Hearing buttons, edit boxes and other controls?

From: Lloyd G. Rasmussen (lras@loc.gov)
Date: Tue Dec 14 1999 - 07:09:09 PST


Forwarded from Dennis Brown's blind programming mailing list. I can vouch
for the fact that Dr. Meijer's program can sonify all or part of your
screen, or the output from a TWAIN scanner. Using the zoom function and
moving the mouse pointer around, you should be able to learn some things
about your screen using this program. Unless more of us try it out, we'll
never know how well blind people can learn to use these sounds. FYI.

>Date: 14 Dec 1999 10:06:25 -0000
>To: blindprogramming@onelist.com
>From: Peter.B.L.Meijer@philips.com
>Mailing-List: list blindprogramming@onelist.com; contact
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>Reply-to: blindprogramming@onelist.com
>Subject: Hearing buttons, edit boxes and other controls?
>
>From: Peter.B.L.Meijer@philips.com
>
>
>Dear All,
>
>Question: to what extent could there be use for a tool
>that lets you *hear* the displayed positions of buttons,
>edit boxes and other purely graphical controls in for
>instance a Visual C or Visual Basic resource editor?
>
>I was wondering if The vOICe Learning Edition software
>for Windows-95/98/NT might be applied for this purpose.
>
>This software can be obtained for free from the web page
>
> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/winvoice.htm
>
>or from the direct download URL (400K file size)
>
> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Peter_Meijer/voice.exe
>
>After starting this software, you will get a message
>saying "I'm sorry, The vOICe cannot find your webcam",
>after which a built-in complex demo sound starts playing
>over and over. You can neglect all of this and proceed
>with the following function keys to hear the graphical
>content as displayed on your screen. Please note that the
>sounds will normally be far too complicated to comprehend,
>but you can hear out the various graphical objects, or
>listen to graphs and the like. The basic mapping consists
>of scanning once per second from left to right, sounding
>brightness through loudness and elevation through pitch.
>
>Pressing function key F9 sounds the screen area around
>your mouse pointer, while Shift F9 sounds the entire
>screen area. F4 and Shift F4 can be used for digital
>zoom, while the arrow keys can be used in zoom mode to
>move around. Pressing F5 toggles the negative video mode.
>
>The software was originally developed for use with a PC
>camera or webcam, but it has recently been extended with
>features that offer some degree of visual access to the
>purely graphical screen content as rendered by a GUI.
>I'm not familiar with your ways of working in a programming
>environment, so my query is indeed meant as an open question
>to learn about possible applications.
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Peter Meijer
>
>
>E-mail: Peter.B.L.Meijer@philips.com
>
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Lloyd Rasmussen, Senior Staff Engineer
National Library Service f/t Blind and Physically Handicapped
Library of Congress (202) 707-0535 <lras@loc.gov>
<http://www.loc.gov/nls/>
HOME: <lras@sprynet.com> <http://lras.home.sprynet.com



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