Hello James and Bryan, I'm not really in a position to comment on low vision use of the Mac, but I know there is a freeware program called Nocturne that will invert your screen, and also remove your desktop background: http://docs.blacktree.com/ And there is also a shareware program called Black Light ($9) that will invert screen colors: http://michelf.com/projects/black-light/
According to the macupdate page (from which you can also download these apps -- just Google the name along with "macupdate" to find the links), the Nocturne 2.0 release is from January 20, 2011. Here's the description: Source: <http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/24898/nocturne> <begin quote> Nocturne is (yet another) simple app for switching a computer to night vision mode. It does, however, add a few things: • Proper color correction in monochrome modes - you don't lose all your blues or reds when you tint the screen. • Window shadow toggling - if glowing windows aren't your thing. • Background removal - hide the desktop picture so you don't see a inverted version. <end quote> These later additions to handle color tints may answer some of the points that Bryan raised, although I'm not sure about Lion compatibility. Nocturne has open source code, so could be compiled again for Lion, I think. Another possibly relevant point: if you go back to my posts from the end of February about the Readability bookmarklet in the list archives, you'll note that this provides a Safari web browse option that can provide color inversion on text, along with large fonts and wide margins, without inverting the colors of images. This always struck me as a great feature for low vision users. First, the normal way that zooming operates on the Mac, requires you to pan the with your cursor. (For mild zoom, on machines owned by older relatives, I set the screen image to move only when the pointer reaches an edge.) So being able to have both larger fonts and wider browser margins in the Readability bookmarklet, as well as inverted colors on the text, can be quite useful. For Bryan and others who joined this list after these posts, the original topic came up when Lynne commented that some web sites were very hard to read on iOS devices even for users who were not visually impaired, due to the small font sizes. The discussion moved on to bookmarklets that could increase font sizes of text on web pages -- either by tapping the bookmarklet on an iPad's Bookmarks Bar, or by using the Command+1, 2, etc. shortcut in Safari on Mac computers to activate the 1st, 2nd, etc. bookmarks on the Bookmarks Bar. Then we mentioned the "Readability" bookmarklet that also strips irrelevant text and images (like ads) from the page content. This was based on the "Instapaper" web page and iOS app implementations that were meant to supply "distraction free reading" -- meaning optimizing the experience of reading the text, and eliminating unrelated visuals, like ads, and unrelated page content. If some of this sounds like Safari Reader, where (under Snow Leopard) you press Command-Shift-R to get a view like this, it's because Apple borrowed an earlier version of the algorithm and incorporated it into Safari. But the lab.arc90.com experiment that gave rise to the "Readability" bookmarklet also let users customize the font size, width of text margins, and whether to use an inverted color scheme as part of the bookmarklet design, and these can be very useful features for low vision users. While there is also a "Readability" Safari extension now, it's less convenient to use, since it requires an additional navigation step to the toolbar to access, and it can't be used on iOS devices in their bookmarks. Also, configuring the extension for font and margin sizes, and color inversion, is slightly less accessible with VoiceOver. (I suppose this doesn't matter if you're a low vision user and relying on sight). The original "Readability" bookmarklet page in English has accessibility issues, so the posts give directions on how to set this up using the Spanish lab.arc90.com web pages for the bookmarklet. This bookmarklet will also work as a reader on pages that Safari Reader does not support, because the algorithm is more advanced. For those interested in the thread, you can find the posts in the archive list for February 2011 by "subject", at the first linked post: "Readability" in Safari [was Web Pages in Mobile iOS Browsers]: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/2011-February/009469.html If you activate the links for "Previous message", you can also read the earlier discussion on bookmarklets to increase font size, and how they work. HTH. Cheers, Esther On Sep 5, 2011, at 07:01, Bryan Jones wrote: > Hello James, > > My first thought is that perhaps your neighbor could provide us with a list > of the current magnification utilities and features they are using or that > they desire to use, and then those of us who have used Zoom could compare and > contrast the features. Do you think that'd be possible? > > Generally speaking, Zoom has settings that allow for limited customization > such as max and min zoom levels, zoom increments, behavior of the zoomed > screen while navigating, etc. There's also an option to magnify just a > selected area of the screen and there's a way to magnify whatever is under > the mouse cursor, but I've not tried those features. > > Whenever I use zoom I always combine it with the option to reverse the screen > colors, aka "White on Black." While I've never used a third party magnifying > or color-toggling utility on any other OS, I've heard from some folks that > Apple's implementation of this color reversing feature is less than optimal > because it reverses everything on the screen including graphic images, which > apparently is not the case with some utilities available on other platforms. > Regardless, as with VO these features are free in the MacOS and can quickly > be toggled on and off. > > With regard to which applications will work with Zoom, in my experience Zoom > magnifies the entire screen regardless of which Applications are running. I > had a trial of MS Office 2011 running on SL for a few weeks while testing it > for VO access, and I didn't have any problems using Zoom to magnify the > various MS Office applications. I can't imagine that it would not work the > same way under Lion. > > I imagine you've already shared the information provided by Apple but if not, > here's a link to Apple's US page giving an overview of the features designed > to assist with seeing in Lion. > http://www.apple.com/accessibility/macosx/vision.html > > HTH, > Bryan > > On Sep 5, 2011, at 11:59 AM, James AUSTIN wrote: >> I am preparing a quotation for my neighbour who is considering buying a Mac >> with related accessories. His situation is rather specialised, but I am >> curious to know if Zoom works with applications such as Microsoft Office >> please? he does have a Visual Impairment, but may be able to use the >> magnification with certain products. > <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to mac-access@mac-access.net You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/maillist.xml> The Mac-Access mailing list is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free! Please remember to update your membership options periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>
