Hi, Kirk: Yeh, M$ has, what? 24 or so staff on accessibility? As compared to how many on Word alone? Something like 3,000, I believe.On Tue, 11 Apr 2000 cpt.kirk at 1tree.net wrote: > Janina, > > I agree that M$ should provide the offscreen model. This is especially > true since you are not supposed to decompile the software and all. Now I > won't go into software lisince isssues and what is really legal. But if > one were to abide by the letter of the lisence, then I doubt that a screen > reader could be written. > > I am also quite familiar with the broken Active Accessibility. I believe > that M$ wants to appear responsible, but they are not willing to put up > the ante. I know for instance that MSAA was broken and they knew it ahead > of time. There was no surprise when IE4 released. It was known and the > decision made to go ahead. > > But I think that when a company decides to close their code off from view > they should shoulder 100% of the load in making the code workable to all > who have a need to interface to it. The truth is, that they can and should > do better. They could make keyboard access a requirement. (For that > matter, they could probably make it so that keyboard access just happens > for all things.) They could also make it so that every peice of textual > data is always available. But they have chosen not too. > > Part of the problem is that it has been years since there was a true > coordinated development effort in Windows. The project has grown to the > point where it is no longer coordinated. And in case your wondering, no > there is no documentation on the registry that comes anywhere close to > complete. There are branches that developers impliment because they need > to store settings and the programmer is the only one to know what is being > used for what. In some of those cases the programmer has left the company. > > I used to be a staunch supporter if M$. I will not spend any of my money > on a product again if given a choice. In fact, I would ask for a refund > for any bundled apps that came on a computer. > > Kirk Wood > Cpt.Kirk at 1tree.net > ------------------ > > Why can't you be a non-conformist, like everybody else? > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup > -- Janina Sajka, Director Information Systems Research & Development American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) janina at afb.net
