But wait Office 08 was done in Xcode. In fact it's release was delayed
while they converted over to XCode so what' the deal Xcode has all the
accessibility hooks in it already. They just were lazy and didn't want
to do it for all their whiz bang custom controls that's all.
Greg Kearney
535 S. Jackson St.
Casper, Wyoming 82601
307-224-4022
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Jan 17, 2008, at 1:39 PM, Rich Caloggero wrote:
Hm, to be somewhat fair, I think the real issue is that each operating
system (MacOS, Linux, and Windows) have their own accessibility
infrastructure (Windows has two , or even three depending on whether
you
count iAccessible2). So, a developer wanting to make their product
accessible on all three operating systems would have to implement
all the
accessibility three times over. I'm sure this is a big pain, and
companies
(even Microsoft) may find it prohibitively expensive to do so.
FYI: IBM came out with iAccessible2 because they wanted to make their
Java-based Notes suite accessible, and felt that both MSAA
(microsoft active
accessibility) and the Java swing accessibility infrastructure were
not
powerful enough to meet their needs. SO, they looked at Microsoft's UI
automation (this is what MS is using in their new office suite), and
found
that it was too difficult to implement. Instead they extended MSAA
to come
up with iAccessible2, which is backward compatible with MSAA (UI
automation
is not).
-- Rich
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Eickmeier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS
X by
theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 1:12 PM
Subject: Re: Bad news about Microsoft Office
Oh yeah, compared to Narrator, VoiceOver totally rocks!!! I love
it.
On 17-Jan-08, at 12:39 PM, Dan Keys wrote:
Hello,
Microsoft doesn't make any of its software accessible for the blind
in Windows either. They rely on screen reader companies to do that.
This goes back to my earlier comment regarding Narrater. It was
suppose to be for accessibility, but we all know where that has gone.
Dan
On Jan 17, 2008, at 8:29 AM, Dan Eickmeier wrote:
Simon
, I totally agree with you and everybody else on this one. Don't
know why Microsoft won't make their products accessible for us
macusers. If they're not going to do that, than why even have a
mac version of this suite of applications? I think we allshould
try to contact somebody in the microsoft organization. On 17-
Jan-08, at 10:14 AM, Simon Cavendish wrote:
Dear Greg and the Listers,
I entirely agree with Greg's words. It is a shame for Microsoft
to have produced a flagship version of its main suite ignoring
accessibility for visually impaired people and print impaired
people in the presence of the fact that Microsoft must be aware
of its obligations with regard to accessibility as outlined
above. I should imagine that it is against the ADA law and the
Disability Discrimination Act, 1995, in the UK. It would require
though a major representatives of business to take Microsoft to
book on account of this omission. The fact is that Microsoft must
have known that Mac OS platform is already accessible to blind
and print impaired people and to ignore this warrants an uproar.
Let us all protest in whatever ways we are able to.
With best wishes
Simon Cavendish
On 17 Jan 2008, at 14:26, Greg Kearney wrote:
According to Microsoft this morning Microsoft Office 08 is not
accessible to the blind or print disabled using VoiceOver. So
don't bother going out and buying it. I will now editorialize:
At some point someone is going to start raising the issue of
consumer products, in this case Microsoft Office, not being
accessible and if producing such products is actionable under
the Americans with Disabilities Act. That aside what in the
world is Microsoft thinking? This was a product that was delayed
because the code was changed to Xcode and here we have a major
productivity application that is not accessible? Microsoft
should be ashamed of itself and I for one would like to have
someone from Microsoft offer some kind of explanation for this
oversight.
It is one thing for some small company with limited resources to
not have an accessible application it is inexcusable for a
company the size of Microsoft to re-write a major application
like office and not have it be accessible. If Xcode would not
compile non-accessible application we might have avoided this.
It is interesting to note that the only accessible spreadsheet
for the Mac, Tables, is the work of a lone programer who managed
to do it with out the resources of a Microsoft or Apple.
On a related note developer at Sun have been asking questions
about accessibility on a developer list at Apple so perhaps
there is hope that Sun will be developing an accessible version
of Open Office. Let's hope so anyway. And let's hope that
someone at Apple is able to get and explanation from Microsoft
as to why an application written after VoiceOver's release is
not able to be used by the blind and print disabled. And Apple
your not off the hook here either Pages and Numbers are not
accessible either I might add.
Greg Kearney
535 S. Jackson St.
Casper, Wyoming 82601
307-224-4022
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
