Though I too think it is sad to see WinEyes is going to go down the drain, we have to face the fact.
Yet, some of you have promoted the idea, that someone, at some point of time, would get hold of the code, and then resurrect the screen reader. True, it is a mere dream. Likely that code might not even exist any longer, and would be so deeply loaded with restrictions and copyright, should it ever exist, that noone wants to touch it. Smiles. But, let\s for a moment do some dreaming. Is it really that easy? You just go and get hold of the code, and then you can sit down and continue such a project? Two things to be considered. The simplest first. When writing a program, you use something named a programming language. That is, you canot sit down and simply tell the computer: "Read to me" on one line, and on the next: "all the screen contant." You have to do maybe a hundred lines of coding, or more, to perform this rather "simple task". First of all, you need code to establish contact between your program, and the rest of the system. Then, you have to specify which of the many screens, or windows, that are currently opened on your computer, should actually talk to your program and provide its screen contents. Then, you have to let the computer know it has a speech synth installed, and which of its five voices you want contact with. And, you have to process the text that comes from the screen, to have it spoken the way that it all makes sense. For instance, if it is a list or table, you might have to let the screen reader do its reading one column at a time. You cannot just read from left to right - line by line. Finally, if you have passed all those hoops, you will have to let your screen reader interact with the controls on the screen, meaning yet another five hundred lines of coding. But you are a driven programmer, and have your clear ideas - so the job is done with a few hundred hours of writing, testing and modifying the code. You now have your code ready. It is readable - with more or less human words. But the computer does not understand human language. So you have to perform a translation, into a language that the computer can handle. This is named Compilation. The compiled version of your work, will be little - if any - comprehendable to a human. If you want to see what it looks like, here is the fun of your afternoon: Open any .exe file in your text editor, and enjoy the novel. If you don't know how to, let us know, and someone will instruct you how to do it. The first thing that someone - who would get the idea of continuing a software project would have to be aware of, is whether we can get hold of the program text code - the kind of human-languaged files; or if we only can get the compiled version. With only the compiled version, you will be very badly off. Hey, you might ask: With all the many coders, and decoders out there, doesn't there exist some kind of a decoder for this job? First, it would likely be illegal should such be the case, and secondly, it might not be possible. My teacher in college, many years back, gave this short answer when the question came up. "You can bake bread from grain, but you cannot grow grain from bread." Once the code has been compiled, it is available for the computer, and would make little sense to others. Second fact in our dream world, is the job of picking up where someone has left. You who have never programmed, let's do it all in an everyday example: Are you a parent? Have you ever had the experience of your child bringing her sewing - or knitting - project to you? "Mom, I don't understand what went wrong." And you, spent the rest of the hour, trying to figure why things went wrong. And perhaps you even tried to talk over with your daughter how she reached this point, hoping at least to grasp an idea of the thinking behind her actions. If you are no parent, have you tried to start up your computer, and tried to learn a new piece of software. What sense does it make, that you have to press Ctrl-X, to cut, and Ctrl-V to paste some text. There is no X in the word "cut", and to my knowledge you have no English word for pasting, that holds the letter V. OK, explain the logic. Tell how it all came around. Inform us please, what was the reasoning behind this set of keystrokes. In this particular example, you might be able to, but what about all the other keystrokes. Anyone happen to know the story behind why we have the at-sign in our email addresses? You would not be able to guess, but it has its real story. My point here is: If you should happen to get hold of the program code of the screen reader - which likely will hold hundreds of thousands (if not even millions) of lines of code - you likely will have come no way at all. Believe me, those who are used to programming, often call for Short, Simple examples of coding. To kind of figure why a programmer has done things this way, and to keep the overview of his coding at one point, and how it connects with the coding five hundred lines earlier, or might eventually get back to it in 1250 lines; well it is really a piece of a cake to swallow. In many cases, it would be ten times faster, sitting down and experiencing the behavior of the screen reader, figure your own way of performing the job, and then writing brand new coding from there. Think Tom described this pretty well, when he told us how he had to figure what to do, to have his code interfere with NVDA. Mind you, WinEyes does a couple more things, than just reading some simple messages from the screen. How much would you be willing to pay a staff, in just picking up where the people at GW left? It would have cost half a year of crew, to figuring what, why and how the code was all about. And you already might have to pay the copyright of the code. So you still dream of a FREE version of the resurrected WinEyes? What is gone, is cheapest to leave in the lost section. Who knows, maybe that is why the new owners rather decided to drop the further project. Besides, the way things was handled on computers five years back, might not even be valid on modern systems. You now have spent millions of dollars, in picking up on the project, just to realize it did take you nowhere. Keep in mind, the way you program a computer, is just as different from the programming of a cellphone or tablet, as English is different from German, or Chinese. Getting the code for WinEyes MIGHT have helped you in continuing it on the computer, but likely would be close to no help at all, in generating it for the cellphone. Google for one, has a software to translate between numerous human languages. But try what you want, there is no translatiors that can translate programming code from one program code, to the other. That is from computer platform to the Android or Apple platforms. Some few programming languages are somehow understandable on all platforms, and are named cross-platform languages. But I am rather sure Window-Eyes never was written under any of these, simply because they were not around, in the earlier days of the developmen. And it would have meant a total rewriting of the code, to transmit them into a cross-platform language. Same goes with Jaws. NVDA is written in Python, which in its basics is told to be cross-platformed. But as you were told, version 2 and 3 of Python does not speak the same dialect, so there goes your dreams for a cross-platformed NVDA. Continue the list, whoever wants. Dreams can be fun, and if you've got nothing else to spend the summer on, fine with me. Smiles to you all. David On 6/30/2019 11:13 AM, Tom Kingston via Talk wrote: > I agree, Pam. What a waste. But that's how it works in business. Look > at the big boys: Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. They spend > hundreds of millions every year just buying anything that may be the > faintest competition so they can throw it away, or, on the rare > occasion, incorporate it into their lineup. > > Regards, > Tom > > > On 6/29/2019 11:17 PM, Pamela Dominguez via Talk wrote: >> That's a shame, too, because I think window eyes is the best of them >> all. Pam. >> >> -----Original Message----- From: Sky Mundell via Talk >> Sent: Saturday, June 29, 2019 8:49 PM >> To: ukekearu...@valtdnet.com ; 'Window-Eyes Discussion List' >> Cc: Sky Mundell >> Subject: RE: person who made the sound forge NVDA add-on >> >> Hello. I doubt Vispero will ever put the Window-Eyes code into the >> public so >> others can develop it. What I can say is that JAWS doesn't have much >> brain >> left. That means, they are running out of ideas now. >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Talk [mailto:talk-bounces+skyt=shaw...@lists.window-eyes.com] On >> Behalf Of Olusegun -- Victory Associates LTD, Inc. via Talk >> Sent: Saturday, June 29, 2019 5:20 PM >> To: 'Window-Eyes Discussion List' >> Cc: Olusegun -- Victory Associates LTD, Inc. >> Subject: RE: person who made the sound forge NVDA add-on >> >> Tom, based on the information you shared regarding NVDA scripting, I >> will >> give off every hair on my wee, small head to bring Window-Eyes back >> to live. >> I'm not a programmer, and, indeed, those Custom Control thingies always >> threw me off. On occasions, I succeeded in reclassifying most of >> them into >> Edit Box and got them to work. But, honestly, I knew not what I did! >> Window-Eyes just worked for me ... It did put food on my dining table, >> enabled me to advocate for myself, and also gave me a chance to interact >> with some of the most brilliant minds in this >> assistive/adaptive/accessible >> technology field. I get the same from Android presently; hence the >> reason >> why I want to DITCH WINDOWS and keep on running with my Shiny Android >> toys! >> >> >> Window-Eyes was murdered just because it ran circles around its >> grandiest >> enemies. How I wish the visionaries at GW Micro, Inc. had seen this >> coming! >> But alas, the human angle hardly ever sees what's going wrong until the >> pendulum swings and falls, splitting the brain in parts that fall >> below the >> deepest sea! >> >> No, if I can help it, I don't wish to play ball with Windows10! A >> complete >> divorce from Windows screen readers is what I seek; right now, legacy >> Windows apps used for work still hold me hostage to Windows. >> Hopefully, it >> won't be long before I can disentangle myself completely. >> >> I'm playing with an 11.5-inch Android tablet; it is a bit perplexing >> for me. >> Guess that's because of its real estate. A much bigger space on a >> touchscreen to deal with. Looks somewhat intimidating, but I am >> pretty sure >> I shall conquer it before long. I am planning on grabbing a 7-inch or >> 8-inch tablet to play with. With a tad smaller real estate, the >> intimidation should cease and a much larger tablet won't embarrass me >> much >> to much anymore. As I do this, I am watching all my Windows >> computers die >> so I can send them to their last place in the recycle dump. >> >> If somehow the Window-Eyes code finds its way back to where more >> brilliant >> minds can weave magic out of it, I'll be all ears! I also wish that, >> when >> Window-Eyes reincarnates, it can be ported over to Android and thus be a >> serious contender to Talkback, VoiceViews, VoiceAssistant, Shine and >> Commentary. I know I'm hallucinating, not just trying to dream of the >> impossible; but keeping hope alive is not yet a sin in my books! >> >> Again, Tom, thanks a ton for your invaluable insights. >> >> Sincerely, >> Olusegun >> Denver, Colorado >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the >> author >> and do not necessarily represent those of Ai Squared. >> >> For membership options, visit >> http://lists.window-eyes.com/options.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com/skyt%40shaw.ca >> >> . >> For subscription options, visit >> http://lists.window-eyes.com/listinfo.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com >> List archives can be found at >> http://lists.window-eyes.com/private.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the >> author and do not necessarily represent those of Ai Squared. >> >> For membership options, visit >> http://lists.window-eyes.com/options.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com/pammygirl99%40gmail.com. >> >> >> For subscription options, visit >> http://lists.window-eyes.com/listinfo.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com >> List archives can be found at >> http://lists.window-eyes.com/private.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com >> >> --- >> This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. >> https://www.avg.com >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the >> author and do not necessarily represent those of Ai Squared. >> >> For membership options, visit >> http://lists.window-eyes.com/options.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com/tom.kingston%40charter.net. >> >> >> For subscription options, visit >> http://lists.window-eyes.com/listinfo.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com >> List archives can be found at >> http://lists.window-eyes.com/private.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com >> > _______________________________________________ > Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the > author and do not necessarily represent those of Ai Squared. > > For membership options, visit > http://lists.window-eyes.com/options.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com/trailerdavid%40hotmail.com. > For subscription options, visit > http://lists.window-eyes.com/listinfo.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com > List archives can be found at > http://lists.window-eyes.com/private.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com _______________________________________________ Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Ai Squared. 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