Re: Styling text for Braille Display?

aloha, gary!

thanks for the info on TarHeelReader and the pointer to your projects...

as for controlling braille "styling", one has a choice of using 
either CSS2 or CSS 2.1's media types -- braille is the applicable 
media type for refreshable braille displays:

CSS2: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/media.html

CSS 2.1: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/media.html

a "preliminary requirements analysis" for Braile CSS can be found
at:

http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/braillecss.html

then there is the still-born CSS3 Reader Module,

http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-reader/

which was "dropped" by the Style activity at the W3C in March 2008, 
despite CSS3-Reader's promise to:

<q 
cite="http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work.html#reader">
The keyword 'reader' is a media type for use in Media Queries (similar 
to 'screen', 'print', 'projection', etc.). Devices that might choose to 
apply rules inside '@media reader' are devices like screen readers, that 
display a page on screen and speak it at the same time, or display the 
page and simultaneously render it on a dynamic braille device. The 
properties that apply to this media type are therefore the
combination of the properties for screen, speech and braille.
</q>

and i can not identify a clear-cut successor to the CSS3-Reader module,
or anything like a CSS3-braille profile (remember, in CSS, "braille" is 
refreshable/dynamic while "embossed" is static, paged media -- i am 
including bert bos, the w3c's CSS contact and the wai-xtech list in 
order to tease out an answer to your question)

there is also information about the braille media type in CSS3's Media
Queries Candidate Recommendation:

http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-mediaqueries/

a "snapshot" of the state-of-the-art in CSS is contained in the 
CSS Snapshot document (a.k.a. CSS Beijing)

http://www.w3.org/TR/css-beijing

which, like the CSS working group's "current work" document:

http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work.html

does not contain any specifics as to using CSS to control refreshable
braille displays, but i am sure that there are many others on this 
list more knowledgeable about the subject than i am...  i just wanted
to provide you with some pointers and points-of-departure...

gregory.

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---------- Original Message -----------
From: Gary Bishop <piisnear3.1415927@gmail.com>
To: dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org
Sent: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:33:22 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Styling text for Braille Display?

> We're working to make Firefox our platform for our accessibility
> applications. For example Tar Heel Reader at http://gb-
cs.cs.unc.edu/TarHeelReader
> is a collection of books for beginning readers with 
> disabilities. The books are switch accessible and speech 
> enabled. We provide a simple editor (by subscription) that 
> enables teachers to easily make new books.
> 
> I'm wondering how to make this idea work with a refreshable Braille
> display? A typical book page has a picture from Flickr and a simple
> sentence caption. We only apply the text to speech to the caption
> text. How can we style the text (or otherwise present it) so 
> that only it is displayed in Braille? For a transitional reader 
> who has some vision the picture and the printed text are useful 
> and interesting but we want them to begin exploring the Braille display.
> 
> There is other text on the page that our beginning reader 
> doesn't need such as the page name, navigation links, etc.
> 
> Any ideas on how to mark the caption for display on a refreshable
> Braille display?
> 
> Thanks
> gb
> _______________________________________________
> dev-accessibility mailing list
> dev-accessibility@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-accessibility
------- End of Original Message -------

Received on Tuesday, 22 July 2008 01:06:11 UTC