[Blindmath] using math on the apex

Sun Sep 7 01:52:40 UTC 2014

Wow! I'm so astonished people still  use a Windows CE6 based Apex for Math. I just got myself a Focus40 blue & a decent laptop. I probably get an occasional error but its really accurate  on the whole.
I just don't understand why no vendor has adopted Windows8 variants for Braille tech, 2 years after its availability. 
ATB
Muzz   

Sent from my iPhone

> On 7 Sep 2014, at 01:54, sabra1023 via Blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> I am just frustrated with it because it crashes so randomly and there's no way to recover a file if you accidentally erased it. A thing happened to me recently where it failed to restore the partition in the middle of an upgrade, and because there is no way to restore it manually like booting into another operating system, I had to send it to humanware. Now, I am stuck without a braille display and it takes me more time to finish my work and it's probably not as accurate. What made it worse is that I had to fight with humanware to just reinstall the software and send it back. They were trying to say their  were all these other problems with it that I have never experienced because they wanted me to pay them money. Like they were saying dot three doesn't work when my braille note is in learning mode. Guess what, there is no such thing as learning mode on the apex. There is a keyboard learn mode, but I never use it because I already know how to type. Who knows what they were talking about though since they can't call things by the proper names. It's apparently on its way back now though. If I had gotten a brill display, I could have also gotten more cells. But oh well. I've learned my lesson for next time.
> 
>> On Sep 6, 2014, at 6:20 PM, Daniel Gillen via Blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> 
>> i'm not sure if the Microsoft Word equations are such that the symbols are embedded into code rather than shown as explicit characters (in the same manner that ordinary letters would). In that manner, if they were entered as individual characters, then hopefully you may be able to assign the dock combination similar to how I have on the apex. First, though, you will need to know some of the code points
>> I. Eat. The character numbers (such as 8747 for the regular integral sign, then you would assign a particular dot combination to use for that character. However, that is more of a programmer's job, which I see myself a bit as. If this is the case, I could probably write up some of these recommendations for the doc patterns for some of the symbols. it's possible, though, that this may be if you perhaps want to write these symbols using a braille keyboard, which would be the case for somebody like me who uses an apex. Again, I am not sure if you maybe able to get this to work with a screen reader like NVDA, which would display such text on a braille display, and not necessarily give you the ability to write it in manually.
>> 
>> Thanks anyway,
>> Daniel
>> sent from my iPhone
>> 
>>> On Sep 6, 2014, at 6:39 PM, Amanda Lacy <lacy925 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Daniel, Can you assign dot patterns to these symbols in NVDA? Normally I use LaTeX, but I occasionally have the misfortune of meeting a math professor who creates equations in MS word.
>>> 
>>> Amanda
>>>> On 9/6/2014 4:07 PM, Daniel Gillen via Blindmath wrote:
>>>> as I am a college student majoring in physics, I understand that it may be better to stick to computer braille code especially with the higher math courses. This is because many teachers and professors will not be comfortable reading such cumbersome notation, perhaps much more cumbersome than the LaTeX encoding. Also, because of what I am studying, I have assigned many shortcut keys to the extended Unicode characters (Such as the integral sign, the partial differential sign, and many others). This has made the symbols possible to be printed on paper or in word documents. I have done this even before I was in college, especially for my precalculus high school course and a couple before then. Hopefully this is helpful information. You may want to consult the user guide about Unicode character insertion via the Unicode tables and assigning key and dot combinations to these characters for working in computer braille.
>>>> 
>>>> Thank you,
>>>> Daniel sent from my iPhone
>>>> 
>>>>> On Sep 6, 2014, at 4:52 PM, "Lewicki, Maureen via Blindmath" <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> This is a super topic!  Too am looking forward to people's reactions. My students have been using computer braille for years, also, and what ends up printing out for the teachers is MUCH. Better than what prints out with the updated nemith option. I don't know how this will translate, but here goes. If you insert a parenthesis, it prints out with the word open parenthesis, or close parenthesis. If you use a superscript, the word super script appears. It reads in print much like you might hope a sighted person would read a math equation....but to me, it seems a bit much for the sighted teachers to take in! So, for example, 2(3+ x/3) would read 2 open parenthesis 3 +open fraction x fraction line 3 close fraction close parenthesis.
>>>>> 
>>>>> As I said, seems to me a bit much for the teacher, but not insurmountable! The question is, does it make more sense to stick to computer braille??
>>>>> 
>>>>> Maureen Murphy Lewicki
>>>>> Teacher of the Visually Impaired
>>>>> Bethlehem Central Schools
>>>>> 700 Delaware Avenue
>>>>> Delmar, NY 12054
>>>>> http://bcsd.k12.ny.us/
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Sep 6, 2014, at 3:33 PM, "petras via Blindmath" <blindmath at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindmath at nfbnet.org>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hi all.
>>>>> I recently upgraded to keysoft 9.4 and would like to know how to use math on the apex.  Currently I use the brailler to do it, but I'm just wondering how.
>>>>> 
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