Hi all Netflix lovers,
Ok, I have a potential fix and thanks to Carol for the idea.
Essentially her idea worked, though it does take changing a few settings
in your internet settings for Window Eyes.
Ok so here we go:
To make the changes to the settings:
-- Bring up your Window Eyes main window with your usual
Control-Backslash.
-- In the settings Tree-View scroll down to Verbosity and expand
it, then move down to Browse Mode and expand this:
-- Scroll down to flash and tab over to "speak flash objects
global" and make sure this is set to yes. (Note, this one may not be
necessary, I just turned on everything that was being ignored to try to
get to the root of the problem.)
-- Next back in the Tree-View scroll down to Miscellaneous and tab
over to "Speak graphics with no alternative text global" and make sure
this one is set to yes. I believe this is the important setting, though
of course you'll see a lot more information about graphics on web
pages. Personally I prefer it this way anyway, I like knowing when
sites have pictures, even if they don't help me much. Note that the
default setting for this is no.
-- Lastly I scrolled down to Objects in the Tree-view and for the
setting of "Speak type global" I set this to yes. Again this may not
have been necessary, but I just turned on everything anyway.
-- Lastly tab over to "save settings" then to "minimize" and close
the Window Eyes settings screen.
Now go to your Netflix website and log in Etc. You should now see
the following:
Note that the following text (an example of listings) is copied
from the Window Eyes browse window:
New movie arrivals
en_ca/boxshots/166/70122302.jpg
Most Popular
en_ca/boxshots/166/70127226.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/24063311.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70120083.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60026969.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60034387.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70038033.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70142820.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/977471.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60003346.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/220853.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70117276.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60021226.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60020896.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/20371448.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/786137.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70103762.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/25099555.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70118796.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70042552.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/18958076.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60026221.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60011265.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/1151712.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60000891.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60037607.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/1192307.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60023440.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70115915.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60026967.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/525692.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/8187256.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60022017.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/1046624.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70115403.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70173668.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60023964.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70139521.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60020895.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/60001521.jpg
New TV arrivals
en_ca/boxshots/166/70155589.jpg
Most Popular
en_ca/boxshots/166/70140358.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166_new/70177055.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70140425.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70177018.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70140361.jpg
en_ca/boxshots/166/70177275.jpg
New Arrivals in Documentary
en_ca/boxshots/166/60023440.jpg
End of paste.
Ok a couple of things before we go on here. The list of
en_ca/boxshots/166/60023440.jpg's for example are what I believe are the
graphical representations of the movies, TV shows and son on which
appear on the site. I am in Canada, thus the "en-ca" blah blah blah Etc
Etc.jpg. Yours might be something like "En-US" something or other.jpg
if you're in the US or "FR-CA" something.jpg for French Canadian, or
"Sp-US" Etc.jpg for Spanish US customers, and it goes on for other
countries. I'm not sure on that, maybe someone can try this and report
on how it looks. Either way it should be pretty obvious to you what are
movie titles by the long list of jpg files with similar beginning
file-names and lots of random numbers appearing right below a heading.
So what do you do next?
-- Press your Numpad-dash (or equivalent Laptop keystroke to
toggle cursors (sorry I don't know the laptop key yet, Playing with
Window Eyes on my netbook has not been a priority so far.)) until it
says "mouse pointer".
-- Press the Numpad-Plus key to route the mouse cursor to your
current position.
-- Press the Numpad-Dash key again to toggle to the Window Eyes
cursor followed by the Numpad-7 key to take it to the top-left of your
screen.
-- Finally bring your cursor down until it reads you what has
popped up for that title, it should be visible with the Window Eyes
cursor as long as the Mouse Pointer remains where it is.
A few more notes:
You can't press enter on the keyboard to click one of these
pictures since Window Eyes doesn't know they are clickable. So once
your mouse cursor is where you want it just toggle back over to it with
the Numpad-Dash key again and press Numpad-Slash to click it, the title
will immediately play.
-- You don't have to go through this whole process every time, if
you move your virtual cursor down to another title, toggle to the mouse
pointer, route the mouse pointer to the current position, then toggle to
the Window Eyes cursor you can arrow up and down with the Window Eyes
cursor without having to take it to the top and bring it back down.
In conclusion:
I realize that this method is hopelessly complicated for browsing a
Netflix list which should be accessible anyway and I realize that
Netflix should fix their site, however we know what A minority we are to
the sighted especially with a thing like Netflix where I suspect they
never considered that blind people would use their service, however I am
glad that I found a way to make Window Eyes read it, something of which
I doubt System Access or NVDA will be able to do. Jaws probably can but
who knows, and I'm not sure on Voiceover yet, though I have my doubts.
Anyway enjoy and hope it works for you. I hope people will report
back with their findings on this method. It works for me, but who knows
about others.
Cory
P.S. To the scripters out there of which sadly I am not one yet,
do you think this whole procedure can be automated?
P.P.S. To GW-Micro: Do you think one of you can try this out and
harass Netflix about making the actual playing window accessible. Jaws
reports a bit more information about the playing content like duration,
different buttons, you can toggle between window and full screen mode,,
but do little else, but this is what Window Eyes shows while a title is
playing:
Begin paste:
Thanks for installing Once installation is complete please restart your
browser to
watch this movie.
More Episodes
More Episodes
More
Back to Browsing
End paste.
Clearly some issue with Silverlight. Anyways just a thought, not a
big priority but it would be nice if it could work. In fairness, nobody
else seems to work with it either, they report a bit more information,
but that's about all.
P.P.S. I hope GW-Micro doesn't mind me posting this to my very new
blog and Podcast site once it's determined that it works at
http://www.nerdball.net or on my @nerdball_net twitter account? Thanks.
Cory
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