[nfbcs] Windows Mouse cursor question
Tracy Carcione
carcione at access.net
Thu Sep 15 13:22:54 UTC 2016
And often in big companies, accessibility is the poor step-child, usually
pushed off in the corner and only included if it's convenient. Will the
same happen with company-owned screen readers?
Case in point, when Apple does an OS update, it frequently introduces bugs
for VoiceOver. They do get fixed, eventually, but they're there at the
beginning.
Tracy
-----Original Message-----
From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Christopher
Chaltain via nfbcs
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2016 10:34 PM
To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List
Cc: Christopher Chaltain
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Windows Mouse cursor question
This sounds like one of the fears I've always had when an OS and application
company also gets into the screen reading business. There are a lot of
advantages to this, and Apple has done a great job, but I worry that cross
platform application support will suffer. How much effort will Apple make to
have Firefox or Chrome accessible on their platforms? What about Microsoft
Narrator support for the same browsers?
I assume access wile be great if your OS, applications and screen reader all
come from the same company, but with the 3rd party screen readers there was
another player working to make these cross platform applications accessible
as well.
On 14/09/16 14:01, Steve Jacobson via nfbcs wrote:
> Debee,
>
> You have hit upon one of the things that scares me as well. I don't
> think we have much to worry about regarding browsing the web and doing
email.
> There will be options if one considers Windows, IOS, Apple MACs, and
> Android. If something happens in any of those areas, we can move to
> another platform even if it is inconvenient. However, much of the
> software we use on the job was made more useable by screen reader
> hooks. My job has required a good deal of work using 3270 emulation.
> While I can probably pick and choose a 3270 emulator that can work
> with any screen reader, the two emulators that my employer has used
> work fine with Window-Eyes and JFW but do not work with NVDA, most
> likely because of the more complete OSM's that those screen reader's
> had. If Microsoft comes out with a complete screen reader but one
> that is based solely on Microsoft approved techniques, or if the
> continued evolution of Windows forces such compliance, I worry about our
ability to use software on the job that doesn't follow the rules.
> I think our ability to access software on the job is a real mixed bag.
> We have better access in some ways but poorer access in others. Some
> of the accessibility standards are very reasonable, but some of our
> access can so easily be broken. In many ways, screen readers have not
> changed that much over the past twenty years in terms of how software
> interfaces with them although a lot has changed under the hood, so to
> speak, to keep up with changes to Windows and Microsoft Office. Much
> of what has been done, though, has been done to make sure that we
> could keep up, not to give us improved or more flexible access. We
> have made a good deal of progress in terms of awareness of
> accessibility, but twenty years after the Microsoft Accessibility
> Summit, I can't restore the standard functions of function keys on
> some HP and other computers without sighted help. For perhaps five
> years, we have not been able to access the envelop addressing dialog
> in Word or the signature in Outlook and these were known bugs that did
> not get addressed until very recently. I am seeing a lot of effort
> being made by large companies to make software more accessible, but I
> think it is less the case that people care about how efficient we can
> use software. That can mean a great deal on the job. It is a complicated
landscape and we need to be thinking about all this as we move into the
future.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Steve Jacobson
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Deborah
> Armstrong via nfbcs
> Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2016 1:10 PM
> To: NFB in Computer Science Mailing List <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Deborah Armstrong <armstrongdeborah at fhda.edu>
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Windows Mouse cursor question
>
> Thanks for your well-written description of the issues. I am going to
> save it because it's the clearest explanation I've read, and
> re-assures me that I'm not going crazy.
>
> I've studied object oriented design so I understand what a model is --
> I've explained to people that the OSM is a database that changes
> constantly of what the screen reader believes is onscreen at any given
> time. Of course developers know that it contains info that's not
> currently displayed as well, but I think this minor
> over-simplification helps people understand more clearly what it is.
>
> The idea that there will no longer be a middle ground certainly makes
sense.
> I've noticed that to script Outlook for example, JAWS now depends on
> information exposed from various add-ons. I discovered this when an
> add-on got corrupted and prevented the entire JAWS script from
> working, even though Outlook, itself was still working fine.
>
> I suppose whether access depends on a particular add-on or a
> particular undocumented operating system hook doesn't in the long run
> matter, but it's kind of scary to have it all be so tenuous!
>
> --Debee
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Steve
> Jacobson via nfbcs
> Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2016 10:59 AM
> To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'
> Cc: Steve Jacobson
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] Windows Mouse cursor question
>
> Deborah,
>
> What you describe frustrates many of us. In the old days, JAWS and
> Window-Eyes used sometimes undocumented hooks to build what they
> called their off-screen model of what was being presented visually.
> This was often shortened to OSM. However, Microsoft has been moving
> toward a more closed system requiring that information be retrieved
> using MSAA or UIA, or sometimes Document Object Models and the like.
> While this works more reliably in some cases and makes the operating
> system more stable and secure in general. The information we used to
> get from the OSM is not always presented in a way that lets us use the
> mouse keys. There are cases when text is available but has a chunk of
> text without the information associated with each character, or data
> is not presented at all in a way that can be tied to a mouse pointer
position.
>
> Among other problems, this eliminates our ability to sometimes make
> software that is not accessible at least useable. Also, it makes it
> more difficult for those of us who write software or web pages to
> truly know how the results actually appear.
>
> We have raised this issue with Microsoft and we will continue raising it.
> Some of this, though, seems to be a product of us becoming more
> dependent on what the operating system or particular software exposes
> to us. As I understand it, some of the same issues exist in the Apple
> world where there really has not been an OSM in the same way.
>
> Having said all this, there are also cases where screen readers have
> not fully made available the information that is exposed because it
> involves coding for something that is new, and they are challenged to
> just keep up with all of the changes. It is therefore hard to know to
> what degree screen readers could be doing more. Also, we've seen
> cases where certain UIA calls that should work cause trouble of their
> own. More and more, I am afraid that software is going to be
> accessible or not accessible with very little middleground.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Steve Jacobson
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbcs [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Deborah
> Armstrong via nfbcs
> Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2016 6:05 PM
> To: nfbcs at nfbnet.org
> Cc: Deborah Armstrong <armstrongdeborah at fhda.edu>
> Subject: [nfbcs] Windows Mouse cursor question
>
> I've been using screen readers since the 1980s, and Windows 7 is the
> first time I've actually struggled with this issue. I realized this
> list was the perfect place to ask.
>
> It appears that the so-called "mouse cursor" (what JFW calls the JAWS
> cursor) can no longer freely roam the screen. At first I thought this
> was indeed just an issue with JFW, but in experimenting with NVDA and
> with WindowEyes I see the same behavior.
>
> I can run an application in Windows XP and explore the entire screen
> or active window, depending on whether I restricted the cursor, and
> pretty much review everything text-based that is there.
>
> But in Windows 7 (and presumably 8 and 10 as well) half the time what
> I receive by exploring the screen with a mouse cursor is a jumble. And
> from that jumble text is missing that the screen reader just finished
speaking.
>
> This happens on all my machines, in areas where there is no insertion
> point, or real cursor. I can run the same software and get two
> different results between XP and 7, even with NVDA's screen review
feature.
>
> The most dramatic example of this is in Outlook, where in XP I can
> examine a message's fields, To, From, date, subject, etc. all using
> the invisible, JAWS, mouse or review cursor.
>
> Reviewing the same message in the same version of outlook in Windows
> 7, only parts of those fields appear to the mouse cursor.
>
> In a window with multiple panes I could usually get to a pane that
> didn't receive focus to read information there. Now it's hit or miss;
> sometimes I can read the info, sometimes the screen reader voices it
> automatically but I never locate it when I review, and sometimes it's easy
to review.
>
> As an advanced user, I always made extensive use of the review
> capabilities of my screen reader, and I wish I knew what was going on
> here and why I apparently can no longer read everything onscreen. I'd
> really like a technical explanation of what is happening and what
> work-arounds people are finding?
>
> Thoughts?
>
> --Debee
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>
--
Christopher (CJ)
chaltain at Gmail
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