Though practically speaking I see that as one of the less good points in
windows 7-8, since I have already created shortcut keys on desktop icons
that do the same thing, eg, I press ctrl alt o for outlook express.
Beware the grue!
Dark.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dallas O'Brien" <dallas.r.obr...@gmail.com>
To: "Gamers Discussion list" <gamers@audyssey.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2013 8:54 AM
Subject: Re: [Audyssey] challenge for developers, post xp windows
Note. You could pin apps to the taskbar in Windows 7 as well. LOL. That is
not a windows 8 thing.
Regards:
Dallas
On 01/05/2013, at 17:00, Thomas Ward <thomasward1...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Charles,
Well, one thing Microsoft has done in Windows 8 that is superior to XP
is they have a new API called UI Automation which acts as a bridge
between the graphical controls on your screen and your screen reader.
It is for this reason that all the virtual intercept drivers and
off-screen models that Jaws, Window-Eyes, Supernova, etc were using
before are no longer necessary. Your screen reader can now get the
identity of any control and its status directly from the Windows API.
Unlike MsSAA, which is now deprecated, UI Automation is now a core
part of the Windows API so software developers don't have to do
anything special to make their Windows 8 applications screen reader
accessible. They just have to follow some basic standards and
guidelines.
UI Automation is in part why Narrator works so much better in Windows
8 than prior versions. All of Microsoft's flagship applications like
Internet Explorer, windows Live Mail, Wordpad, Notepad, Microsoft
Office 2010, use UI Automation so they are suppose to be screen reader
friendly out of the box. A lot of the apps you can download for
Windows 8 are fairly screen reader friendly because they use UI
Automation. I found a few that needed some accessibility improvements,
but by and large I think once UI Automation becomes more mainstream we
will see access improve on Windows 8 and later versions in general.
Microsoft SAPI has gotten a nice over hall as well. SAPI 5.5 comes
with a bunch more voices and they are light years better compared to
the SAPI voices for XP. Some of the new SAPI voices are almost as good
as the Vocalizer/Realspeak voices that comes with Jaws and they are
free. Plus they work with the SAPI 5 enabled games. While not
necessarily an accessibility improvement per say I think the new
voices is one reason to consider an upgrade.
Another thing about Windows 8 is there are a lot of new Windows 8 hot
keys to do various things such as Windows+f to find a file, Windows+c
to go to the charm bar, Windows+i to open your settings, Windows+q to
search your apps, Windows+tab to cycle throughopen apps, Windows+w to
search your settings, etc. Basically, there are loads of hot keys
available to get around and use Windows 8 without the mouse or a
touchscreen.
Something else that improves the access of Windows 8 is being able to
pin commonly used applications to the task bar. Let's say you use
Internet Explorer all the time. You can press the context menu key on
it right arrow to "Pin This Application to the Task Bar" and it will
always be on your Task Bar and you don't have to go hunting through
the Start Screen to find it.Even better if it is the first item pinned
to your Task Bar pressing Windows+1 will jump directly to Internet
Explorer no matter where you are in Windows 8. Cool eh?
Cheers!
On 4/30/13, Charles Rivard <wee1s...@fidnet.com> wrote:
How is Windows 8 more accessible than XP? Also, is it more stable? How
well do older games that we have purchased run using Windows *?
One thing I will say is that Windows Narrator has undergone vast
improvements over what was in XP.
--
If guns kill people, writing implements cause grammatical and spelling
errors!
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