Re: free/not free proprietary

In reality, this is not actually the case, applications still have to be
scripted, there are a lot of differences among application interfaces
and I could go on.  We could achieve the same thing with a linux
environment that we have in the way of standardization for the gui and
it would not have to make as many guesses.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Thatcher" <jim@jimthatcher.com>
To: "Nick Kew" <nick@midgard.webthing.com>; "Martin McCormick"
<martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu>
Cc: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 7:01 PM
Subject: RE: free/not free proprietary


Nick, OK, I'll correct you:

"For blind users, any kind of GUI would seem particularly pointless
(correct me if I'm wrong:-)."

Far from pointless, the GUI offers standardized application controls,
leaving the problem of access to the "client area" of applications to
the
ingenuity of screen reader developers. With text based applications
every
application had to be specifically "scripted" or "profiled" in order to
work
at all.

It is not a done deal for screen readers today because applications use
non-standard controls without appropriately taking care of that. And of
course the work areas of applications can be a disaster, but it is a lot
better than the text based world as we knew it when OS/2 and Windows
came
onto the scene.

Jim
Accessibility Consulting
http://jimthatcher.com
512-306-0931
Constructing Accessible Web Sites, is now available at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904151000/jimthatcherco-20/!
I recommend it. It's a good book!


-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Nick Kew
Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 4:49 PM
To: Martin McCormick
Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Re: free/not free proprietary



On Thu, 2 May 2002, Martin McCormick wrote:

> I agree.  Put simply, there is not presently a browser
> that works with script for UNIX users who do not use X windows.
> Making X windows accessible is a huge order.
>
> The minimum functionality should be a browser engine that
> can at least follow all links and call auxiliary programs to
> handle content that the browser can not display as text.

For blind users, any kind of GUI would seem particularly pointless
(correct me if I'm wrong:-).  So a commandline-based system with,
for example, Lynx+Pine+Speech would be an ideal way of getting
online.  That is to say, subject to accessibility considerations.

One of the goals of my accessibility proxy proposal is a javascript
engine that will deal with scripting-based links on behalf of users,
whether of Lynx or of any other browser without scripting, or
anyone in a security-conscious environment.

--
Nick Kew

Received on Thursday, 2 May 2002 19:13:12 UTC