Thread Subject: Re: Cognitive - compatibility

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Wed, Mar 07 2007 6:20 AM

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<quote>
To do this today, you would need to either have an off-screen model (and
all of the video hooks and reverse engineering implied by such) like
those in our screen readers, or be running on a system which provides
</quote>

I also have concerns about how this would work for non-content materials.
For example, are you asking for the ability to select static text in a
dialog box with the keyboard in order to get a definition of the word(s).
Providing keyboard access to such an item is likely to be confusing,
currently difficult to implement, and may cause issues for keyboard only
users. Providing a mouse based hit test when the mouse is placed over the
word such as accessibleObjectFromPoint would work in cases were MSAA or
another API was available. However, even in new Windows form libraries
static text isn't always written as separate objects that can be accessed by
point. Often static text is not it's own object. If the text is exposed
through OS settings then technology such as this should be 3rd party
software like a screen reader that would build an off-screen model of the
text and then provide this type of access.

Jonathan

-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Peter Korn
Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2007 7:51 PM
To: TEITAC Web/Software Subcommittee
Subject: Re: [teitac-websoftware] Cognitive - compatibility

Hi Allen,

> Is there AT now that can allow the user to highlight a word in anything
> on screen and offer spelling and/or dictionary function?
> Ditto for reading out loud--but I'm sure this part is available.
>

Software like this used to exist for the Macintosh, a long time ago. It
was really quite slick.

To do this today, you would need to either have an off-screen model (and
all of the video hooks and reverse engineering implied by such) like
those in our screen readers, or be running on a system which provides
all of the text that is on the screen via a standard API. We're
starting to get there on the Macintosh. We're already there in GNOME
UNIX systems. But in neither place do we have such a utility.

Hmmm.... That'd be a good Google Summer of Code project for a summer
intern...

> Second, what are the underlying obstacles to such software beyond such
> things as scanned images of text?
>

Having a well-respected API for getting all of the text & text
boundaries from the apps running on the system.

> In other words if a software application meets the other existing
> software requirements now, will AT of this type generally work? If so,
> is this requirement redundant,, or do we want to require this be a
> built-in feature in preference to add-on?
>

I personally think this is the kind of feature that works best as a
separate utility - one user interface that works the same everywhere on
the desktop.


Regards,

Peter Korn
Accessibility Architect,
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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