not get
side-tracked onto which toolkit is to be preferred among those that are
creating useful software for us. I'd love to learn of applications built
using any other toolkits that do lead to useful software for us, so please
do share - especially if the software is free like Maxima and R.

Cheers,
Jonathan



-----Original Message-----
From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Michael
Whapples
Sent: Sunday, 11 November 2012 10:58 p.m.
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] new publication about R accessibility

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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