Information about gnopernicus

Fri Nov 18 10:34:31 UTC 2005

Hi,

I'm pasting the contents of a message from the blind-programming list, which gives a flavour of how far Gnopernicus has got.  I don't know any more than I've just read in this article, but thought it was worth passing on.

Tim Pennick

-----Original Message-----

From: Programming-bounces at blindprogramming.com

[mailto:Programming-bounces at blindprogramming.com]On Behalf Of Jamal

Mazrui

Sent: 17 November 2005 20:17

To: Programming at blindprogramming.com

Subject: RE: Java survey?

Pasted below my name is a recent comparison between Gnopernicus and

Windows screen readers. It is excerpted from the blog article by Peter

Korn entitled

"Massachusetts, Open Document, and Accessibility"

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/korn/20051113

That article is about a heated topic in the field of universal access

today: whether Massachusetts' planned move to an open XML rather than

Microsoft standard for government documents is in the interest of people

with disabilities.

Jamal

"OpenOffice.org works pretty well today with the screen reading features

of the Gnopernicus screen reader. The screen reader accurately tracks

the caret, focus in dialogs, selections in menus, etc. It knows about

text attributes and font information, and exposes that upon request in

speech and Braille. This is because the rich OpenOffice.org

accessibility information is directly exposed via the GNOME

accessibility framework, which is what the Gnopernicus screen reader

uses exclusively for presenting the screen contents to users. While

there are some bugs with OpenOffice.org and Gnopernicus, the key issue

for screen reader users who are using any of the premier screen readers

for Microsoft Windows with Microsoft Office today is that the

Gnopernicus screen reader doesn't have many of the features that these

products have. Furthermore, Gnopernicus is by design a

"one-size-fits-all" screen reader. The explicit intent behind the first

release of Gnopernicus was to not have custom scripts for specific

applications, but instead to provide a general and universal user

interface to everything on the desktop. This helped tremendously in

proving the design of the accessibility architecture - if there was a

presentation problem because of incorrect information coming from the

accessibility architecture it had to be fixed in the architecture

(rather than worked around in a custom script). However, when it comes

to offering comparable efficiency and productivity to blind users who

are used to using MS-Office with one of the premier Windows screen

readers, Gnopernicus today leaves something to be desired." 

----------

-----Original Message-----

From: Programming-bounces at blindprogramming.com

[mailto:Programming-bounces at blindprogramming.com] On Behalf Of Sina

Bahram

Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 12:28 PM

To: Programming at blindprogramming.com

Subject: RE: Java survey?

Well, in their defense, I would say that there is a timeline to think of

...

Gnoppernicus is a baby compared to jaws's healthy 15 years.

So ... I think it is rather impressive how far they have come. Now,

impressive or not, if your document doesn't read, that doesn't do you

any

good, does it? ... So I do think they are aware of this, and I do

believe

that Gnopernicus does work well with star office and other applications

by

sun, but I have not verified this entirely, just a little.

Also, do remember that while sun does contribute to gnome, Gnopernicus,

and

the rest ... Those are open source projects. So they are not exactly

under

sun's complete control, like voiceover is for apple. Which I am very

grateful for, as they actually comply, or try to comply, to certain

standards of usability and accessibility ... I would never say anything

similar for apple.

Take care,

Sina

-----Original Message-----

From: Programming-bounces at blindprogramming.com

[mailto:Programming-bounces at blindprogramming.com] On Behalf Of Jamal

Mazrui

Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 1:48 PM

To: Programming at blindprogramming.com

Subject: RE: Java survey?

Although I agree that Windows screen readers should increase efforts to

support Java applications, it also concerns me that end-user

accessibility

remains weak on Unix--the operating that Sun, itself, produces. I hope

someone lets me know if I am mistaken about this, but my understanding

is

that screen readers for Solaris or Linux, e.g., Gnopernicus, continue to

lag

behind Windows screen readers in functionality. I find this perplexing

since accessibility has supposedly been built into these flavors of Unix

in

a a more deliberate, robust, and rich manner than in Win32. 

Does Gnopernicus work better with Java applications than Jaws? How well

does the best Linux screen reader work with Open Office compared to

JAWS,

Window-Eyes, or Hal with Microsoft Office?

Jamal

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-----Original Message-----
From: blinux-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:blinux-list-bounces at redhat.com]On Behalf Of Sauro Cesaretti
Sent: 18 November 2005 09:15
To: Linux for blind general discussion
Subject: Information about gnopernicus

Hi all,
I'd like to know what is the current situation of gnopernicus project,because I'm useing it but
I think it's too old.
Where can I find the last version?
What is the developer team of gnopernicus?
many thanks in advance for all information.
Yours Sincerely
S. Cesaretti

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