I guess I was referring to NVDA's relatively minimal support for the MS Office applications which are usually required for a job using a PC in the US. NVDA has the parts under their hood to equal or even surpass the support for MS Office in JAWS or Window-Eyes but they haven't the resources to get it done in the short term.
Also, in Excel, they may bump up against a patent I think is bogus but would cost them far too much to defend and I can predict with a huge degree of certainty that FS will prosecute the patent against a less well heeled competitor. As this is part of the FS v. GW lawsuit, though, the patent may be overturned fairly soon as the placemarker patent has been all but eliminated. GW actually had the liquidity to fight back and it looks like they will prevail on all points in the case with FS. As I am a former employee of Project GNU (www.gnu.org) and having co-founded League for Programming Freedom (www.progfree.org) with Richard Stallman, my sympathies are always with free (as in freedom with a lower case "f") solution like NVDA or orca but I also consider the tools a user needs in most jobs and that's where, due to the lack of good Office support, that I feel NVDA falls down. cdh On Dec 10, 2009, at 9:29 AM, James & Nash wrote: > Hi Chris, > You wrote: > NVDA is a usable program that, unfortunately, doesn't support very many > applications yet. If you can program in Python, you can help the team move > it forward. As a full time solution, though, it isn't ready for prime time > yet. > > I have to disagree with you. I think NVDA is an extremely viable solution, > but of course it depends what you want to do with your PC,, but then that > can be said about all Assistive Technologies on all platforms. I know of > some Windows users in France who cannot afford JFW and the other commercial > applications and use it full time. NVDA has a huge advantage out of the > box - although E-Speak is not the best voice in the world, it offers around > 45 foreign languages so that users can get to work right away. > > But of course there has been criticism from commercial venders and those > trainers who should really be impartial - at least in my view. They believe > that because NVDA is free and open source then it must automatically be a > non starter. > > TC > James > > TC > James > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Chris Hofstader" <c...@hofstader.com> > To: <macvisionaries@googlegroups.com> > Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2009 1:42 PM > Subject: Re: questions about NVDA > > > NVDA is a usable program that, unfortunately, doesn't support very many > applications yet. If you can program in Python, you can help the team move > it forward. As a full time solution, though, it isn't ready for prime time > yet. > > I know both Mick and Jamie, the top of the NVDA team, and they work really > hard but I don't think that either Mozilla or Microsoft is giving them any > more money so their progress will likely slow now. > > SATOGO, a no cost solution for Windows boxes attached to the Internet and > System Access, it's commercial big brother which is less expensive than all > other credible Windows screen readers, are good free (as in free lunch) and > low cost solutions that work in most programs that most people want/need. > > I think SA (both versions) has a magnification portion. I don't think I've > ever heard of anyone actually using it so, as I can't see well enough to use > it, I cannot say much about it. > > Someone told me that the magnifier built into Windows 7 is actually quite > good and, as it is entirely API driven, it is unlikely to introduce as many > stability problems as MAGic or ZoomText. It has a limited feature set but > it may be good enough for your purposes and as it is included with the OS, > the price is right. > > cdh > > > > On Dec 9, 2009, at 3:33 PM, Joe Plummer wrote: > >> Hi, might want to use satogo on the Windows side also. As far as a >> magnifying solution you might want to try magic from Freedom Scientific >> you >> can use it and use it in conjunction with Jaws. Both of these can be ran >> in >> a Demo mode that will let you use it for ever in a 40 minute mode. Just >> some >> thoughts. >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com >> [mailto:macvisionar...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ryan Mann >> Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 2:23 PM >> To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com >> Subject: Re: questions about NVDA >> >> NVDA is basically a free screen reader for the Windows platform. It works >> with programs such as Internet Explorer, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel >> and >> somewhat with Outlook. In case you don't know, Microsoft Excel is an >> application for doing spreadsheets and Outlook is the email program that >> comes with Microsoft Office. >> >> On Dec 9, 2009, at 1:53 PM, Christina wrote: >> >>> Hello all, >>> >>> I saw a discussion earlier and the subject line was something like >>> back on a mac. Well someone mentioned NVDA on windows seven. I have >>> not installed windows on my macbook. However I've considered it >>> simply because I'd like to try using zoomtext to try to look at photos >>> as I do not feel the built in zoom for the mac is good for that. I >>> have lost so much vision lately so I'm not sure if even zoom text >>> would help but I am thinking of trying. I understand that zoomtext >>> will not work in the virtual environment and therefore I would have to >>> use boot camp. >>> >>> So onto my questions. What is NVDA? I do not have a windows screen >>> reader like jaws or window eyes so I'm curious as to what this is and >>> how robust this is. >>> >>> Thanks, >>> Christina >>> >>> -- >>> >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >>> To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. >>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. >>> >>> >> >> Ryan Mann >> rmann0...@gmail.com >> Get to the root of the problem with the US economy at >> http://www.dailypaul.com. >> >> -- >> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. >> >> >> >> -- >> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. >> >> > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. 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