Re: Emacspeak tutorial complete

["D.J.J. Ring, Jr." <n1ea@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello RDC,

We agree exactly.  The problem for most is that emacspeak fails to build and come out speaking.  Add to that the difficulty that many users have at adding (or even knowing) lines to the .bashrc file. It took me well over a year to figure out that people were talking 

about a file that should be created in my home directory.

Now that I know about it, I know what people here are talking about.  Unfortunately many here use shorthand with some explanations.  No blame meant.  People are busy.

You can understand that when a person says change the .bashrc file and they have none they get quite confused. <grin>.

So what we hopefully have done is make a HOW TO that tells a user how to get emacspeak up and running.

I had to repeat the emacspeak notice about how to get help about thirty times because there is a delay in many Linux sound systems that chop the words until about ten seconds later.  I didn't even realize it was telling me where to get help. 

If I could have read it on the opening screen it would have been nice, but we repeated what is said in the HOW TO and people can read it:  "Oh, that's what emacspeak is saying to me!".

Again, it was a HOW TO designed to help those who DO NOT have emacspeak working, to get it up and running and telling them HOW to get the documentation WITHIN emacspeak.

Once they have the program running, and know the key commands to find the tutorial and maybe the key strokes to get a web browser running - I recommend w3 and I tell people how to get that installed.

Once they have it working, it is OK.  But getting it working takes some blind users several years without sighted help because they don't know the questions to ask, or they just get confused or they try to add lines to the dot bashrc file but there is none.

If someone were to have said, "You have to add lines to your .bashrc file in your home directory which is the directory under /home with your user name.  .bashrc is a hidden file because it is preceded with a period.  If you do not have a .bashrc file you can easily make one by either opening an editor for that file, or just issuing the command "touch .bashrc" in your terminal, then use the editor to add the lines needed.

That would have saved me about a year - I got discouraged many times, but I kept reading and reading and reading.  Finally it dawned on me that people were telling me about a .bashrc file that may not exist..

The most difficult thing in the world is to ask questions about something that you do not know the words to ask about it.  Google fails when you leave the search box blank.

Best to all - and congrats to the Vinux team for a wonderful job.  May it free many people from darkness and allow them to connect and be productive with a computer that is now accessible..

Thanks!

David J. Ring, Jr., N1EA
SOWP, VWOA, OOTC, FISTS, CW-Ops, JARL-A1, A1-OP, ex-FOC 1271 ARRL-LM

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