Re: The "Browse Mode"/"Browser" Battle
Not really sure what to say here.
Firstly, I believe there's a bit of confusion. The virtual buffer thing is more of an internal detail, not a presentational one. While it is true that it ends up often being presentational, it's more about not being caught having to make queries to the browser for absolutely everything, and also being able to "flatten" a bit. Nothing about how the information is obtained is changed, at least if you're not Jaws, it's just presented a bit differently.
But here's the problem. Voiceover didn't have a virtual buffer, but tried to do the same thing. I believe it does now, but by all accounts I've heard OS X 10.10 is horridly broken. They had quick keys for everything, and the only bit that was really missing from their implementation was the ability to arrow through the document. What happens without the Virtual buffer is the need to continually make queries
to the browser. These are out-of-process, and consequently always slow. And it's not just one, if you want context--if the browser is the only thing and the virtual buffer isn't caching, you've got to make more for every keystroke. The virtual buffer is just a very, very accurate cache that updates itself based off accessibility notifications as opposed to making a query whenever possible.
turning all the features this lets you do reasonably fast off is what Aria application role is for. The problem with that is that basically then you can't do anything. At least on windows. It's possible some browser somewhere works, but in both Jaws and NVDA, when it's off, you get almost no context. Yeah, you can tab to the links. But you're going to miss everything else. And again, this isn't so much about the virtual buffer, it's more about navigational modes.
The question seems to be a
sking about presentation but is really asking about an implementation detail--it's like asking me if I get a lot out of using arrays versus linked lists in some situations somewhere.
it's also worth noting that all the screen readers that don't have this are holding really tiny market shares. Voiceover on Mac is the highest of the minorities, and as I recall it's something like 20% and may actually have one--we can't know. I think that the reason for not having this isn't about being "better", it's about not having the programmers to do it. Maintaining the virtual buffer is a very complicated programming task, and you need someone who really knows what they're doing devoted solely to it for a very long time. It is also worth noting that I believe System Access to have a virtual buffer, that I've not seriously heard someone talk about Thunder in something like 8 years, that ChromeVox has a ton of othe
r problems besides this and is something like 4% on the WebAIM surveys, and that Dolphin/Hal is so obscure at this point that the only person I know who knows anything about it at all anywhere is Dark and I've never seen a statistic related to it. I find it interesting that, subjective opinions aside, the major ones all have it. Not to mention that, more subjectively, every Mac person I know has a Windows VM because the virtual buffer and the speed it lends makes web browsing 10x better.
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