Hi Katharine, I've passed your comments onto an internal Microsoft mailing list (without identifying you) and I'll let you know what feedback comes back. That's certainly interesting feedback.
Regards, Greg Dr Greg Low 1300SQLSQL (1300 775 775) office | +61 419201410 mobile│ +61 3 8676 4913 fax SQL Down Under | Web: www.sqldownunder.com -----Original Message----- From: ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com [mailto:ozdotnet-boun...@ozdotnet.com] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: Saturday, 16 March 2013 5:48 PM To: ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com Subject: Visual Studio once great for blind users, but not anymore: how to work around this and still be able to learn the Windows 8 Runtime interface? Hi, I would hate to have to run two copies of Visual Studio (one 2010 and the other 2012) on here, for this computer works hard enough, but that's what it's looking like will have to happen in order for me to progress in my C# learning, for after doing some testing, I realized that most of the parts of the interface of Visual Studio that were once accessible to all of my screen readers, are now accessible to none; the properties window, the toolbox, the project properties multitabbe dialog box, and I'm sure there was one other area, of visual studio 2012 are like having nothing there; nothing is read allowed. Try a demo of JAWS from Freedom Scientific or Window-Eyes from GWMicro (you can navigate with the mouse for the most part even with screen readers enabled), and do a side-by-side comparison of the toolbox especially, since this is the real gotcha here. To test them, use your arrows and your tab key to examine the toolbox. You will notice one thing. 2010 reads, 2012 doesn't! And never mind learning the new Windows interface from a programming prospective, but I don't think there's a way to enable those templates in VS 2010? If there is, please, tell me how. The second reason I'm sending this message out is because one ambitious technologist like me requesting support from GWMicro, Serotek, and Freedom Scientific to give support for the latest version of Visual Studio is not going to do much. I need a ton of us requesting it; maybe even the sighted community; to remind these people that the blind community will not bend to their will (that is, stop updating the support to support the latest features and interfaces properly, so in terms of Visual Studio, restricting blind people to the 2010 version if they want to get anything productive done, and the sad thing is that most of us just accept that and move on), so that they can give up keeping with updated versions. It's like screen reader manufacturers are stuck in the time when from windows version to windows version, things didn't change much; it's like they are deliberately refusing to keep up. Like they're stuck in a rut. And I'll tell you, I'm not having this anymore. Are you? Who's with me on this? Thanks to everyone on here, and I look forward to this discussion continuing.
