I'm sorry to hear this. A while back I was trying to make a Citrix system
accessible with JFW. The results were not good at all. I even asked users
and vendors of other screen readers and got solid negatives from all. The
reasons for this are complex but I'll include the best explanation I've
found of this below. It is rather long but it misses nothing. I would love
to hear someone paint a brighter picture...
*** text from original msg to me ***
Hi Julio,
Thank you for your e-mail, which has been passed on to me by Jane
Churchward.
Yes, Henter-Joyce were correct. Currently no screen reader in its current
form will work successfully with Citrix's Winframe or Microsoft's Metaframe
thin-client software in a Windows Terminal Server environment.
However, I'd like to take this opportunity not only to explain what
thin-client computing is, but to explain the reasons why no assistive
technology product in its current form will run properly on a thin-client
session.
Last summer Microsoft released a product called Windows Terminal Server, a
flavor of Windows NT Server codenamed "Hydra", designed to cut into the
growing market for network computers. (A trend that threatens to take
desktops from a Windows-based environment to one based on Java).
This special server software brings the Windows NT desktop to desktops that
can't run Windows, such as Unix and Macintosh computers. It also supports
Windows-based terminals running the Windows CE embedded operating system.
Basically thin-client computing is about taking your existing computing
infrastructure: hardware, operating systems, software, networks, etc. and
turning them into terminals that can run an NT desktop and applications.
Standard client-server networks, such as Windows NT 4.0, share the
processing, thin-client networks perform the entire processing on the
central file server. For example, any computer connecting to the server
will operate at the speed dictated by the server. i.e. The emphasis swings
from high specification workstations and servers, to high specification
multi-processor servers alone.
I've been informed by one of our programmers that to work successfully in a
thin-client environment, an assistive technology product, such as Hal, needs
to be on the machine that runs the application, so that it can communicate
directly with the application to get window information, MSAA info. etc.
However, its off-screen model needs to be on the machine which is displaying
the output (because although the application runs on the server, there's no
graphics output on the server - it's all on the client). The problem is
that most thin-client implementations, such as Hydra and another
implementation from Citrix) have client machines that are basically hard
wired dump terminals (okay so they might have a GUI interface but you can't
run any other software). Some terminals can be a bit like the sophisticated
TVs you get in hotels these days which let you surf the Internet. Since
Dolphin haven't investigated the thin-client environment we don't know how
the graphics, keyboard, mouse and sound output get redirected to the client,
but it all sounds pretty nasty.
It might be theoretically possible to run a screen reader on the server, but
it would have to be seriously modified and tightly integrated with the
thin-client system, as well as providing screen reading and enlargement for
multiple users simultaneously.
In fact, the British equivalent of the NSA, did try the current version of
Hal with both Microsoft's Hydra client package and also Citrix's ICA
implementation too. Hal didn't work at all with Microsoft's Hydra package
but partially did with Citrix's ICA package. They had some keyboard
problems in that Hal didn't see keystrokes when entered from the client
machine, only from the server with the native application running. They
think that Citrix must pass keystrokes through slightly differently from the
way that a native application would. Hal did speak out the objects on the
screen if the focus was moved by a sighted user with a mouse.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, it would take a long time to design such
a system, yet alone implement it. So please don't hold your breath.
I hope that this helps.
Yours sincerely,
Gareth Collins,
Support Manager,
Dolphin Computer Access, LLC,
100 South Ellsworth Avenue,
4th Floor,
San Mateo, CA 94401
Sales: 650 348 7401
Support: 650 348 7402
Fax: 650 348 7403
http://www.dolphinusa.com
...
*** end of original msg to me ***
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