Thomas, Here are some technical accessibilty notes on porting your game.
1. Java talks to screen readers via the Java Access Bridge. The J A B does not work with all screen readers, specifically Window-Eyes. I've talked with Clarence at G W, and this isn't likely to change soon. The J A B may work with Dolphin's screen reader. Dark was going to do an experiment awhile ago to test that. The J A B does not work with the speech part of ZoomText. 2. BTW. There are ways to talk to TextAloud and ReadPlease that do not use the J A B. But they are awkward. 3. There are some undocumented tricks to getting the J A B to work with Java. Nothing grotesque, just practical stuff. If you do decide to go that way, I can show them to you since I've been doing it for our Game Book for years. 4. The FreeTTS speech engine does allow you to change pitch. This is what I do in our Inspector Cyndi in Newport mystery games in order to have women and men, young and old, sound different. Funny thing is that when Steve and Marsha at the Visually Impaired and Blind Users Group here in Boston were playing the Inspector Cyndi in Newport games recently, they turned off JAWS and used the FreeTTS because they said they preferred it sound because A. it was "more reliable" and B. it had different pitches. 5. There is a S A P I interface to the FreeTTS engine. I explored it briefly, but ran out of time. If that could be made to work, then you'd likely have access to any S A P I compliant voice on whatever target system. If you do go that way, I'd love to work with you on it because I'd like that for our games. Regardless, I'll be real interested to see what an experienced coder can do with this. I code on all three operating systems and would love to port our stuff. (If Marketing would just give me the time.) John Bannick Chief Technology Officer 7-128 Software --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
