Sorry I have not made myself more clear. The truth is I agree that I should have to learn some interface. I like to use ASAP as an example of what a screen access program should be like. So many people have raved about Emacspeak and how it only talks what it should when it should Let me first tell you why I have a problem with this sometimes and why both Emacspeak and a Screen program like Speakup and or SvlPro or the other one that is in development are both needed. I just went to install Matthew Campbels new Rmoo Client for Emacs. I will say now that I ahve it working it works realy well. It still has some problems but I think they are workable problems. The problem with emacs reading what it thinks you want to know is what about the stuff that it has no idea you need to know? When I installed the Rmoo package it didn't work. I thought I had followed the install procedure perfectly. It turns out that I put one line before another that should be reversed. This caused Emacs to spit out a nasty error message as it started up and emacspeak failed to read it. I am sure there is some way I can go around and find that error message after emacs is all running but I have no idea how to do that because I don't know emacs as well as I need to to be able to get emacspeak to be as powerful as it can be. In the case of Asap I was a new user to Msdos in 1990. In fact I had no computer base behind me I was a Electronics technichian in the Air Force when I lost my sight and they put me in a rehab program to learn computers. ASAP is designed so you don't ahve to pay as much attention to the speech software so you are more able to learn your aplications first. The keys are designed on the number pad so you only need to know 10 keys to first use the speech software. With those 10 keys I was able to learn Word Perfect, Lotus123, Qmodem, database 3. It was only later when I started down loading large amounts of share ware did I learn the true power of asap. When ever I installed a new package Asap would speak way to much and I would have to take around 30 minutes to tune it to the way I liked the speech package. I have friends that also use Asap and their likes and dislikes are different from mine some of their software speaks more than I could handle and some don't speak except when they type. The point is Asap starts out letting you know what is on the screen everywhere. If you ahve not used emacspeak through a ethernet connection with Asap you will not totally understand what I mean. The way I fixed that Rmoo problem I was having is I telneted into my laptop from my MSDOS machine and had Asap read the screen for me as emacs and emacspeak booted up. there on the screen was the error messages I couldnt' get to earlier. As I said I am sure there is a way I can switch to the error messages but the point is I don't want to have to learn how to switch to the error messages till I have to at what point I would be ready to shut the error messages up. What I am saying is when you take a new person that has never used screen access and throw them into emacspeak the information given is not enough to know what is going on on the screen. It might be enough if you are an accomplished emacs user but I am not nore is many users that will come to the Linux environment and to say to them and me read the emacs howto and the help etc. etc.. and expect them to learn it all in one sitting to be able to even get mail or to be able to browse the web is a nightmare I know I have worked as an instructor at the Salt Lake Communitty college for students with visual imparements and if I had to teach some of the students I have delt with this it would be more work teaching them to use emacspeak and emacs. Than actually learning how to use the linux system. My argument is simple the speech software should be simple enough to use to get started learning linux and when the user is read for allt he specials that emacspeak and even the program like Asap has with its Artificial Intelegence then the user can dig into it. If the user never gets to the point were that power is needed it shouldn't be forced on them any more than word is forced on someone who only needs notepad. Ken /whistler On Thu, 18 Mar 1999, Lar Kaufman wrote: > I'd like a concise description from Whistler <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > why he believes it is too much to ask of a user confined to a character-based > interface to learn basic interface commands to master its use. It seems to > me that the notion that the user can reasonably be expected to learn a few > elemental commands necessary to interact with the computer, whether they are > emacs, ed, vi, or some other scheme. To assume otherwise is to create a > barrier to providing a solution that I truly do not believe exists. Back > in the early 80s the debate between proponents of different shells (csh > vs. ksh as replacement for sh) argued about superiority of one system over > another, but it would never have occurred to any of the parties to argue > that the user couldn't or shouldn't have to learn *some* interface system. > > Whether or not it is true that GUI systems have allowed naive users to > access computers effectively without knowing any fundamentals (and I still > have more frustration working with MacOS than I ever had learning CP/M, > DOS, VMS, RMS, TOPS, Windows or X Windows) I believe we should accept that > it must be within the grasp of our users to learn the basics of a necessary > method of providing computer access via the command line. Is this argument > really about that, or is it instead a rejection of emacs per se? > > A strong argument toward the emacs system is that the next step beyond the > command line, that is, the applications interface, is a significant hurdle. > A user who learns basic emacs commands has an advantage in learning to use > emacs itself, and only emacs currently offers an integrated environment for > major computer uses that is non-proprietary. If there were any other mode > of interaction with the OS that would similarly facilitate further computer > accessibility through a textual interface, I'd certainly consider it. Does > anyone have such an interface to offer? > > -lar > "The sum of all we drive at is that every man may enjoy the same rights that > are granted to others." -- John Locke, 1689, A Letter Concerning Toleration > > > -- > To unsubscribe: mail blinux-develop-request@xxxxxxxxxx with > "unsubscribe" as the Subject. >