John, you're correct about most people, but not about most computer professionals, especially not about computer programmers. My evidence is how Microsoft is now adding bash from Ubuntu to Windows 10. All the programmers I know who use Windows are seriously jazzed about this new upgrade to Windows. Just imagine using apt-get to add some package ton the Windows command line environment. This has been an interesting thread. I'm looking forward to reading more. My own personal experience predates accessible Unix shell access. I say Unix, because Linux had not yet been invented. The only way to access a Unix shell in the 1980's was to have an account at some company or university, or to buy monthly access at some service like The Well, or eventually at netcom. Where I lived, that also meant paying for the modem call by the minute, because the calls from San Francisco to the Well, or to Netcom were intra latta calls, and were charged pretty hefty fees. But, this background is important, I think, because we didn't exactly have command line access at services like Compuserve, the Source, or Delphi Internet services. What we had was a menu of options. Sometimes the menu would be something you could arrow or tab through, sometimes it was just printed on screen and you had to type the command you wanted at the prompt. How is that like gui desktops? More primitive, yes, but it's object oriented. You select an object and activate it. Then, you do that again on the next screen. So, early gui was no problem from the conceptual point of view, because it was just a menu of options presented in hieroglyphs rather than words. Of course, those hieroglyphs--we learned to call them icons--weren't accessible because we didn't have a way to associate them with words. We had to do some serious advocacy to get the operating environment retrofitted in a way that would allow words to be associated with those icons. In the early days of gui accessibility several books in braille appeared designed to teach us this graphical environment. I remember a title from the U.K. called "Windows Explained" that came with wonderful graphic representations of various screens on Windows computers. If titles like that aren't available today, somebody should start writing. From the discussion here it's clear to me that a good, conceptual overview of how the gui works, along with some good braille graphics, would likely prove highly valuable. It would be even more valuable if it showed Microsoft, Apple, Chrome and Linux -- but I'm probably dreaming to ask for that much! <grin> PS: I got my first real cli when Netcom created a pop in San Francisco. The day I hear about that I signed up. I expected to find menus when I logged in, but no, I just got a shell prompt. I was flummoxed. I called for tech support, because the docs they sent in the mail were only in print. The owner of the company was doing his own tech support back then. When he realizaed I was blind, he showed me how to read usenet news groups and man pages. He promissed to help me if I got stuck, but with usenet and man in my skillset, I never had to call him again. This is a true story, but you were all asking about gui, not cli. Janina John J. Boyer writes: > My experience is that most blind people like a GUI with a screen reader > better than the command line. Those who have teouble with GUIs, like me, > seem to be decidedly in the minority. > > John > > On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 12:29:39AM +0200, Anders Holmberg wrote: > > Hi! > > Thats intresting. > > I am the total oposit guy. > > I had and have no problems learning gui’s but for me the command line is to hard. > > Although i began with a debian command line system 16 years ago and gave that up for windows a couple of years. > > Now i am back to vinux and a mac with osx. > > I whish i was patient enough to learn command line. > > Maybe i am to dum or maybe i am lazy. > > /A > > > On 17 Jul 2016, at 22:57, Sam Hartman <hartmans@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > > >>>>>> "John" == John J Boyer <john.boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > > > > John> I';ve been trying to get a feel for GUIs for years. Sighted > > > John> colleagues are no help. They only tell me how they use the > > > John> mouse. They won't use a keyboard shourcut even when it is much > > > John> simpler. For example, they will scroll down a long document > > > John> instead of using ctrl+f to find something. i've tried > > > John> unsuccessfully tpo find a Jaws trainer. After I reinstalled > > > John> Windows 7 recently Jaws wouldn't install. I'm now using NVDA > > > John> and I don't think I'll go back to Jaws. > > > > > > This is really interesting, because now I'm realizing that I don't know > > > how to teach someone GUIs on modern equipment at all. > > > I don't know if I can find a solution, but I'll see if I can toss the > > > question around. > > > > > > I hear your frustration completely about people who know one way of > > > doing something and who aren't even great at articulating that. > > > > > > I started to say "well, understanding the mouse at least well enough to > > > get your screen reader to click places and stuff is worth knowing. > > > That's true of course, although I just realized that most of the screen > > > readers I use these days actually wouldn't let me click usefully on a > > > scroll bar if I wanted to. > > > So, even if you wanted to be incredibly slow, you can't get work done > > > just understanding the mouse operations. > > > > > > Thanks for helping me understand an interesting challenge; I'll let you > > > know if I come up with anything that might help at all. > > > > > > --Sam > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Blinux-list mailing list > > > Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx > > > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Blinux-list mailing list > > Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx > > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list > > -- > John J. Boyer; President, > AbilitiesSoft, Inc. > Email: john.boyer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Website: http://www.abilitiessoft.org > Status: 501(C)(3) Nonprofit > Location: Madison, Wisconsin USA > Mission: To develop softwares and provide STEM services for people with > disabilities which are available at no cost. > > _______________________________________________ > Blinux-list mailing list > Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list -- Janina Sajka, Phone: +1.443.300.2200 sip:janina@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Email: janina@xxxxxxxxxxx Linux Foundation Fellow Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup: http://a11y.org The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures http://www.w3.org/wai/apa _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list