[BlindRUG] Switching from Doing with Eyesight to Doing Without

[Godfrey, Jonathan]

Hello Nicholas,

I’ve seen your posts on another list about the transition from low to no vision and the challenges that will bring.

You and I had already communicated off-list so I was sort of hoping others on this list would share their experiences. I realise that the main question you have needs to be visible in the list archive just in case someone else comes along in your situation.

Practically everything you do in RStudio that is plain R stuff can be done in either the terminal or GUI versions of R. We have found some exceptions where package authors have created tools that create an additional  GUI and don’t work on the command line whether that be in the terminal or R GUI. In those circumstances the inaccessibility of RStudio is not the culprit.

You will be able to write R markdown documents and develop shiny apps outside RStudio. R markdown files are just plain text and are easily rendered into HTML using rmarkdown::render() at the command prompt in R. I do this more often than any other way of working now. It is just too easy to have the markdown file open in an editor (screen reader friendly of course), the successful HTML file open in a browser, and the R terminal sitting waiting for me to re-issue the render() command. Yes, I have to hit f5 a lot, and the documents that are full of math content take  a long time to load <sigh> because they’re using MathJax, but at least the HTML is totally readable. I do have some hints at
https://r-resources.massey.ac.nz/rmarkdown/

The key development of shiny apps is done in plain text files as well. The problem is that the widgets used to build shiny apps are not all accessible with a screen reader. Most work very well, but a couple lead to some very strange behaviour for the screen reader. Unfortunately, I have not yet found anyone willing to help me discover which ones are in the problem set.

Jonathan



From: BlindRUG [mailto:blindrug-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Nicholas J via BlindRUG
Sent: Wednesday, 15 March 2017 2:59 p.m.
To: blindrug at nfbnet.org
Cc: Nicholas J
Subject: [BlindRUG] Switching from Doing with Eyesight to Doing Without

Hello,

I am legally blind, with enough vision to do things on the computer using Zoomtext and using a portable cctv to view things from a distance. I have been relying on this technology to do everything from programming, to statistical work, to reading, to viewing boards, and surfing the web. I can still see the same amount, but the inefficiencies in all these techniques has become apparent. I have been switching over to technologies like Jaws, Kurzweil, and braille. For r programming, I'm thinking Jaws is the best to use, but I am not sure how. I've read about the terminal and used it before. I mainly use Rstudio visually now and saw that many of the features in it like creating rmarkdown files and such would have to be done differently in places like the terminal. I've learned that Rstudio is not very Jaws friendly, but am not at all sure how to use Jaws and r together. How can you view a whole script of r code at once? In a terminal, doesn't one run code line by line? How can all line be corrected and run at once like in Rstudio? How do I code in r just using my hearing and not eyesight? How do I create such things as an rmarkdown file or a shiny app without Rstudio? I looked through the threads in this list and found things that are very helpful, but am not sure how to use them without using my vision. Any help would very much be appreciated.

Thank you,
Nicholas
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