Although this will be posted at the Pro Tools petition site, I thought I'd post it here first, given the recent flurry of messages on the subject. My most recent inquiry with Digidesign was before the holidays and I hadn't heard anything back for a while. This morning, an update came in and it appears below.
We have concluded our research on how to change to technical underpinnings of the way Pro Tools draws graphical objects that I described in my email below, and are at work on migrating to a new graphical architecture. Due to the size and complexity of the application, we expect this architectural change to take most of the year. This change provides a foundation which will allow some future version of Pro Tools to have screen reader capability under OS X, but as I explain below, a second process will be required to ensure that each graphical object identifies itself correctly to the operating system. It's most likely that we'll have to do this second stage progressively over a period of a few years, meaning that screen reader support would gradually emerge over the span of several Pro Tools releases. I appreciate that this slow pace is frustrating to a community that has few alternatives, and I personally am committed to helping ensure that people with limited vision can also share in the creative rewards that come from using our products. I hope that you will take heart from this message, and know that the wheels are turning to make this happen (even if they are turning slowly!) Feel free to check in with me at any time for an update, Best regards, - David David Gibbons VP, Product Marketing, Digidesign
