ONE feature we want to see in the future? Sorry Jeremy and the rest. I do not really know ONE. But I definitely know more than twenty. See the list below. Note that I have numbered the ideas, but this is not meant as a priority ranging, just done for simplicity. Should be enough work for a couple of days, in case that is what you wanted. Smiles. It is great to know things are coming along when talking about an upgrade to browse mode, but the screen reader needs quite a few changes and fixes, should it still keep market. And, there is always things that just would be nice. Some of it, should not be too hard to implement I guess, others may be more complicating and need far more rearranging. Still, they are all taken from my experience, and things that have been discussed between users.
And, here is the long list: 1. Browse Mode - should include separate keystrokes for jumping to next/previous UNVISITED LINK and ONCLICK controls. 2. Window-Eyes Crashes - It should release the computer immediately. No need for it to keep trying for several minutes. Release the system and get the job done. If the user wants to restart he can always hit the hotkey for loading the screen reader anew. 3. Reloading the Screen Reader - When the Alt-Ctrl-W hotkey is pressed and WE is already running, it should be reloaded. At least, let the user define in the settings menu, if this should be the case. 4. Braille Support - May well need a good general cleanup, fixing a number of small bugs. Other users have already mentioned a few. For one thing to be added, the Braille display does not follow the editing of formulas in Excel. 5. Mouse Support - If a popup window (like a tooltip) has lost focus and got hidden, the mousekeys seem to work no longer. All you get is a ding, and Alt-Tabbing through the list of open windows will not reveal the troublesome window, meaning you cannot get out of this issue, except from restarting the computer. 6. Tooltips and Other Windows that has gone lost or hidden - should be possible for Window-Eyes to bring them to the foreground and operate them. Have seen cases where the screen reader cannot do this, but a sighted person can move the mouse to a window and get you out of a tricky situation. 7. Screen Reader Hangup - A hundred times I experience the screen reader dying on me. A quick press on the hotkey to bring up NVDA almost always brings up that screen reader and I can solve the trouble. Window-Eyes - claiming to be rock solid - should at least be solid enough to be abel to load itself (if necessary in a light version, like the one at the login screen), for getting me out of tricky situations. 8. Installing the Screen Reader - The user should be offered the choice whether he wants to install questionable apps, like the Jaws Key app. It is no less than frustrating that everytime I have to install, reinstall or update the screen reader, I have to run through the app list and remove apps that only cause trouble for me. It could be done by asking the user if she is familiar with Jaws and hence wants to "optimize" Window-Eyes for a seamless transfer, or less steep learning curve (word it the way you want, but give me the real choice). 9. Would be nice if Window-Eyes could be set to "auto-check" app central for apps that support the software I am running. For instance, when I first load Itunes after installing the screen reader, it would inform me that an app is available for increased experience in operating Itunes. I then would be offered the choice whether I want to download and install that app. many users won't even know there is an app available for many of the applications they are running, hence may loose effeciency in their computing. OK, it would mean that each app developer should be given a way - either in the code, or directly on App Central - to indicate if his app is specially taylored to a given piece of software. this would need to be set in a dedicated variable, not just in some casually written text. So may need a bit of tweak of App Central, but should not be hard to implement. 10. The hotkeys of the Screen Reader should all be user-defined. For years I have called for the "Goto End of List and Table" and "goto beginning of list and table" in browse mode (Left-bracket and Right-bracket followed by S or T), to be user-definable. I really don't see why other hotkeys of the screen reader can be define and redefined by me as the end-user, but not this one. Specially so, when it has been drawn to the tech staff's attention several times. Might be other keystrokes as well that may not be user-definable at the moment, and such should not occur. Get the mess cleaned up, please. 11. Time for Window-Eyes to go COMPLETELY international. No real reason whatsoever, why a user who has installed the screen reader is locked to one language. Specially now that the Free offer is around. Since we can download the screen reader free of charge in numerous translations, it should be all implemented into one and same installation. The user downloads the screen reader, installs it, and then can go to ControlPanel and decide whichever locale version he wants to run. Other screen readers have been doing that, so there is no use in AI Square not being able to serve the International market fully in this regard. Tip: Each language could have its own User Profile Folder - Like Users\EnUs\Default, Users\Fr\Default, Users\It\Default and so forth. The user should have chance to change language on the fly through the working day, as many times as he wants. Time has gone, AI Square, when users only worked single-lingual. Even a school child of 1st grade will have to operate at least two languages in many countries. Locally, for instance, our kids are learning the locale language as the main-language, and English as a secondary one, with several lessons a week. In places like Canada, most kids will have to deal with English-French combinations, switching from one language to the other, throughout the day. Many workers have to deal with two or more languages in their job, every day. For a screen reader not to offer the blind user an equal chance to read a second, third and even fourth language when all his colleagues can do so, is a clear drawback and may eventually make him loose effeciency in his job. This is simply not acceptable in today's working environment. The screen reader we used in the mid-80's did offer me a completely multi-lingual interface and functionality, long as I had installed a working synth for the given language. so did the screen readers I used all through the 90's. And the screen reader I used way up till 2007, when I came to Window-Eyes. We have called for this several times, and it has been told not being possible due to copyright reasons. Yet, with all the localized versions available in the Free offer of the screen reader - each in their own download and installation - there seem to me being little reason why they cannot be implemented in a completely Internationalized version. A workaround should be for the user to download and install additional "patches", that would add on the languages he wants to his original installation. 12. International Customers - should be treated more equally with the North-American market. 13. Additional Voices for International Customers - These should be made available for everyone, no matter where you live. I have asked the local dealer several times, and simply just get the answer that they "don't remember how to sell me licenses for these voices". Strange answer, but just serves to show how backward the International customers are treated. This means, in effect, that the "Free Offer for Office Owners" is not a real offer for anyone here, since we cannot even get the local voice for the screen reader, let alone a license for things like Dectalk or Eloquence. A clear thumbs down for the international service of AI Square and GW. May eventually result in users looking for other solutions, with a loss of market for Window-Eyes. 14. The Screen Reader Should Be Released More Evenly Around The globe. As it stands, we are often six months or more behind in the International market. Yet, Microsoft releases their localized version of both Windows and Office pretty much same day as in English. This means, that the international users cannot follow the general market, due to them awaiting the localization of the screen reader. And now, AI Square promise us an update to the browse mode. fine, but if it first takes a few more months before that update is released in English, and then who knows how long for it to be localized, we may well be looking at more like a year before I will be able to use the internet properly again. Sorry, but I cannot wait another year before I pay my bills, order my food and stuff, and perform other activities based on the net and which are currently hardly accessible with Window-Eyes. If an update is considered high-important for the English market, it is no less important for the rest of the market. Again, this would be solved, if the user was given the chance of downloading a completely international version. It then would be possible for him at least to run it in English, until the translation was finalized for his locale language. Time for AI Square to realize we are not individual users sitting each on his little mountain top - like in the old days. Smile. We are all dealing with a steadily more internationalized everyday living. If you shop on the net in the USA, pay your bills over the net in France, operate the Office suite in Sweden - chances are really high, that is exactly what people are doing in Germany, Australia, China or even Antarctica for that matter, exactly at the same time. 15. International Customers should be able to buy directly from the Online Shop of AI Square. If money transferring is the bottleneck, tons of other businesses have discovered there is something like Paypal around. :) 16. Some kind of captcha solving service, and simple OCR processing, would have been great to see implemented. Too many times we are stuck with a web service of some kind, that calls for me to "enter the characters" in the box. For many users the service of things like Webvisum is no alternative. Quite a number of users are under some restrictions that prevents them from running anything but Internet Explorer, and they now are out of luck in operating this kind of websites. This could - in worst scenario - lead to loss of employment. Should be one of the basic functionalities of a modern screen reader, to operate as my eyes in even this kind of cases. 17. Other users have already suggested speech support under installation of the OS. I only can back that suggestion. Also, let me suggest that there could be some kind of chance for running a simplified speech service when recovering from a backup media. 18. The mobile version of WE should be possible to run, evenwithout installing the Video support. OK, this would reduce its functionality somehow, but it would make it more easily running on systems (like in libraries and other public places), where the user is not granted the right to install anything on the computer. NVDA can, so why not Window-Eyes. 19. There should be a BACKUP feature in the menus of the screen reader. There is numerous users who will not be comfortable in messing around with looking up subfolders they don't understand a cent of, and then copy that one to anywhere else. A simple dialog should popup, asking them to point to the destination for the backup of their User Profile, and job should be done directly from the screen reader. Same goes for recovering from a backed up profile. There even should be a way to maintain the User Profile. That is, if I have two computers, I should have the chance to synchronize them, even if I have to go via an external media like a USB pen or memory card. 20. PLEASE, can we have back a place for us to share articles and other relevant material that cannot - or is not practically distributed through the mailing lists. Several of us have the resources for contributing with material, but have no real good place to share with the community. For one thing, I wonder if we could have a place to rate software that we have found to be specially accessible, or maybe lacking in that same manner. For instance, on the mailing list we may have ten people asking for an accessible anti-virus program, all in one week. If there was a simple place for them to go and see that information, maybe via a choice under the help menu which would take them to a spot on the QI Square website, they could find the answer quickly. Or, if I find something I see will benefit, I could go there and tell about it. This would help minimizing the clutter on the list; at least in the long run. 21. Window-Eyes should be able to be started temporarily with no apps loaded. If a user has installed an app causing him trouble, the way things are today, he has to start the screen reader and then go to Apps, turning off all apps (or the one troubling him). If now the app for some reason kicks in already at startup, he is pretty much out of luck, unless he is a tech. If he had a chance to load the bare-boned version of WE, he could have worked around cases like this. Much like you can start things like Internet Explorer without addons, from the software context menu. He could even be offered to start with apps turned off, or without any setfiles loading. This also would help in troubleshooting, since a user quickly could load the screen reader with either of these extra services loaded, and see if his trouble in a given situation will be solved. He then would know far better where to search for the trouble-making "add-on". 22. The screen reader should be able to accept patched updates. Either that, or more frequent upgrades. Good, GW wants to make sure the released upgrade is solid and stabil. But often it seems they have been waiting for numerous fixes before they let out a new upgrade. This means that even quite important things may be sitting in the offices of the staff, awaiting less importan stuff to be fixed as well. The mouse functionality in Internet Explorer may serve as an example here. OK, I do not know all the details, but it seems from a message from one of the staff members more than a year ago, that the fix had already been made back then. Still we are awaiting it to be released, likely because they want other things being fixed as well. Yet, as I said earlier, we cannot sit and wait for eternities for this kind of fixes. So, please, once a fix for a major bug or lack in the screen reader has been worked out, let it out the door. Smaller and less important things can always be gathered into later upgrades. OK, not always easy to realize what is important fixes. Still, something is quite easily identified as important. I just told about one controlling keystroke not being user-defined. Clearly a lack or bug in the screen reader. Yet, I can live with it for a little longer - it just makes certain activities slightly more complicated. But operating the web services of many public services is a major lack, and cannot just be put off. Good enough, maybe they want to have it out when Windows10 hits the market in the spring. But can we tell all our creditors that we cannot pay them until the spring? Some software I have been using, has the capability to accept patches that fix deeply cored bugs. Even Windows itself does. You don't need to upgrade Windows several times a month, you just download individual fixes, and once in a while get a service pack or a full upgraded version. Same should be possible with the screen reader. The speed things changes now aday, this will only become more important. David On 10/16/2014 8:28 PM, Jeremy Curry wrote:
Hello Everyone, We want to take a quick survey. If you could have a feature in Window-Eyes, what would it be? Please keep in mind that the next version is improving web support, so we are looking for your opinion on what you would like to see in the future. Please note that we cannot commit to implement every suggestion, but we certainly welcome your feedback. Thanks! Jeremy Jeremy Curry Director of Product Management Ai Squared – Formerly GW Micro, Inc. Phone: (802) 362-3612 Email: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Web: www.aisquared.com <http://www.aisquared.com/>
If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can manage your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv.
