My priority right now is getting enough C# knowledge to write an internal application used by myself and my other administrators for our web site to help with integration and stuff. (we are just a community who could use some streamlining, and we aren't business focused).
-----Original Message----- From: Tom Kingston [mailto:tom.kings...@charter.net] Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2011 1:45 PM To: gw-scripting@gwmicro.com Subject: Re: an idea, but how to go about it when I get there? Of course, that's true. I didn't mean to paint it in a pure black and white picture. Nothing is that simple. But how pretty the interface is is heavily dependent on the applications purpose and its market demographics, i.e. if you're going to write a graphics design program than sure, looks is what the user of such a program is all about. So it stands to reason that they think it should be a work of art. And I don't blame them. And sure, if you want to be the next IPad everything better be, as my kids used to say, super sool. I've heard very few, if any, complaints, from people, about how pretty a program was. But people complain all the time about things not being intuitive, too much junk cluttering the screen, everything is hard to find, and so on. Sometimes less is more. And regarding reviews? Well, again, it depends on the product, its target market, and the reviewer's need to feel like they're giving you something worth while. But that's a two way street. I've heard reviewer's say how refreshing such a nice clean and simple interface is. I guess the bottom line is to define your market, do the required research, and find out what's more important to them; eye-candy or functionality. Of course, this is true with everything. Some folks want the best looking things while others want the best functioning things. It's an age old split between companies whose top priority is sales and those whose top priority is quality. But this is really getting beyond designing an interface. I'm going a bit overboard here. But I was just reminded of it recently so it popped into my head. So I guess that's enough of corporate morals for today. grin. Regards, Tom On 12/11/2011 11:40 AM, Katherine Moss wrote: > I just always thought it mattered because people tell me that it does. I > watch youtube videos of reviews of products, and if the interface isn't > pretty, the reviewer usually has something to say about itit. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tom Kingston [mailto:tom.kings...@charter.net] > Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2011 2:56 AM > To: gw-scripting@gwmicro.com > Subject: Re: an idea, but how to go about it when I get there? > > Regarding custom controls? Slow down for a minute and think about what a > screen reader is and what a custom control is. How is any screen-reader > supposed to figure out what kind of control that you and every other > programmer on the planet decides to put together? And believe me, I've been > at this for years. Many IDEs on steroids like Visual Studio create custom > controls by default and the programmer isn't even aware of it. > It's part of the, don't worry about it, I'll do lots of the work for you > philosophy of these rapid development cycle machines and why you pay so much > for them. > > And lastly, out of curiosity, several years ago I created a few windows, > particularly dialogs, with all kinds of controls to mimic an inaccessible one > in a program, after I figured out what they were. I used standard controls > and simply matched the colors. So Window-Eyes recognized everything in those > windows. Then I asked my sighted wife to compare the two and tell me what was > so custom and flashy about the inaccessible ones I had mimicked. She was very > hard pressed to see much of a difference at all. I mean she was literally > just guessing and saying something like, eh, well, I guess that one's a > little kind of sort of different. But it really just looks like the same > thing to me. > This is because a lot of these IDEs alter standard controls just enough to > give it their own look and they're the only ones who know the difference. > It's part of the crazy world of Windows; they're going against one of the > core concepts of what Windows was supposed to be. And Microsoft has long been > one of the biggest offenders; they write the standards and then ignore their > own standards. So 90% of the time these custom controls have no impact. Ask > your sighted friends how many of them visually audition a program before > purchasing it, and how many times it has been the deciding factor on which > program they purchased. > > Regards, > Tom > > > On 12/10/2011 10:41 PM, Katherine Moss wrote: > > I'm confused. Aren't MSAA and UIA two completely different frameworks? > > And the limit of only supporting standard controls is indeed something> > interesting since I'm getting towards GUI programming, and what if I> want > to use other controls that I learn to create myself? I mean, many> of the > books which I have for .net programming in C#, have sections for> creating > custom controls, so am I going to have to skip an entire> section of a book > or two just because screen readers are behind? That> seems quite > nonproductive. And the way I found that transcript was> through a search on > the main GW micro site for Visual Studio 2010. > > > > *From:*Chip Orange [mailto:lists3...@comcast.net]> *Sent:* Saturday, > December 10, 2011 7:56 PM> *To:* gw-scripting@gwmicro.com> *Subject:* RE: > an idea, but how to go about it when I get there? > > > > I would be interested in reading the transcript if you could point me at > it? > > > > This is why I said I was guessing, for all I know it does work. If it> > doesn't work entirely though, it might be because of the introduction of> > new control types (which produce UIA information, but which need> additional > code to take advantage of this), or because of bugs in the MS> > implementation of UIA (which is brand new). If the "they" in your> message > means MS, they may indeed think this means it's working, and not> know of > the bugs, or not take into consideration the additional work> needed to be > done by screen readers to support new controls or other new> features. > > > > I know it will eventually work (if it's not now), and this is indeed> > what SMAs pay for. > > > > Chip > > > > *From:*Katherine Moss [mailto:katherine.m...@gordon.edu] > > <mailto:[mailto:katherine.m...@gordon.edu]> > > *Sent:* Saturday, December 10, 2011 7:03 PM > > *To:* gw-scripting@gwmicro.com<mailto:gw-scripting@gwmicro.com> > > *Subject:* RE: an idea, but how to go about it when I get there? > > > > The strange thing though is that they have a podcast over there (I > > was reading the transcript of it), that shows this very thing. I > > don't get it then because if they showed it working properly, then > > doesn't that mean that it is supported fully? And if so, then why > > are we having so much trouble with it? (it would be nice if WE was > > closer with the .net framework than with com since .net is newer > > than Com, you know?) > > > > *From:*Chip Orange [mailto:lists3...@comcast.net] > > <mailto:[mailto:lists3...@comcast.net]> > > *Sent:* Saturday, December 10, 2011 6:44 PM > > *To:* gw-scripting@gwmicro.com<mailto:gw-scripting@gwmicro.com> > > *Subject:* RE: an idea, but how to go about it when I get there? > > > > I wish I knew; I was hoping to get an answer from GW on this when > > you first asked the question. > > > > I suspect it "sort of" works, but not in every case; not with every > > control type (just guessing from my experience with Office 2010, > > which I suspect was written using WPF). > > > > Chip > > > > > > *From:*Katherine Moss [mailto:katherine.m...@gordon.edu] > > <mailto:[mailto:katherine.m...@gordon.edu]> > > *Sent:* Friday, December 09, 2011 4:54 PM > > *To:* gw-scripting@gwmicro.com<mailto:gw-scripting@gwmicro.com> > > *Subject:* RE: an idea, but how to go about it when I get there? > > > > Yeah especially when things that should be implemented in simple > > listboxes don't give any feedback. Though SharpDevelop is > > completely reliant on WPF. How worth it is it to try and > > investigate making WPF more accessible with WE? Is that already > > happening where MSAA is being swapped for UIA? > > > > *From:*Chip Orange [mailto:lists3...@comcast.net] > > <mailto:[mailto:lists3...@comcast.net]> > > *Sent:* Friday, December 09, 2011 4:50 PM > > *To:* gw-scripting@gwmicro.com<mailto:gw-scripting@gwmicro.com> > > *Subject:* RE: an idea, but how to go about it when I get there? > > > > Katherine, > > > > Also, have a look at the TreeView app from GW; it gives you a > > detailed structure of all the controls and other elements of an > > application, along with their MSAA information, and their > > hierarchical relationships. All of these can give you clues as > > to what each control is really doing. Still, there's no real > > straight forward answer to this question; it's as much an art as > > a science when trying to figure out how a program's UI works. > > > > Chip > > > > *From:*Katherine Moss [mailto:katherine.m...@gordon.edu] > > <mailto:[mailto:katherine.m...@gordon.edu]> > > *Sent:* Friday, December 09, 2011 11:12 AM > > *To:* gw-scripting@gwmicro.com > <mailto:gw-scripting@gwmicro.com> > > *Subject:* an idea, but how to go about it when I get there? > > > > Hello all, > > > > I'm curious. I was just comparing the accessibility of the > > SharpDevelop IDE with JAWS with that of WE and I find that > > neither one makes any difference. Both of them have > > accessibility problems in all of the dialogs and beyond. The > > obvious thing would be to script it once my programming > > skills get better, right? I would say so, but how does one > > go about doing that when they don't know what the controls > > and stuff are supposed to say anyway? This is driving me > > nuts because SharpDevelop might be a fantastic option for > > those programmers who want a professional grade IDE but > > can't afford the likes of the professional version of Visual > > Studio. The biggest problem I see is that lists are not read > > and radio buttons have spoken state, but their content is > > not labeled. Have any of you smart scripters figured out a > > way to get to stuff like that without the help of a sighted > > individual at all? (I despise the prospect of having to ask > > a sighted person anything that has to do with that because > > it means that they must stop what they are doing.) > > > > Katherine Moss, > > > > Administrator of the AccessCop Network, previously > > Raeder24.org. Visit us on the web at http://raeder24.org > > <http://raeder24.org/> > > > > > >
