Hi,I am one of the authors of the JAWS script for Audacity. I haven't had time to digest this thread yet.
One of the ways I use labels is to press TAB in the label track, then find the current label with the JAWS cursor by checking the color, the current label is white and the others are black on light steel blue 2. Kind of a pain but it works, although it is sometimes hard to find the label names with the JAWS cursor. JAWS can detect screen colors, but I haven't tried to script anything using it, partly because I haven't figured out how to tell that I'm in a label track. The text at the PC cursor is "label" by default but I think that changes if you name the track. I don't think that will work with NVDA, since I don't think it can read text colors. Is that info available via Automation, if so a NVDA add-on might be able to find it, since it is written in Python.
I don't think the clipboard thing would work with a script since I think the JAWS clipboard interface is focused on strings. Can you access the clipboard from Automation? Then you might be able to store an audio clip as an arbitrary object and put it back.
I don't think the label being in edit mode would be a problem if the screen reader indicated that that is what is happening. What I think might help is that if the real system caret could be used in a label when it is activated for edit. I'm not sure right now what appears to JAWS as highlighted on the screen-- it by default reads highlighted text, so maybe if the text of the current label were highlighted it might read it. Weird-- how does this work? unfocused labels are black on light steel blue 2, the focused label is white, when you press END, Shift+Home (which I assume highlights it, it goes back to black on light steel blue 2.
How is the pseudo-caret implemented?I'll have to think about the modifications when the Great American Dog Show isn't on TV and someone isn't talking to me expecting me to be "part of the family" :-). I would be willing to try the patch but I don't have the development environment for Audacity (or any C compiler) set up, so someone would have to send me a binary some how, or I'd have to bite the bullet and install it. I was thinking about trying to implement an auditory level meter, enough that I got the source for Audacity a while ago but haven't done anything more since my 2GB CF card quit working in my BrailleLite :-). (I do a lot of work on it when I can't take my laptop or get away with wearing earphones.)
One of the things I have trouble with with the JAWS script is that I can't determine what type a track is, so the shortcut keys speak their Audacity operations when in the label track. I haven't played with trying to use the info from the table control to determine track type, or for that matter which is the currently focused track. I don't remember now why I wanted it, but I remember thinking that it would be good if the script could know which track in the table has the focus.
BTW: off topic, but one of the things I want is a shortcut key for moving a track up and down. The new move to top/bottom is helpful, but when I'm moving a track I have to do APPkey, u for each time I want to move the track. Being able to press something like ALT+Up/DownArrow would be a lot easier. I have also wanted a way to move a track to a particular position, like dragging, but I haven't figured out how it should work, what I've come up with now is a dialog asking for a track number to move it before.
Thanks. Gary On 11/27/2014 9:54 AM, Robert Hänggi wrote:
2014-11-27 15:40 GMT+01:00, David Bailes <david_bailes@xxxxxxxxxxx>:Hi Robert, why do you think that a properties dialog would not be helpful. I admit that it would need additional keystrokes, but it would make available information available which is not currently available. The problem of putting info in the help text is that it's going to cause verbosity problems for people using screen readers other than nvda, so I'm still not convinced that it's the best way of conveying the information. If nvda were the only screen reader, it might be a different story. David. On Monday, 17 November 2014, 20:21, Robert Hänggi <aarjay.robert@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: 2014-11-17 19:10 GMT+01:00, David Bailes <david_bailes@xxxxxxxxxxx>:Hi Robert, yes, I do build Audacity from source, as do at least a couple of others on the list. I'll reply to other points shortly, but this is just about helptext. Unfortunately, I don't think it's going to be very usable to do this. If you include helptext, then by default jaws says "insert f1 help" after reading the name of the control, and this can get really annoying. You can switch it off either by changing the verbosity level to intermediate of advanced, or by setting smart help to off in the beginner verbosity settings. But I don't think that a user, especially a beginner should have to do this. As a far more minor issue, narrator on window 8 reads out the help text, and I don't know of any way of switching it off. Not sure how voiceover handles help text on the mac. So mainly do the Jaws's behaviour, I don't think that help text if a useful route to go down. As an alternative, perhaps a track could have a properties dialog? thanks for all you suggestions, David.Hi David I'll attach the patch anyway. I believe that a property dialog isn't helpful either. I have the principle that all that is available to normal users with a single glance should also be available to us with a single key stroke or even automatically. The first line of the helptext string can as well be added to the normal name string itself. We can reduce the information overload by removing values that are common to the project settings. Thus, 44100 Hz and 32-bit float would never be displayed if the project has those values as default. We can also omit stereo, as it is probably the most common track type and there would be displayed Mono". Actually, "Left" and "Right" are already reported with the patch applied, I find that extremely useful after a "Split Stereo" to discriminate the two channels that do normally share a single name. The word "Label Track" could be replaced by the first line of the helptext for label tracks. E.g. "No Labels defined" etc. Robert The audacity4blind web site is at //www.freelists.org/webpage/audacity4blind Subscribe and unsubscribe information, message archives, Audacity keyboard commands, and more... To unsubscribe from audacity4blind, send an email to audacity4blind-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with subject line unsubscribe
The audacity4blind web site is at //www.freelists.org/webpage/audacity4blind Subscribe and unsubscribe information, message archives, Audacity keyboard commands, and more... To unsubscribe from audacity4blind, send an email to audacity4blind-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with subject line unsubscribe
