Visually Impaired New User Question

Hello Everyone,

Visually Impaired and new to Linux/Ubuntu/Orca. Coming from a Windows environment where I use Magic Screen Magnification and JAWS screen Reader.

Recently I have heard a lot of good things about Ubuntu and it's accessibility features. After downloading the 9.10 ISO, burning a CD and giving it a try on my PC I really like what I have found.

After enabling the Orca screen Magnifier and a little tweaking, I have it functioning in a manner that works well for me and it is easy to use. I was quickly able to adjust magnification, turn off cross-hairs, get rid of the second pointer, adjust the texture of the fonts and even set up some custom keybindings that work best for me. The flexibility and power compared to what I am accustom to in Windows Screen Magnifiers is great. The Accessibilities Team has done a great job!

I did have some issues as you may guess, with the Orca Screen Reader. The speech is chopy, freezes up and even quits working at times. I've gone through several postings here but have not found anything about this. Perhaps I am not looking in the right place and if so, could someone point me to the location where I can find a solution.

In researching this I have found several posts in other sites concerning problems with speech in Ubuntu 9.04 and in 9.10 but not being familiar with Linux and dealing with the choppy/freezing speech I do not feel comfortable trying to go to far into unfamiliar territory only to have it stop working as I get into the middle of some fix.

Perhaps someone on the Accessibilities Team has written a script to resolve this issue or may be able to point me in the right direction. I know the Ubuntu Developers and the Accessibilities Team have made a lot of progress toward true accessibility in Linux and with Microsloft's new release of Windblow 7 many people like myself, are looking for alternatives as we are sick and tired of Microsloft and the proprietary Assistive Technologies that are over priced and often times inadequate .

Thanks for any assistance anyone maybe able to provide, Ray B.

Hi and welcome to the Forums,

Sorry for the delay in answering. There are certainly 'things going on' for the next Ubuntu release "Lucid Lynx" that being the 10.04 release.

Already there is a GUI available for the espeak module that works, although it does throw up a couple of errors when it is started. Not bad for version 0.2 !!

That is called espeak-gui and is now in the 10.04 programmes area. It should be able to be put onto 9.10 from what I understand from the author, but that is not a deffinate.

For the browser FireFox there was FireVox, but I'm only recently aware of its existence and have not had chance to look at where it is up to. The details seem a couple of years old.

On the writing of web sites, there is a bit of state of flux from one proposed set of standards to a newer one. Whilst my musings on the subject are strictly mine, as I try to learn just how I am supposed to actually write a web-site for it to be accessible and to which standards are just my own, this is the direction I am heading in. I, also, cannot afford a thousand dollars for a commercial system to test if my writing of a site is correct. Nor can I work out if we are heading from CSS (Style sheets with an 'aural' option) over to the WCAG guidelines.

There is a need for people with disabilities to access content on the Web. To facilitate this a couple of things have been done.

The creation of the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) and from there various attempts to standardise things, the current being the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) currently on Version 2. It is frustrating to me, and no doubt others, that we do not have a clear idea of what standards, where and when we are supposed to be following for writing the sites. Try to imagine the frustration of those who wish to write software that can actually read them !!

I'm having my little area of what I learn and understand over here --> []("http://forum.phillw.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=32")http://forum.phillw.net/viewforum.php?f=14 I haven't transferred it over to the main VPOLink site yet, as I haven't finished the article.

Information on espeak-gui is covered here --> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1064210&page=2

Regards,

Phill.

You might be intrested in Vinux. This is not Ubuntu but debian (which ubuntu is based on) and has a lot of the accessibility features build into it, no set up required.

For zoom I use the eZoom facility provided by compiz. I am probably speaking about things you have no idea about but if you have 3D accelleration enabled on ubuntu try holding te windows key and scrolling the mouse button away from you. If the screen gets zoomed you have everything working if not then you need to enabled your 3D hardware drivers.

This is better performance wise than orca but lacks the screen tracking. I also invert my screen by pressing windows button + m.

The speech in vinux is working and not choppy and you will not have to worry about it. I recommend you start there and when your feeling more adventerous you can move back to ubuntu and begin to fix the problems or by that time they might have been sorted.

http://vinux.org.uk/

Oh lastly a bit of self promotion, as a windows user you would probably like the have your nice windows speech voices available to you. My personal project is doing just that open-sapi. It is almost done but still not ready for the general public. I recommend signing up to the ubuntu accessibility list online to get regular updates about all things ubuntu and accessibility. My project can be found at if your intrested:

http://code.google.com/p/open-sapi/

Tom