Good morning, List members,
While we're discussing Braille displays, I thought I'd post a
combination of an earlier message I posted to the JFW list together with an
edited piece of correspondence I very recently e-mailed to another List
member. I am aalso posting this message to JFW technical support. I
e-mailed an earlier message to JFW technical support with regard to my
display problem (on Friday, 3/12/99 at 20:25 Zulu.
Hello:
I've e-mailed this piece of correspondence to technical support on
Friday 03/12/99 at 16:09, but have thus far received no reply.
We have an Alva 280 refreshable braille display. It was procured in
march of 1993, and it has 80 cells with three status cells. We're also
running JFW 3.20.31 with the newest Alva software and firmware installed.
Everything works perfectly well, except for one quirky problem.
It is possible to read from the display, one line after another using
the up, down, left, and right arrows. But when the display is being read
with the use of the navigation bars at the front of the display, and the
display encounters a blank line in the text, the display shows the words
"scroll down symbol". When the bar is again pressed, I hear the "bottom of
window" message from JFW, which would seem to indicate that the JAWS cursor
is active. but when I press the ALT-DEL key combination, I am informed that
the PC cursor is active. Bear in mind that I am using the Braille Prog1
key set so that the active cursor will move the Braille display.
But When I then press a keyboard arrow key or the Alva's Braille
cursor1
key, the display is bounced back to where I left off reading with the
arrow keys (i.e., the Braille display is moved back to the active cursor).
If, for example, I read the display with the down arrow key, everything
proceeds normally, with the active cursor and the Braille cursor moving
smoothly in sync. also, no "scroll down symbol" and "bottom of window"
messages are encountered. Another way of stating this problem is that the
display's navigation bars move the Braille display, while both the active
and
Braille cursors are left behind at the point at which an arrow key was last
pressed. I am using the JFW Structured Mode, but tried the Line Mode and
speech box mode to find out whether any improvement might occur. Nothing
changed.
I was writing to ask whether you are aware of any Alva or JFW
setting(s)
that would cause both the active and Braille cursors to move in sync when
the
Alva's navigation bars that are used to read the Braille display.
The apparent activation of the JAWS cursor leads me to suspect that the
cause for the problem may lie with a limitation or bug in the JFW code. But
the cause of the problem may also be that this version of the Alva has
been made obsolete by the design of the newer displays with five program and
cursor keys. What is your diagnosis of this problem?
I recall a very recent JFW-List message posted by list member Allen
Stutts, that describes Removing the JFW 3.30.22 Eudora scripts and replacing
them with the JFW 3.2.31 scripts for that app. It gave me an idea. If I
were a real script jockey who had super-abundant script savvy, I'd be very
sorely tempted to do the same sort of thing with respect to the Alva.
However, I do not know whether, for some reason or other, the pan feature is
necessary in JFW 3.20.31, and even if it weren't, I don't knowwhether the
old scripts would even function properly in JFW 3.20.31 (i.E., it might be a
lot of work for naught).
I apologize for appearing to be obsessed with this matter, but I find
it very dismaying, frustrating, and, indeed, intolerable to think that
Henter-Joyce would orphan these extremely flexible, high-quality, and
durable displays. Just because they are not the newest displays around, is
that any reason too relegate them to the top of the junk pile?
Several JFW-list members recently offered the opinion that they thought
the JFW 3.3.022 Grade II Braille option was a good idea, and I also raise my
voice in agreement. But wouldn't the reading of Grade 1 or 2 Braille be
considerably enhanced if the display screen navigation bars worked properly?
The display manufacturers' philosophy is correctly rooted in the fact that
the most efficient and productive reading of Braille is done when the
readers' hands need not leave the display. Why not adhere to this doctrine
as closely as possible when hardware- and software-related circumstances
allow?
Any assistance you could offer with respect to this matter would be
very
much appreciated.
Sincerely
- --
Pat Acquaviva
-
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