[Blindmath] solution to R Terminal window problem

[Godfrey, Jonathan]

Good morning everyone,

For a long time now I've been frustrated by a problem running the terminal version of R under Windows Vista or 7. A solution has been discovered (quite by accident) by a sighted lecturer preparing to teach a blind student in the current semester.

It seems that while testing R's behaviour and the problem I identified in my R Journal article on use of R by blind students, Robert Erhardt (Wake Forest University) failed to complete an ALT+TAB combination and regained keyboard control in the terminal window. Just hitting the ALT key alone does the job.

I've now tested this solution using various screen readers, versions of R, and both operating systems. It works.

For the best part of three years, I've been telling people that we need to run R in the standard console window. This is particularly frustrating as the output that is printed on screen in between commands was only readable using the review mode of the screen reader. In the terminal window version of R, the screen reader reads back all output.

I asked the editors of the R Journal to print an addendum and I can now report that they have accepted my contribution so people will be able to read about this discovery in a standard place rather than relying on my own webpage resources to share the discovery.

I have updated my documents to reflect the change of advice I now offer blind users of R.

Cheers,
Jonathan