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Update: Coming up on Main Menu for the week of June 25 – Window-Eyes 7.0 Fully Disclosed

June 24, 2008 • Darrell Shandrow Hilliker

Hello Everyone,

Coming up on this week's Main Menu Live, we dedicate the two hour episode to
talk all about Window-Eyes 7.0. Doug and Aaron from GW Micro will be with
us as well as many beta testers from the Window-Eyes private beta team. We
will discuss the product and the many scripts that will be available on GW
Micro's Scripting Central web site found at:

http://www.gwmicro.com/Script_Central/

We had Doug and Aaron on Main Menu in the past and it is time to bring them
back to discuss the product and to get feedback from private beta users and
scripters on the new version. Jamal Mazrui has written a significant amount
of scripts for the 7.0 product and he will be here to talk about the many
things he has developed. I will discuss the newest refinements to the
Winamp scripts that will be available including features that could replace
the ACB Radio Tuner for Winamp users that use Window-Eyes as well as much
improved access to the Auto-Tagging capabilities of Winamp. Aaron and Doug
will talk all about the GW Toolkit scripting library, the AutoComplete
script, the progress indicator script, the VirtualView script, the Weather
or Not script, and much much more.

As of this writing, we are happy to report that Window-Eyes 7.0 Public Beta
1 is available at the following link:

http://www.gwmicro.com/beta

Here is how to participate in the show:

The number to call into the show is 866-400-5333.
You may email your questions to: mainmenu@acbradio.org
You may also interact with the show via MSN (Windows Live) Messenger. The
MSN Messenger ID to add is: mainmenu@acbradio.org

Would you like to interact with a group of Main Menu listeners about the
topics heard on Main Menu and Main Menu Live? You can do this by joining the
Main Menu Friends email list. The address to subscribe is:
main-menu-subscribe@googlegroups.com

Come join an already lively group of users.

Would you like to subscribe to podcast feeds for Main Menu and Main Menu
Live? The RSS feeds to add to your podcatching application are:

Main Menu – http://www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenu
Main Menu Live – http://www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenulive

For this next week, only the Main Menu Live podcast feed will be updated.

Main Menu can be heard on Tuesday evenings at 9:00 Eastern, 6:00 Pacific,
and at 1 universal (GMT) on Wednesday mornings on the ACB Radio Main Stream
channel.

Follow this link to listen to the show:

http://www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=8

Jeff Bishop and Darrell Shandrow
The Main Menu Production Team

Categories: Uncategorized

Coming up on Main Menu for the week of June 25 – Window-Eyes 7.0 Fully Disclosed

June 21, 2008 • Darrell Shandrow Hilliker

Hello Everyone,

Coming up on this week's Main Menu Live, we dedicate the two hour episode to
talk all about Window-Eyes 7.0. Doug and Aaron from GW Micro will be with
us as well as many beta testers from the Window-Eyes private beta team. We
will discuss the product and the many scripts that will be available on GW
Micro's Scripting Central web site found at:

http://www.gwmicro.com/Script_Central/

We had Doug and Aaron on Main Menu in the past and it is time to bring them
back to discuss the product and to get feedback from private beta users and
scripters on the new version. Jamal Mazrui has written a significant amount
of scripts for the 7.0 product and he will be here to talk about the many
things he has developed. I will discuss the newest refinements to the
Winamp scripts that will be available including features that could replace
the ACB Radio Tuner for Winamp users that use Window-Eyes as well as much
improved access to the Auto-Tagging capabilities of Winamp. Aaron and Doug
will talk all about the GW Toolkit scripting library, the AutoComplete
script, the progress indicator script, the VirtualView script, the Weather
or Not script, and much much more.

As of this writing, Window-Eyes 7.0 is not publically available, but you
will be able to see it at the conventions this summer.

Here is how to participate in the show:

The number to call into the show is 866-400-5333.
You may email your questions to: mainmenu@acbradio.org
You may also interact with the show via MSN (Windows Live) Messenger. The
MSN Messenger ID to add is: mainmenu@acbradio.org

Would you like to interact with a group of Main Menu listeners about the
topics heard on Main Menu and Main Menu Live? You can do this by joining the
Main Menu Friends email list. The address to subscribe is:
main-menu-subscribe@googlegroups.com

Come join an already lively group of users.

Would you like to subscribe to podcast feeds for Main Menu and Main Menu
Live? The RSS feeds to add to your podcatching application are:

Main Menu – http://www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenu
Main Menu Live – http://www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenulive

For this next week, only the Main Menu Live podcast feed will be updated.

Main Menu can be heard on Tuesday evenings at 9:00 Eastern, 6:00 Pacific,
and at 1 universal (GMT) on Wednesday mornings on the ACB Radio Main Stream
channel.

Follow this link to listen to the show:

http://www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=8

Jeff Bishop and Darrell Shandrow
The Main Menu Production Team

Categories: Uncategorized

Don’t allow Sprint-Nextel to quietly cancel a life saving service for the elderly, blind, and disabled on July 1

June 21, 2008 • Darrell Shandrow Hilliker

Sadly, July 4th won’t  be Independence Day for some among us.

In 2005 Sprint announced Free Voice-Dialing Services for the Blind, Elderly, and Disabled ( http://www.mobiledia.com/news/32095.html ), to justifiable applause. For the first time, family members and caregivers could quickly and easily maintain on-line phone books for those who couldn’t even reliably dial cell phones, much less program phone numbers or “train” complicated voice recognition features. Now, names and numbers only had to be typed once into a web page, by a caring friend (who could be a complete klutz with technology), and a person with physical limitations had amazing new independence through their simple cell phone.

For example, my mother, blind from diabetes, lives in Los Angeles.  She keeps her phone on a thick string around her neck. I live hundreds of miles away in San Francisco. Without seeing or touching that phone around her neck, I spent just three minutes logged into her Sprint account. I typed in names and phone numbers to her eye doctor, her local taxi service, and my brother David. Just seconds later (and forever more) down in LA, mom just had to press <star> then <talk>, on her cell phone, then say “call eye doctor,” “call taxi” or “call David” and she was instantly connected.  Should my 89 year old dad have a heart attack, she could even speak numbers, like “dial 9-1-1,” , and an ambulance would be on the way. Nothing short of magical, Sprint’s “Voice Command” system was “speaker’s voice independent,” understanding any voice or accent. If my mom was incapacitated, dad could just pick up her phone and press <star> then <talk> and tell the same Sprint computer who to instantly dial. I’ll bet you know a son or daughter that could empower parents like my mom and dad this way, and make their lives safer.

As is often the case with the elderly, blind, or cognitively disabled, phones get misplaced or damaged. Not to worry, mom’s private phonebook now existed online, not on the physical phone. Mom’s caregiver in LA could pop by a Sprint store to pick up ANY cheap replacement phone. The very second the phone was activated, mom was back in business. Neither she, her caregiver, nor even the Sprint employee had to do ANYTHING. Replacement phones are assigned the same telephone number, and that’s all that matters. Nothing new to learn, no names/numbers for anybody to re-program. The same voice phonebook I spent three minutes to set-up, was right back at mom’s private service when she pressed <star> <talk> on the new phone around her neck.

Many others rely on Sprint’s “Voice Command” technology just like my parents, but it will be abruptly and quietly decommissioned on July 1st ( http://www.sprint.com/landings/voicedecommission/ ). The people most affected by this are unable to complain effectively on their own behalf, and no other phone carriers offers such functionality. They’re in trouble.

Sprint advertises: “Our mission is to provide the highest quality service for our customers with disabilities” ( http://www.sprint.com/landings/accessibility/index.html ) and “Sprint is committed to working with the Blind and Visually Impaired community to deliver user-friendly, accessible phones” ( http://www.sprint.com/landings/accessibility/vision.html ). Yet, incredibly, notification to their blind and disabled users was only by mail?  Not even a common-sense phone call or voice message? Most of Sprint’s blind, elderly and disabled “Voice Command” users can’t read mail, and will only learn they’ve lost the ability to call physicians, family, taxis, and ambulances–in the moment the need has arisen. This is very dangerous, and they’re at real risk.

Even if the service is unprofitable, how much could it cost Sprint-Nextel to simply leave it be? Are Sprint-Nextel marketing people pretending about their commitment to customers with disabilities? We should all nurture, advertise, and encourage more social advances like this, not kill them off.  Help Sprint-Nextel executives understand their civic responsibility as public service providers. If only for selfish reasons, one hopes whomever thought he or she could save a few corporate pennies will wake up and realize their own parent or loved one may need this someday. Can you make it your good deed today to send a quick email?

 john.b.taylor@sprint.com  “Sprint Public Policy, Business Continuity Office:”
 michelle.leff@sprint.com   “Sprint Consumer and Business Products and Services:”

Urge these executives to intervene, and “Please do not decommission Voice Command for the blind, elderly, and disabled.” Somebody you love, perhaps even you, will need stuff like this someday. Consider forwarding this email to anybody who may be in the position to help somebody become safer and more independent, should this free and simple service not be thoughtlessly decommissioned on July 1st.

Bill Meyer
meyerw (at) gmail.com

Categories: Uncategorized

Warning: Blind Screen Reader Users Urged to Avoid Early Skype 4.0 Beta

June 18, 2008 • Darrell Shandrow Hilliker

Doug Lee, creator and maintainer of the popular JAWS scripts for Skype, reports that there appear to be some significant accessibility concerns with the Skype 4.0 beta in its early form:

This is a bit long, but I have a lot to say…

As has already been announced here, Skype 4.0 Beta has been made public, though I don’t think it’s yet being made loudly public. Skype 4.0 is a very significant change from Skype 3 in its appearance and in how things are done. It is also still taking shape, which means that a number of features and basic functions, including accessibility in some places, are still being worked out. In this message, I will discuss some of the changes, comment on the status of accessibility in this beta, and provide information important to anyone who wishes to try it. In summary though, I do not recommend the beta for most JAWS users yet, but I am working with Skype developers, and actually meeting some of them in person, to accelerate the implementation of full accessibility for Skype 4. Anyone who still wants to try this beta should read this message to its end, get the beta scripts I will announce, read and regularly check back with my web page on Skype 4 and the Skype 4 scripts, and report any issues that are not already shown there to me and/or this mailing list.

Before I say more, let me demonstrate what I mean by “very significant change” by describing a few things that have happened:

  1. There is now the concept of a “conversation,” which includes chats, calls, contact detail requests, etc. between you and someone else. One significance of this is that a “missed call” will no longer show up in an Events panel but will instead show up as a line in a conversation window, right along with chat lines you may have been exchanging with that person. Our Ctrl+Shift+E command still reads the Account panel, which contains your name, mood text, and account balance; but there aren’t any events there anymore. I am making Alt+numbers continue to read chats, so this is where you would now find missed calls.
  2. Chat windows, which have always been separate from the Skype window, are now contained within it. This means that you will generally only have one Skype window and will just move among things inside it to move among conversations, calls, etc. There is actually a way to “open” a chat window and make it separate as before, but this
    is not the default way to handle chats now.
  3. Conversations are listed in a list box, sort of like the Contact list. This list is sometimes called the Inbox now. You can still start a conversation by right-clicking on a contact in the Contact list, but you can also move among active conversations by pressing Enter on conversations in the Inbox list.

There’s a lot more I could say, but you get the idea: A lot has happened to Skype!

As for grabbing and trying the beta, I do not recommend this yet for most JAWS users. I am working closely with Skype developers on making things accessible, and there is a notable amount of accessibility already in the beta; but we still have a ways to go before the whole picture is painted, so to speak. I am actually personally meeting with some of the Skype developers this weekend to discuss how to make things more accessible to us, and I can tell you firsthand that the commitment is there. As I said in an earlier message this morning though, accessibility is far from the only thing not complete at this stage.

Now, for those of you who simply won’t be warned off by such an announcement (), here are some things you should know if you plan to play with this Skype beta:

  1. The current JAWS scripts for Skype 3 will not work very well with Skype 4, and the Skype 4 scripts (see below) will not work very well with Skype 3. There is just too much changed to make it wise or practical to have one set of scripts support both environments. Therefore, I recommend that you back up your Skype 3 scripts before
    trying Skype 4. The easiest way to “back up” the Skype 3 scripts is just to keep a copy of the installer for them, which you can rerun any time you want those scripts back. Also keep an installer for your Skype 3 version of choice, so you can beat a full and hasty retreat if necessary.
  2. My web site now hosts a set of beta scripts for Skype 4.0. Please read the material there carefully, including the admittedly long list of known issues, before downloading and installing the scripts. Note that this page is *NOT* findable from the main Skype script page yet; this is not an accident.
  3. There is a bug in this Skype 4 Beta release that causes Skype to crash under certain conditions if JAWS is running when you press Tab or Shift+Tab in a conversation pane. This issue is being addressed by Skype itself and not via scripting. The web site mentioned above explains how to get around this safely.

To all of you who prefer to stay in more comfortable and calm waters, rest assured, Skype 4 accessibility is stabilizing right along with Skype 4 itself, and both I and the Skype developers and company are committed to making this happen.

If you do decide to try these early Skype 4.0 beta versions, Please review the Skype 4.0 Beta 1 for Windows post on the Skype blog and provide your constructive feedback directly to Skype for consideration.

Categories: Skype

Visual Verification: Research Study on Audio CAPTCHA Technology

June 18, 2008 • Darrell Shandrow Hilliker

Jennison Asuncion reports that a study of audio CAPTCHA technology is being conducted at the University of Washington:

A friend of mine, Jeff Bigham, a Graduate student at the University of Washington in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering is conducting research into audio captchas, the goal being to use the results to inform future development. Whether you are sighted or have a visual impairment, if you are interested in taking part in the research, go to http://webinsight.cs.washington.edu/webeval/captchas/ – the study should take no more than 15 minutes, and you will need to install the latest Flash player, if you don’t have it on your system. Feel free to pass this along to others who might be interested.

We urge everyone to participate in this potentially important study which may serve to impact future development of audio CAPTCHA as well as the overall accessibility of human verification and visual authentication technology.

Coming up on Main Menu for the week of June 18 – Accessible Cell Phones and Serotek’s Accessible Digital Lifestyle

June 14, 2008 • Darrell Shandrow Hilliker
Hello Everyone,  
 
Coming up on this week’s Main Menu, our first hour is prerecorded and our second hour is live! In the first hour, Shane Jackson from the Blind World Podcast interviews a panel of experts discussing their experience with accessible cell phones. In the second hour, Mike Calvo, Matt Campbell and Ricky Enger from Serotek tell us all about the accessible digital lifestyle, the Summer Sizzle promotion and the upcoming release of System Access 3.0.
 
Here is how to participate in the show:         
 
The number to call into the show is 866-400-5333.   
You may email your questions to: mainmenu@acbradio.org
You may also interact with the show via MSN (Windows Live) Messenger. The MSN Messenger ID to add is: mainmenu@acbradio.org         
 
Would you like to interact with a group of Main Menu listeners about the topics heard on Main Menu and Main Menu Live? You can do this by joining the Main Menu Friends email list. The address to subscribe is: main-menu-subscribe@googlegroups.com
Come join an already lively group of users.         
 
Would you like to subscribe to podcast feeds for Main Menu and Main Menu Live? The RSS feeds to add to your podcatching application are:         
 
 
Main Menu can be heard on Tuesday evenings at 9:00 Eastern, 6:00 Pacific, and at 1 universal (GMT) on Wednesday mornings on the ACB Radio Main Stream channel.         
 
Follow this link to listen to the show:         
 
 
Jeff Bishop and Darrell Shandrow
The Main Menu Production Team
Categories: Uncategorized

An Accessible Way to Manage Permission of the Programs on Your Computer to Use Skype

June 7, 2008 • Darrell Shandrow Hilliker

This morning I received a call from a fellow blind Skype user asking for help with one of the program’s few significant accessibility quirks. He had installed a new program for automatically voicing Skype events, yet he could not figure out how to access the automatic prompt for allowing the utility to use Skype. This dialogue box is, in fact, inaccessible in all recent Skype versions. If you are a blind screen reader user who wishes to allow another program to use Skype, you are not out of luck. It turns out that an advanced configuration option exists to manually specify which software on your system is permitted to access Skype. Follow these steps to control the use of Skype by the software installed on your system:

  1. Run Skype or open it from the System Tray in the usual manner. In JAWS, press JAWS Key+F11, down arrow to Skype, press enter, down arrow to Open Skype and press enter to open the program’s main window.
  2. Press alt+t to pull down the Tools menu followed by p to access the Options dialogue.
  3. Down arrow to Advanced Settings.
  4. Press shift+tab three times to select “Manage other programs’ access to Skype” and press the space bar to open this window.
  5. Press tab to enter the list of programs about which Skype is currently aware. Arrow up and down this list. Notice that the program’s name is given along with information indicating whether or not it is allowed to use Skype.
  6. Locate a program whose settings you wish to change.
  7. Press tab to select the Change button and press the space bar to open the window.
  8. Press tab to move into the group of two radio buttons used to determine whether or not the selected program is permitted to use Skype. If desired, press down arrow to change to the opposite setting.
  9. Press tab followed by the space bar on the OK button to accept any changes made to the program’s status.
  10. Press tab three times followed by the space bar on the OK button to accept all changes made for the entire list of programs.
  11. Finally, press shift+tab twice to select the Save button followed by the space bar to save all changes made in Skype’s Options dialogue box.
Categories: Skype, tips

Accessibility Evangelism and Unfortunate News From America Online (AOL) Radio

June 7, 2008 • Darrell Shandrow Hilliker

Hello Everyone,

As an accessibility evangelist, of course, I disagree with any and all those
who frequently make statements emphasizing our "smallness" and
insignificance in the world at large as a means to justify doing little or
nothing about accessibility challenges. Yes. We are very tiny in number in
comparison with the rest of the population who is not blind, but that really
has nothing to do with how well we can make our voices heard in order to
achieve positive changes for the better. One possible metaphore might be to
compare us with those who profess their faith in the Jewish religion here in
the United States, which is an incredibly small minority in number as
compared with catholics and evangelical Christians. Despite their small
numbers, the Jewish seem to experience little or no difficulty making their
needs known and they tend to enjoy great success and wealth in all walks of
life.

I'd like to see something similar happen for those of us who are blind. We
can't look to others to make this happen, but only to ourselves. It must
start with us! We must decide that we are valuable human beings deserving
of our human rights, of the accessibility and equal treatment with our
sighted peers we must enjoy in order to be able to fully participate in
society on a par with the sighted. Though it starts with us, a
technological world dictates that we have equal access to information in the
information and knowledge age. Accessibility must ultimately be available
if we are to actively and productively participate in such critical areas of
life as education, employment and leisure.

We must achieve equality of opportunity through making our own accessibility
solutions where practical and advocating for reasonable accomodations when
accessibility is required in order for us to participate. The issues boil
down to one of these two needs in all cases. There is no third option of
taking the path of least resistance; not if we want to count ourselves as
fully living and breathing human beings and citizens, possessing the same
inalienable rights and responsibilities already enjoyed by the sighted.

One excellent example of a project where we are making our own accessibility
is Benetech's Bookshare project available at http://www.bookshare.org.

Blind people and others with print reading disabilities subscribe to a web
based service where they may download and read from a selection of tens of
thousands of books available in an accessible, electronic format for use on
their computers and portable assistive technology. This is all made
possible by a team of blind and sighted volunteers who scan books into
electronic format and validators who correct scanning errors and reformat
the books for final entry into the collection.

Another example of making our own accessibility is the existence of the
blindness access technology industry. We spend tens of thousands of dollars
on screen readers, Braille displays, scanners with optical character
recognition software, specialized personal digital assistants (PDAs) and a
myriad of other high and low technology items on which we have grown to
depend in order to adapt ourselves to the world. In many cases, government
agencies purchase some or all of this technology under specific
circumstances, but this is, by no means, guaranteed.

Despite our own efforts, there often remains a wide gap between that which
we are able to make accessible on our own and that technology which we must
use in the classroom, on the job, etc. When we are not able to close these
gaps through our own efforts and assistive technology, reasonable
accomodations on the part of the developer of that technology are required
if we are to be permitted full and equal participation. Failures to
reasonably accomodate our needs often result in the curtailment of
educational opportunities and even the needless loss of jobs!

As a blind community, we can take actions such as the following to improve
our accessibility to the world of technology around us:
* Understand that we need equal accessibility in order to participate in
society on a par with our sighted peers.
* Believe and live the concept that accessibility through reasonable
accomodations is a human right and the right thing to do in all cases.
* Check with other individuals and organizations in the blind community to
see if the technology has already been made accessible.
* Write letters to technology developers asking that they reasonably
accomodate our need for accessibility.
* When available, provide suggestions and technical consulting necessary to
improve accessibility.
* Work to have existing legislation covering accessibility enforced more
consistently and frequently.
* Encourage the passage of new legislation to clarify our needs and mandate
increased accessibility in areas not already covered.

Achieving equal participation in the knowledge age is currently a hard
fought struggle, where we often seem to take a step forward followed by one
or two steps backward. The latest case with AOL Radio represents a good
example. While imperfect, blind people relying on screen readers have
enjoyed access to the company's many radio offerings. We are talking about
listening to the radio, which should most certainly represent an activity
that ought to be inherently accessible to the blind.

We have now learned that, as of Monday, June 9, 2008, AOL and CBS are going
to take away from the blind the ability to listen to their Internet radio
streams through the implementation of a player that is known to be
inaccessible to screen reading software. Many blind people have been
enjoying this content for several years. Simply yanking it out of our hands
is a thoughtless act at best. The director of AOL's accessibility team has
informed us that the inaccessibility of the new player results from
technology used by CBS and tells us that solutions are being investigated
for implementation sometime in the undetermined future. We believe this
answer is not quite sufficient and that temporary alternative listening
options should be made available to the blind until such time as the
accessibility problems with the embedded web based player have been solved.
If you agree that AOL Radio should continue to allow blind and visually
impaired people to listen to their Internet radio channels, we urge all of
you, including those sighted people who care about what happens to us, to
send a note to AOLAccessibility@aol.com asking that they continue working to
restore accessibility to the AOL Radio player and, in the meantime, make
direct links available to the blind for listening on other devices and media
player software. We also ask you to visit CBS at

http://www.cbsradio.com/contact/streaming.html, select your radio station of
interest and request the implementation of a more accessible player to
accomodate the accessibility needs of blind and visually impaired listeners.

As a community, it is both our collective and individual responsibilities to
evangelize accessibility. Simply leaving the work to others is not going to
be effective, especially given our small numbers. This AOL Radio issue is
just one small one among many much more significant challenges. All the
same, let us all take this moment to remind ourselves that we can and must
make a difference! Now, everyone, let's all go forth and make our voices
heard often and loudly!

Celebrating Our Project Gemstone Winners and Participants

June 5, 2008 • Darrell Shandrow Hilliker

Earlier this afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I have been counted among the Project Gemstone winners. This Bookshare project was initiated to recognize the work of those of us who validate (edit scanning errors and reformat) content before it is approved and added to the Bookshare collection. Feel free to visit http://www.friendsofbookshare.org to learn more about Project Gemstone and Bookshare in general. Bookshare validations are often challenging and time consuming even for the best quality scans, so it is quite nice to receive this recognition for an important segment of the volunteer community.
 
The following message from Monica Willyard, one of our tireless leaders in the Bookshare volunteer community, sheds additional light on the project and recognizes all the winners:
 
Hi, everyone. I’m excited to be writing to you today to announce that the Project Gemstone winners have been chosen. To read about each of our participants, visit http://scannersguild.com/honoring-project-gemstone-champions/  You can also visit the page with the winners listed at

http://scannersguild.com/bookshare/announcing-our-project-gemstone-winners/

 

Here is a list of our six winners, each of whom will receive an Amazon gift certificate.

 

Ann P

Darrell

Deborah H.

Grace

Judy

Tracy

 

Congratulations to each of you. I would also like to thank Cindy Warford for sponsoring 3 of the prizes for this contest. What a wonderful group of people you all are. (smile)

 

Monica Willyard

Visit me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/plumlipstick

Categories: Uncategorized

Announcing SayTools

June 5, 2008 • Darrell Shandrow Hilliker

Now available at
http://EmpowermentZone.com/saysetup.exe

Over the past few years, I have gained experience with various programming
languages and screen reader interfaces. This package consolidates routines
I developed that enable a Windows program to speak messages beyond what a
screen reader will say automatically via default speech.
Direct speech messages, smartly placed, can significantly increase the
nonvisual usability of an application. I hope this contribution makes it
easier for interested developers to incorporate such functionality in their
software.

Jamal

SayTools
Version 1.0
June 5, 2008
Copyright 2008 by Jamal Mazrui
LGPL license

Contents

Description
Installation
Operation
Development Notes
———-

Description

SayTools is a collection of software, provided in both source code and
executable forms, for developers to conveniently add speech to an
application. It is able to detect whether the JAWS, System Access, or
Window-Eyes screen reader is running, and speak through the relevant API if
found. It can also use the default SAPI speech on the computer.
———-

Installation

The installation program for SayTools is called saysetup.exe. When
executed, it prompts for a program folder, defaulting to C:\Program
Files\SayTools. The files jfwapi.dll and saapi32.dll are also copied to the
Windows System folder to ensure they are on the Windows search path. The
installer creates a program group for SayTools on the Windows start menu,
containing choices to read Documentation, explore the program folder, or
uninstall the package. If an update becomes available, it may be safely
installed over this version — unless otherwise specified.

A SayTools subfolder contains "Hello world" samples in the following
programming languages: AutoIt, C#, JScript, Perl, PowerBASIC, Python, Ruby,
VBScript, Visual Basic .NET, and WinBatch. These demonstrate how SayTools
may be used to provide speech messages that enhance the usability of an
application for people who are operating nonvisually.
———-

Operation

Once SayTools is installed on a computer, a COM client may use the string
"Say.Tools" as the ProgID (program identifier) for creating an object with
speech related methods. These methods are as follows:

IsJAWSActive() — Test whether JAWS is active in memory

IsSAActive() — Test whether System Access is active in memory

IsWEActive() — Test whether Window-Eyes is active in memory

UseSAPI(bState) — Determine whether SAPI speech is used if no screen reader
is found, passing a Boolean parameter of 1 for True or 0 for False

JAWSSay(sText) — Say a string of text via JAWS

SASay(sText) — Say a string of text via System Access

SAPISay(sText) — Say a string of text via SAPI

WESay(sText) — Say a string of text via Window-Eyes

Say(sText) — Say a string of text via JAWS, System Access, or Window-Eyes
if found, or SAPI if that has been set as the last resort (default is False)

The command-line utilities are as follows:

SayLine.exe sLine — Say a line of text, passed as a parameter on the
command line, using a screen reader if found, or SAPI if not

SayFile.exe sFile — Say a text file, passed as a complete path on the
command line, using a screen reader if found, or SAPI if not

RunScript.exe sScript — Run an active JAWS script, either global default or
application specific, passed as a complete path on the command line
———-

Development Notes

I developed SayTools with the Python language, freely available at
http://python.org

The COM server is created using py2exe from
http://py2exe.org

The command-line utilities are written in PowerBASIC, commercially available
at
http://PowerBASIC.com

I wrote code with the EdSharp editor, freely available at
http://EmpowermentZone.com/edsetup.exe

I welcome feedback, which helps SayTools improve over time. When reporting
a problem, the more specifics the better, including steps to reproduce it,
if possible.

The latest version of SayTools is available at the same URL,
http://EmpowermentZone.com/saysetup.exe

Jamal Mazrui
empower (at) smart.net

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