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I have just one critical question, my friends. Why haven't the "leading"
screen reader makers incorporated any of this technology into their
products?

Wired.com News
Thursday, November 15, 2007

AxsJAX Brings Accessibility Features to Web 2.0

By Scott Gilbertson

Google Reader's recent makeover wasn't just skin deep. Most people probably
didn't notice it, but the revamped Google Reader also added an accessibility
layer which makes the app screen reader friendly.

LINK:
http://firevox.clcworld.net/

Web 2.0 sites may be slick and easy to use for most people, but such sites
often lack accessibility support, making them difficult, if not impossible,
to use with screen readers and other assistive technologies.

In an effort to improve accessibility on AJAX-heavy websites, Google
recently released the framework behind the new Google Reader tools as an
open source project dubbed AxsJAX. The code has been reworked and most of
the Google-specific features removed, which means it should work for just
about any site that chooses to use it.

LINK:
http://code.google.com/p/google-axsjax/

AxsJAX is designed to enhance the accessibility of AJAX applications.
Charles Chen, who added the accessibility features to Google Reader and
develops Fire Vox, an assistive device friendly add-on for Firefox, writes
on the Google Code Blog:

Based on the experience of access-enabling Reader, we have now refactored
the code to come up with a common JavaScript framework for enhancing the
accessibility of AJAX applications. This framework is called AxsJAX, and it
was refined in the process of access-enabling Web Search.

We're now excited to open-source this framework since we believe that there
is nothing Google-specific in the techniques we have implemented. We invite
the Web developer community to help us collectively define a robust
framework for rapid prototyping of accessibility enhancements to Web 2.0
applications.

LINK:
http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2007/11/introducing-axsjax-access-enabling-ajax.html

AxsJAX features can be accessed by users in several ways: as a bookmarklets,
using Greasemonkey or through Fire Vox. The underlying code implements the
W3C's WAI-ARIA spec (Web Accessibility Initiative – Accessible Rich Internet
Applications). Rather than simply providing assistive device users with a
non-AJAX page as is the standard practice, ARIA makes the results of AJAX
calls accessible to screen readers. Check out the ARIA roadmap for more
details.

LINK:
http://www.w3.org/TR/aria-roadmap/

If you'd like to know more about the AxsJAX framework, have a read through
the documentation on the Google Code project page.

LINK:
http://code.google.com/p/google-axsjax/

SOURCE
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/11/axsjax-brings-a.html

All Blind Access Journal readers are cordially invited and encouraged to join our brand new mailing list! We will, of course, discuss issues related to all things accessibility, including the following topic areas:

• Approaches to accessibility advocacy and their effectiveness.
• Coordination of Blind Access Journal and other advocacy initiatives.
• Collect and report accessibility issues in need of evangelism.
• Constructively work with all companies and individuals who are doing the right thing with respect to accessibility!

This new mailing list is not intended as a resource for technical support. There are many other excellent blindness related lists for that purpose.

If you would like to subscribe to the blind-access mailing list, please send a blank message to blind-access-request@lists.blindaccessjournal.com with the word subscribe in the subject field. Please feel free to visit the blind-access list home page to view archives or modify your participation in the group. Your active participation is both appreciated and encouraged.

http://www.EmpowermentZone.com/edsetup.exe

Version 2.2
Released September 8, 2007

This version adds advanced features related to snippets, regular
expressions, and user-defined tokens. It also strengthens the ability to
select and download files from a web page. Fixes and enhancements are
documented below.

Jamal

Fixed the Replace with Regular Expression command (Control+Shift+R) not
interpreting standard tokens like \n in the substitution string. Fixed a
space not being inserted before an attribute name in an HTML snippet. Such
an attribute may now contain \n or other nonprinting tokens. It may be
commented out with a semicolon (;) as the first character of the line.

Added a check for whether the file in the current editing window has been
modified by another program since being loaded from disk. If so, you are
prompted whether to open it again (like what Alt+O does manually). If you
answer No, version checking on the current file stops until you save or
reload it.

The Print command (Control+P) now prints a file with a .rtf extension using
the associated program for this operation in the Windows registry (typically
Microsoft Word or WordPad). The Export command (Alt+Shift+E) now includes
options for ASCII format (characters with ANSI codes above 127 are removed),
Mac format (line break is \r), and Unix format (line break is \n).

Added more search commands. As before, Control+F or Control+Shift+F search
forward or backward for standard text. Alt+F3 or Alt+Shift+F3 search
forward or backward for either the chunk at the cursor or selected text.
Control+F3 or Control+Shift+F3 prompt for a regular expression for searching
forward or backward. F3 or Shift+F3 search forward or backward for the last
target, which may be either standard text or a regular expression.

Fixed problems with the Web Download command, and added more commands for
checking and navigation in this and other list-based dialogs (similar to the
FileDir application). Press Shift+DownArrow for check and Next, or
Shift+UpArrow for check and Previous. Press Shift+End for check to Bottom,
or Shift+Home for check to Top. Shift+NumPad5 checks the current item. F8
marks the start of a checking operation, completed with Shift+F8.

Adding the Alt modifier key performs the same action except for uncheckging
rather than checkging. Thus, Alt+Shift+NumPad5 unchecks the current item,
Alt+Shift+Home unchecks to the top of the list, Alt+Shift+End unchecks to
the bottom, Alt+Shift+DownArrow unchecks en route to the next item, and
Alt+Shift+UpArrow unchecks en route to the previous. F8 then Alt+Shift+F8
unchecks items in that range.

Other arrow keypad actions navigate among checkged items. Control+Home goes
to the top checkged item, and Control+End goes to the bottom one.
Control+DownArrow goes to the Next , and Control+UpArrow goes to the
previous.

Shift+Space tells you what items are currently checked. Alt+A says the
address of the current item in the list, e.g., 11 of 42.

A new section of EdSharp.ini is called Tokens. Each of these user-defined
tokens is an expression in Microsoft JScript .NET. Three examples are
currently provided in the configuration file. The CurrentDirectory token
illustrates a call to a static method in the .NET Framework Class Library
(FCL) — in this case, returning the current directory of the EdSharp
process. The Signature token shows syntax for a literal string — in this
case, a signature block with multiple lines. The Unordered List token
refers to a JScript file called ul.js that is provided in the HTML snippet
folder.

When EdSharp finds that a token refers to a file in the current snippet
folder, it interprets the content of that file as JScript. The ul.js
example creates an unordered list element in HTML after prompting for the
number of items to generate in the list. Its content is as follows:

[Begin Content of ul.js]
var iCount = Interaction.InputBox("Number of Items:", "Input", "0")
var sTag = "<ul>\n"
var i = 1
while (i <= iCount) {
sTag += "<li>Item" + i + "</li>\n"
i++
}
sTag += "</ul>\n"
[End Content of ul.js]

User-defined tokens may be included in a snippet that has the "form" keyword
in its header. They may also be typed in a document being edited. As
before, the Evaluate Expression command, Control+Equals, evaluates the
current line or selected text as JScript code and places the result on the
line below. The new Replace Tokens command, Control+Shift+Equals, swaps
tokens with their computed results in all or selected text. Thus, you might
press Alt+Shift+M for Manual Options and define a signature token as
follows:

[Tokens]
Signature=("Sincerely,\nJohn Doe\nJohn.Doe@NiftyHomePage.com\n")

Then type %Signature% in your document where you want that to appear, and
use the Replace Tokens command to do it.

Added the Transform Files command (Alt+Equals) to apply a saved set of
search and replace tasks to one or more files — typically to massage data
or formatting in predictable ways (like the Massage Operation command of
TextPal). EdSharp prompts for the job file containing the regular
expressions to apply. Each task is defined by three lines: (1) a comment
explaining the operation, (2) the search expression, and (3) the replacement
expression. A blank line seperates each task. The current editing window
should contain the list of files to process, one per line. Such a list
could be typed manually or generated via the Path List command
(Control+Shift+P). If a file does not include a leading path, the prior one
is assumed.

Here is the content of a sample transform job that defines two tasks:

[Begin Content of TrimLine.txt]
Remove leading space or tab characters from each line
(\A|\n)( |\t)+
$1

Remove trailing space or tab characters from each line
( |\t)+(\r|\Z)
$2
[End Content of TrimLine.txt]

http://www.EmpowermentZone.com/edsetup.exe

Version 2.1
Released September 1, 2007

This version primarily seeks to implement some ideas I gathered about
writing HTML. The new pasting capability is tailored for either HTML or
text — the latter snippet type being applicapable to templates and prose
generally. HTML support already included checking syntax with the Tidy
utility, as well as converting between Markdown and HTML. Fixes and
improvements are documented below.

Jamal

Fixed Section Break (Control+Enter) and Replace (Control+R) commands not
handling tokens correctly.

Improved compatibility with Dragon voice dictation software. Made EdSharp
change the current directory to that of a file opened by the user.

The Open Previous setting determines whether files open at the end of the
previous EdSharp session are automatically opened at the start of the next
one. The default is No in this version, but it was Yes in version 2.0 when
this setting was reserved but not actually implemented. Since upgrading
EdSharp generally does not replace installed settings, your setting may be
Yes inadvertently. If you would prefer that EdSharp not open files
automatically in this way, you can press Alt+Shift+C for
Configuration Options, then Alt+O for the OpenPrevious edit box and N for
its value. Alternatively, create a fresh configuration file by pressing
Alt+Shift+M for Manual Options, Alt+Shift+D to delete the EdSharp.ini file,
Y to confirm, and Alt+F4 to close EdSharp. The next time you load EdSharp a
custom configuration file will be created with default values.

This version increases word processing functionality by adding bullet
justification in addition to left, center, or right (Alt+Shift+J).
Superscript and subscript support is also added. Press Alt+Shift+6 (think
of a caret symbol) to change the virtical alignment of text. Press
Control+6 to go to the next change in baseline, or Control+Shift+6 for the
previous one. The Query Styles command (Alt+Slash) says current styles
(bold, italic and/or underline), as well as justification and baseline
alignment.

The Web Download command, Alt+Shift+W, lets you pick one or more files to
download from a page whose address you specify. If Internet Explorer is
open, EdSharp uses the value in its address bar as the default. Each item
of the resulting checked listbox shows both the clickable text of the url
and its target file name. Press Spacebar to toggle the checked state of
an item. After picking files, you are prompted for the target folder on
disk. If a file with the same name already exists, a unique name is created
by adding a numeric suffix, e.g., page_01.htm, page_02.htm, etc.

A listbox control of the .NET Framework does not support multiple letter
navigation, so each letter typed jumps to the next item starting with that
letter. To make navigation more flexible and efficient, particularly in a
listbox with many items, EdSharp adds the following features to a list based
dialog. Control+J prompts for text within an item, going to the first match
if a new search, or the next match if the previous value is accepted. Alt+J
goes to the next match without prompting for a value. In a checked listbox,
such as the Web Download dialog, Control+A checks all items, Control+Shift+A
unchecks them, and Shift+Space reads which are checked. The item with focus
when the dialog is closed (but not canceled) becomes the current item the
next time that the same list dialog is invoked. The Jump value of that
dialog is also remembered.

New commands support development of web pages. Press Control+Shift+Period
(think of the > symbol) to go to the closing tag of an HTML element, or
Control+Shift+Comma for the opening one. A documentation section
describes the snippet capability as follows.

Pasting Snippets Press Alt+S to save all or selected text to a file that may
be conveniently pasted into other documents. You may give the file any
name, except that it should have a .txt extension. It is saved in a
subfolder
of the EdSharp data folder. Each programming compiler or interpreter may
have its own set of snippets. The subfolder name is the same as the current
value of the Pick Compiler command, Control+Shift+F5. If no compiler has
been chosen, the name "Default" is used. Press Alt+V to pick one of the
available snippets and paste it into the current document. You can manage
snippet files with the View Snippet Folder command, Alt+Shift+V, which opens
Windows Explorer in the subfolder containing snippet files.

A snippet may be either literal or an interpreted type. A literal snippet
is pasted completely. An interpreted type is seperated into an initial
header line and remaining lines as its body. The header line contains
keywords, in lower case, that control how EdSharp processes the snippet. At
present, two interpreted types are defined: html and text. The type
keyword must be the first word on the header line, and thus the first word
of the snippet file.

The first body line of an HTML snippet is the name of an HTML tag.
Subsequent body lines are attributes of the tag. An optional default value
can follow the attribute name, seperated by an equals sign (=).
Here is an example for the anchor tag:

html phrase
a
href=
name=
target=
class=
title=
src=

The "phrase" keyword tells EdSharp that the tag may be embedded in a
paragraph, rather than creating a block with line breaks before and after.
Another keyword, "empty," would tell EdSharp not to add a closing tag like
</a> when pasting (e.g., for the <br> tag).

EdSharp pastes only those attributes that have values greater then zero in
length as part of the opening tag. To include an attribute with essentially
no value, enter a space character for it in the dialog. If text is selected
when pressing Alt+V, it is surrounded by the opening and closing tags, and
the cursor is placed afterward. If there is no selection, the cursor is
placed between the opening and closing tags.

Over 100 HTML snippets are distributed with EdSharp, including common
attributes used by the tags. Snippet files may be modified or added.
Upgrading EdSharp does not overwrite snippet files with the same names.

With the text type of snippet, EdSharp pastes the whole body after making
possible substitutions controlled by a keyword called "form." This lets you
embed variables or constants in the body. A variable has surrounding
percent signs and an equals sign between the name and default value. For
example, the variable %City=%Silver Spring% means a variable named City with
a default value of Silver Spring. EdSharp creates a dialog that prompts for
the value of each variable it finds in the snippet body. It then replaces
the variable references with the values entered.

Certain constants are also defined: %Date% for the current date, %Time% for
the time, %UserName% for the Windows user name, %UserFirstName% for the
first part of that name, and %UserLastName% for the second part, if any.
Date and Time formats may be customized as EdSharp configuration options,
using the DateTime formatting syntax of the .NET Framework, explained at

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.globalization.datetimeformatinfo(VS.80).aspx
If a snippet header contains the "caret" keyword, EdSharp looks for a double
caret sequence (^^) in the body, and positions the cursor (think of blinking
caret) in that location after pasting. An example text type snippet is
called Letter.txt, located in the Default snippet folder. Its content is as
follows:

text form caret
%Date%

Dear %Customer=%:

Thank you for your purchase of %Product=Super Widget%. ^^

Sincerely,
%UserName%

EdSharp notices that this is a text type snippet because of the first word
of the file. It finds two other keywords on the header line: form and
caret. It creates a dialog with two edit boxes, prompting for the Customer
and Product — defaulting to Super Widget. It substitutes the values
entered, as well as date and user name constants. After pasting, the cursor
is positioned after the first sentence.

http://www.EmpowermentZone.com/edsetup.exe

Version 2.0
Released August 25, 2007

Major programming and word processing enhancements have raised the version
from 1.2 to 2.0. EdSharp is now a text editor, file converter, coding
environment, and mini word processor! Fixes and improvements are documented
below.

Jamal

Fixed the Jump command not recognizing a column as well as line number.
Fixed regular expression dialogs requiring a double rather than single
backslash to begin a special token.
Fixed the Yield with Regular Expression command (Control+Shift+Y) not
remembering the previous expression used.
Fixed Exporting from HTML to Markdown.

Extra speech messages may now be toggled off — or reactivated — with
Control+Shift+X. When off, such messages are redirected to a text file
called Speech.log, which may be examined in an editing window with
Alt+Shift+X. This file is initialized when EdSharp starts, and the Extra
Speech setting is remembered from the previous session.

Made Delete Right (Control+Shift+Delete) and Delete Line (Alt+Backspace)
delete to the end of the visible line — wrapping is respected. The new
Delete Hard Line command (Control+D) deletes through any wrapping until just
past the next hard line break (what is created by pressing Enter).
The Delete Paragraph command (Control+Shift+D) deletes from the current line
through the next one or more blank lines.

Press Alt+F7 to look up definitions of a word from the dictionary.com web
site. EdSharp prompts for a word or phrase, defaulting to the current chunk
or selected text. The definitions retrieved are placed in a new editing
window.

When a file is saved without giving it an extension, .rtf is added as a
configurable default. If a file would be overwritten, the original may be
optionally saved with .bak added (default is No).
Each option in the Configuration dialog (Alt+Shift+C) has a unique access
key in its label, so you can jump directly to it with an Alt plus letter
combination. Some options are reserved but not yet implemented.

Sections added to the EdSharp documentation discuss the new word processing
and programming features as follows:

Word Processing
EdSharp supports several aspects of Rich Text Format (.rtf) as well as plain
text (with optional structure). In certain situations, EdSharp behaves
differently if a file has a .rtf extension rather than any other one.
Specifically, the Open Other Format command, Control+Shift+O, imports a .rtf
file with its formatting rather than converting it to plain text. The Save,
Save As, and Save Copy commands, Control+S, Control+Shift+S, and Alt+S, save
a .rtf file with formatting preserved.
Use the Copy Rich Text command, Control+Shift+C, to copy selected text with
formatting to the clipboard.

Formatting commands include the following. Use the Justify command,
Alt+Shift+J, to set the horizontal alignment of text as left, center, or
right. This formatting applies to either selected text or the current hard
line — a line of text terminated by a hard line break (created by pressing
Enter rather than wrapping).

Use the Style command, Alt+Slash, to set or clear bold, italic, or underline
formatting. This applies to either selected text or text ahead of the
current cursor position. Similarly, the Set Selection Font command,
Alt+Shift+Dash, adjusts the font or color of selected text or text ahead of
the cursor (think of a "dashing" display). The key to its right,
Alt+Shift+Equals, is for setting the default font of a new document. The
Justify, Style, and Font dialogs indicate current format settings.

Navigation commands let you move forward or backward to a change in
formatting. Control+RightBracket goes to the next justification change, and
Control+LeftBracket goes to the previous one. Control+Slash goes to the
next style change, and Control+Shift+Slash goes to the previous one.
Control+Dash goes to the next font change and Control+Shift+Dash goes to the
previous one. The cursor stops at the character with different formatting.
The new formatting is announced and current line is read.

To query the current font and color, press Alt+Dash. For justification and
styles, press Alt+Slash.

Programming
Press Tab to indent the current line of text, or Shift+Tab to outdent it.
If multiple lines of text are selected, these commands are applied to all of
them. Press Alt+I to hear the number of indentation levels of the current
line. The Trim Blanks command, Control+Shift+Enter, removes all indentation
and trailing spaces at once, as well as removing more than two consecutive
blank lines (when multiple lines are selected).

Press Alt+Shift+I to toggle a mode in which you are alerted to changes in
indentation level, such as when using the up and down arrow keys. EdSharp
will say how many levels in or out the indentation has changed. This mode
also reverses the rols of the Enter and Shift+Enter keys.

When Indent Mode is off, you can start a new line of text with the same
indentation as the current one by pressing Shift+Enter. By default, an
indentation unit is two spaces. This may be changed with the Configuration
Options command, Alt+Shift+C (or use Alt+Shift+M to manually edit settings
in the EdSharp.ini file). To go to the first character of the current line
after any indentation, press Alt+Home. To go to the last non-white space
character, press Alt+End.

Press Control+I to go to the next code block, or Control+Shift+I to go to
the previous one. EdSharp considers a line of text with less indentation to
be part of a different code block. For example, if the cursor is inside a
loop block, then Control+I will go to the line at the closing of the loop
where a lower level of indentation resumes. In Ruby, this would be the line
with the word "end" or a right brace (}) character. In Python, it would be
the first line of code following the loop, since the change in indentation,
itself, indicates the end of the loop.

The Quote and Unquote commands, Control+Q and Control+Shift+Q, may be used
to add or remove comment symbols at the start of lines. The default quote
prefix may be changed from > to a comment sequence appropriate for the
language in use, e.g., ' for Visual Basic, * for Xbase, ; for AutoIt, or #
for Ruby.

Curly brace characters delimit code structures in a number of languages.
Press Control+B to find the matching right brace (}) character from the
current location. Press Control+Shift+B for the matching left brace ({)
instead. Press Alt+B to hear the number of unmatched left braces before the
cursor and right braces after. Different brace characters may be
configured, e.g., angle brackets (<>) for editing HTML or XML. If the
cursor is on a brace-type character when issuing one of these commands,
i.e., one of {}<>[]() , then EdSharp uses that character and its opposite
when searching, regardless of the current setting.

A scripting language allows a program to be run as a text file associated by
extension with its interpreter, e.g., .pl for Perl, .au3 for AutoIt, and
.rbw for Ruby files. Press F5 to run the current file with its associated
interpreter. If the current file name has a complete path, EdSharp saves to
disk before running the file to ensure the latest version is being used.
Otherwise, EdSharp saves to a file in a temporary folder and runs that file.

The Alt+F5 command prompts for a command to run and speaks its standard
output. The path of the current file may be passed via the syntax described
for EdSharp's Import and Export capability. The command remembers its
previous value, and may be adjusted each time it is run.
Use the Review Output command, Alt+Shift+F5, to open a new editing window
containing the output produced by the last command.

Use the Compile command, Control+F5, for a programming language that
involves compiling source code to binary form. For example, a C# program in
a .cs file may be compiled to a .exe file. This command may also be used
for interpreters that report syntax errors via the standard output or
standard error streams.

These tool commands typically begin with the file name of the compiler or
interpreter. Any parameters may be specified thereafter. If the token
%SourceDir% is included, EdSharp temporarily changes to the directory
containing the source file before running the tool.

The first line and column position mentioned in the output, if any, is
assumed to be the position of a compilation error in the source code.
EdSharp uses the JumpPosition setting to find the position in the output
based on a regular expression. The regular expression should be defined so
that the first number of a matching string is the line number and the second
number, if any, is the column number. EdSharp automatically jumps to that
position. It is also saved so that the Jump Again command, Alt+J, returns
there.

Another regular expression may be configured for navigating among routines
in source code. The NavigatePart setting is used by Alt+PageDown and
Alt+PageUp to go to the next or previous function, method, or class
definition.

Thus, the Compile command, Control+F5, combines debugging steps efficiently
by compiling, saying output without a model message box, and automatically
jumping to the first error position, if found in the output. The output
spoken may be abbreviated by means of a regular expression setting that
specifies the pattern of text to remove. The Pick Compiler command,
Control+Shift+F5, lets you conveniently configure the CompileCommand ,
AbbreviateOutput, JumpPosition, NavigatePart, and QuotePrefix ssettings for
a particular compiler or interpreter. EdSharp offers settings for the
following languages: C#, HTML, Java, JAWS Script, Perl, PHP, PowerBASIC,
PowerShell, Python, Ruby, and Visual Basic .NET.

The name of a tool to be run should either include its directory location or
be available on the Windows search path. This may be adjusted by editing
the Path environment variable in the Advanced tab page of the System applet
in Control Panel. If the tool is a long file name enclosed in quotes then
either prefix the command line with the @ symbol or enclose the whole thing
in quotes. This is necessary to prevent .ini file manipulation functions of
Windows from losing the opening quote before the tool.

For HTML, the HTML Tidy utility is configured by default and distributed
with EdSharp. After eliminating coding errors found with Control+F5, use
Alt+Shift+E to export to a target file containing clean HTML. More
information is available at http://tidy.sourceforge.net

For PowerBASIC, a batch file is needed (in the EdSharp program folder),
which refers to the default location of PowerBasic for Windows version 8.0.
The path to the JAWS script compiler is also hard coded for the latest
version. JAWS scripting is additionally supported by EdSharp's own scripts:
Control+I is a hot key for inserting the path to the user script folder, and
Control+Shift+I is for the All Users script folder, when focus
is in the Open or Save Dialog of EdSharp.

Compiler settings are stored in the [Compilers] section of the EdSharp.ini
file. Only current compiler settings appear in the configuration options
dialog, Alt+Shift+C. Other settings may be edited, however, using the
Manual Options command, Alt+Shift+M. You can adjust command line
parameters of configured compilers, or add others. Installing a new version
of EdSharp does not change existing compiler settings.

http://www.EmpowermentZone.com/edsetup.exe

Version 1.2
Released August 18, 2007

Fixed the default EdSharp.ini overwriting the Import and Export sections of
the user's EdSharp.ini configuration file. Fixed commands such as Quote
(Control+Q) producing an error if no text was at the cursor position
(because the document was empty or the cursor was at the end).

Added support for enhanced speech messages when using the System Access
screen reader from
http://serotek.com

Enhanced Find and Replace commands (Control+F, Control+Shift+F, and
Control+R). The Text you enter in Find or Replace dialogs may now include
tokens that represent nonprinting characters. This syntax is available for
strings in the C programming language and its variations. Common tokens are
a pair of characters consisting of a backslash and letter, such as the
following: \r for carriage return (ASCI 13), \n for line feed (ASCII 10),
\t for tab (ASCII 9), and \f for form feed (ASCII 12). Such tokens allow
you to search for text, say, at the beginning or end of a line (use \n for a
line break in EdSharp).

The trade off for this flexibility is that backslash and quote characters
must be preceded by a backslash when intended literally (not part of a
token), i.e., \\ for backslash and \" for quote. Since this doubling of
characters may be cumbersome with search terms such as a file path, however,
EdSharp supports use of an initial @ character to indicate that the
following characters should be interpreted literally rather than as possible
tokens. For example, if searching for a file in the document, you could
enter the term
@c:\temp\temp.txt
rather than c:\\temp\\temp.txt
If you need to search for an interpreted string that begins with the @
character, precede it with a backslash, e.g.,
\@\c:\\temp\\temp.txt

The Open Other Format command (Control+Shift+O) now shows the command line
attempted by a custom converter if it failed to produce text. Added several
converters distributed with EdSharp. External converters are stored in the
Convert subfolder of the EdSharp program folder, e.g., in (default
installation):\Program Files\EdSharp\Convert

Besides the pdf converter mentioned previously, the default EdSharp.ini
configuration file (in the EdSharp program folder) now includes the
following conversions. GetText.exe is configured for importing from Windows
Help (.hlp) and Microsoft Word (.doc) — thereby eliminating the need to
load Word for this purpose. chm2txt imports Compiled HTML Help (.chm).
htm2md.exe imports from HTML and variations (.htm, .html, and .xhtml) to a
text format called Markdown — explained at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown
md2htm.exe does the reverse, exporting from Markdown to HTML. EdSharp
supports Markdown as an aid to developing web pages.

Jamal

Now available at
http://www.EmpowermentZone.com/chm2txt.zip

I hope this utility increases access to information stored in CHM archives.
It is explained below.

Jamal

———-

CHM2TXT
Version 1.0
August 16, 2007
Copyright 2007 by Jamal Mazrui
Modified GPL License

Contents
Description
Operation
Development Notes
———-

Description
Running on Windows 98 and above, CHM2TXT (chm2txt.exe) is a command line
utility that converts a file from Compiled HTML format (.chm) to structured
text (.txt). Combining multiple HTML and graphics files, the CHM format is
commonly used for software documentation, e.g., what is displayed by
pressing F1. The usual help viewing program, however, can be challenging to
search globally or to read continuously. A single, structured text file
provides an alternative in such cases. CHM2TXT is a free, open source
program that seeks to fill an observed need of many users. Note that its
present limitations include the fact that topics are ordered alphabetically,
rather than according to the outline view of the CHM file.
———-

Operation
The command line syntax of CHM2TXT is as follows:
chm2txt "SourceFile.chm" "TargetFile.txt"

A file name should be fully qualified, that is, include a leading path —
either absolute or relative — if not located in the current directory.
Quotes around a file may be omitted if it does not include a space
character. The target may be omitted to produce one named like the source
except for extension. Status messages are displayed on the console (via
standard output) during the conversion process.

The chm2txt.exe executable may be copied to and run from any directory. The
program creates a workspace in a subdirectory of the user's temporary
directory. Batch files or other applications may invoke CHM2TXT in order to
convert multiple files with a single command, or to provide a graphical user
interface for specifying source and target files. For example, such
capabilities are included in the EdSharp editor available at
http://www.EmpowermentZone.com/edsetup.exe

The text file produced by CHM2TXT observes a few conventions that facilitate
navigation in editors that implement the "Homer editor interface." Besides
EdSharp, TextPal is another such application, available at
http://www.EmpowermentZone.com/palsetup.exe

A structured text document is divided into sections separated by a character
sequence consisting of a hard page break and line break (ASCII 12, 13, and
10 codes). The first section is the table of contents, and remaining
sections are the body. Each topic name in the contents is also a section
heading in the body.

Relevant Homer keys for navigation are as follows.
Press Control+PageDown to go to the next section, or Control+PageUp for the
previous one.
Press F6 to go from a topic in the contents to its corresponding section in
the body. Press Shift+F6 to reverse that, going from a section in the body
to its topic in the contents.
Press Control+F6 to search for a section based on text in its topic name.
Press Alt+F6 to search for the next match.

A structured text document may also be converted to an equivalent HTML
version, with a table of contents linked to section headings. Press
Control+H to convert the current document to HTML format. Press Control+S
to save it to disk. Press F5 to launch it in the default web browser.
———-

Development Notes
I developed CHM2TXT with the Perl Developer Kit 7.0 from
http://ActiveState.com
It incorporates Perl 5.8, as well as the libraries Text::CHM,
HTML::Stripper, and File::OldSlurp from the Comprehensive Perl Archive
Network at
http://cpan.org

The distribution archive, chm2txt.zip, contains Perl source code
(chm2txt.pl) and the batch file to compile it (compile.bat). The code is
covered by a modified version of the GNU General Public License (GPL), which
is explained at
http://gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
Essentially, software that uses the code must be open source, except that I
am willing to relax GPL conditions in a particular case if persuaded that a
greater good would result.

I welcome feedback, which helps CHM2TXT improve over time. When reporting a
problem, the more specifics the better, including steps to reproduce it, if
possible. If you happen to be a programmer, please consider contributing
code that fixes a problem or improves functionality.

The latest version of CHM2TXT is available at the same URL,
http://www.EmpowermentZone.com/chm2txt.zip

Jamal Mazrui
jamal@EmpowermentZone.com

Wow! We have been busy beavers! Over the past week, we have switched web hosting providers, added many new features and changed the “look and feel” of Blind Access Journal! Here’s exactly what we have done:

• Switched to DreamHost for web hosting. I recommend this provider for accessibility, reliability and solid technical support. Full disclosure: Clicking this link to sign up with DreamHost provides me with a commission. Please consider supporting the work of Blind Access Journal!
• Added the ability to follow me on Twitter. You may now have a glimpse into the less serious side of my life. Enjoy!
• Changed Blogger hosting to use a Custom Domain to enable all the features available in Blogger.
• Changed the editor@blindaccessjournal.com e-mail address so that mail is now delivered to both Karen and myself. This site is a huge undertaking. Karen and I are both partners in Blind Access Journal! She will now receive all official correspondence. Please feel free to say “hi” to Karen.
• Upgraded from the classic template to layouts so that new features and page elements can be quickly added. The only downfall is that a blind person is unable to use the drag-and-drop functionality to rearrange the elements. It is possible to use all other features of this template mode, so the benefits should vastly outweigh the drawbacks.
• Added a list of links to favorite blogs and web sites.
• Added links to the most recent articles from Darrell’s Accessibility, Electronic Communications and Technology news – Powered By Bloglines, quickly delivering the latest “interesting” content.
• Added a separate feed enabling subscribers to follow comments made in response to all posts. Thanks to Jeff Bishop for keeping on me about this one. I know he’s a much happier man now!
• Made minor changes to the way blog archives and other elements of the page are displayed.
• Implemented Google AdSense in hopes of recovering some of our costs.
• Made the Skype contact name a live link.
• Modified the visual presentation of the site as a result of the layout changes and addition of the new page elements. These modifications were automatically done by Blogger. Sighted readers, please feel free to comment on our new look.
• Added a poll asking for your vote on all these changes.

As always, your active participation is key. Please post a comment or send e-mail with your feedback on these changes and enhancements.

Check out this wonderfully written story of my life from Karen’s perspective. She did an excellent job on this special message. You may just learn a few new things about me in the process. Thanks, Karen!