Re: audio icons work everywhere except w3m.

[Tim Cross <tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I get the point of what you are after, but I get the feeling you are
missing the main point of open source software. If there is a feature
which you feel would be good to add to the system, the solution is to
go ahead an implement it. 

I'm also not sure if you are actually hearing audio icons or just the
beep that emacs does with some operations. If you have auditory icons
working, you should hear more different sounds that just beeps. I'd
suggest going into the directory which contains the wave files and
playing them so that you get an idea of what the range of different
icons is.

Some points I'd like to raise for consideration are

1. This is emacspeak and not Jaws. It uses a different philosophy and
a different approach. It is not designed to be a dumb screen reader
like jaws and I think its a mistake to make comparisons - better to
try to consider what outcome is required and possibly adopt a
different approach which may even be better. For example, you may be
able to achieve what you want through the use of xslt etc.

2. Personally, I have no need for the features you are asking for and
wouldn't support them unless they are an option which can be toggled
on for those who want it. I have no issue with you adding this
functionality at all - everyones milage differs. However, I don't want
something which adds functionality I don't need at the cost of
performance or stability. 

3. to get the most out of emacspeak, I believe you need one of the
good quality TTS engines. While I recognise not everyone can afford
commercial TTS engines, I don't believe such cost considerations
should drive what feature sets emacspeak has. Many of the limitations
you are experiencing are because of the TTS you are using and the fact
you are not getting the major advantages of what emacspeak has to
offer. If all you want is a free screen reader, then maybe you should
look at linux speak-up, yasr, orca, gnupernicus screader or speech dispatcher.

4. Emacspeak is open source - feel free to grab the sources and
add/modify/change whatever you like. This is what the "free" aspect
really refers to - not the free as in it didn't cost anything.

5. I've had a bad day at work, so my temper is probably short and I'm
possibly not being as tolerant as I should. However, I do have to say
that it is a bit "rich" for someone with very little experience and
understanding of the facilities and power of emacs and emacspeak to be
argueing for new/more features when they don't yet udnerstand how to
use what is already there. I'd like to suggest that rather than
posting suggestions and criticisms concerning what emacspeak needs,
you actually grab the sources and attempt to implement what you feel
is missing. Then you can make it available for others to try and maybe
it will get added to the main source tree. Apart from giving the
impression you are simply a user who wants to wine about things you
miss from jaws, it will show you are prepared to actually contribute
more than words and things will actually happen. There are a number of
users on this list who will be more than happy to provide guidance and
suggestions to someone who is actually contributing to the development
of the system. There are fewer who will continue to tolerate pointless
comparisons with a commercial windows product. I don't believe the
main objective of emacspeak is to provide a free clone of a windows
screen reader - the objective is to provide an alternative, more
powerful interface for blind users. the low cost is just a lucky
coincidence. The objective is not simply to compete with screen
readers or make it user friendly, but rather provide a different
paradigm which may provide other advantages commercial screen readers
have not considered. Emacspeak is not necessarily for everyone, but
nor does it try to be.

6. These are just my opinions. Feel free to ignore them. I also do not
claim to represent in any way the opinions or objectives of
emacspeaks author, Raman. 

regards,

Tim
 
krishnakant Mane writes:
 > On 02/11/06, Tim Cross <tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
 > 
 > > Just for clarification and to avoid additional confusion....
 > >
 > > Emacspeak supports two different approaches to indicating indentation.
 > > If the TTS supports it, indentation can be indicated with a tone.
 > > However, only the dectalk and ViaVoice (I think) support this
 > > approach. The second way indentation is indicated is through spoken
 > > words. If the TTS supports multiple voices, these words are spoken in
 > > a different tone. All TTS should be able to speak the indentation.
 > 
 > exactly, that is the same point I am trying to put forward regarding
 > html or any formatted document.
 > when reading a web page, why can't we have a similar approach for
 > things like heading, indentation (which I suppose it works) and strong
 > text?  why depend on the features of the speach synthesizer for
 > such
 > things?    if the synth supports multiple voices well and good, but I
 > heard the indentation messages spoken out by eflite and I can
 > perfectly guess how the text is arranged.  so if similar messages are
 > provided while reading a web page regardless of which synth is being
 > used, then it will become a very good user friendly feature.  When I
 > use jaws for windows, I can just navigate quickly through the headings
 > list and read exactly what I want.
 > right now I use the search feature to find the text I need, but that
 > is only with the document I know.  if I want to browse through
 > headinds of a web page and then start reading from a particular
 > heading, I can't get that.
 > regards.
 > Krishnakant.
 > 
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-- 
Tim Cross
tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx

There are two types of people in IT - those who do not manage what they 
understand and those who do not understand what they manage.

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