While these are most likely your experiences and opinion, I just don't understand your arguments despite having used the features you describe under Windows with JAWS for a pretty long time. I really wish people would think outside the box. Actually, what does damage the credibility of OS X is when people make assumptions based on a previous platform the user might have used, or create misconceptions based on inexperience or what a poster perceives to be "easy to use." Setting up the options you mention, or making the comparison that you make does not guarantee that the experience becomes more pleasant simply because JAWS may do it this way. While I will agree that the configurable options should have been mentioned for speech output, saying that by not doing so you are doing a disservice to new Mac users and damaging the credibility of the OS X platform is an assumption. The automatic reading of text can actually be more annoying than anything else. What you so blatantly refer to as what apparently is a meaningless way to use Adium is an experience without what you call "handholding." It basically refers to any content which is automatically read, or content that applications assume you want read to you, or changed interfaces based on scripts and so-forth. Would you quit with the assumptions please? While being respectful, the statement "The truth is that without some considerable configuration at the start, Adium is not usable in any meaningful way by a VoiceOver user." is ridiculous. Adium can be used without any real configuration, and in a meaningful way by VoiceOver users. The app comments in the Adium application submission are completely true. Wow, I'm not even sure where to start with this one. Additionally there are check boxes for speaking the time and name of the person who sent the message. So for example, if you want it to speak out incoming messages, you would go to the events table, then find message received, VO right arrow and press add, then choose speak event out loud from the combo box. From there, you get a dialogue where you can choose from sounds, visuals, and speech. If you want to add an action to a specific event you can VO right arrow and press add. When you press right arrow on an event, it expands and you can read what, if any, actions are associated with it. Bring the voiceover cursor to it and then use the up and down arrows to scroll through the events. In the events tab, theres a table that contains many different events such as "you connect," "You disconnect," Contact signs on or off, MEssage received etc. From there you need to interact with the toolbar and choose the events tab. You can bring up preferences in most applications by pressing the keyboard shortcut Command and comma. They are called events and they are in the preferences dialogue. I'm gonna give a description of how to do that and if you want more details let me know. I think what JT is talking about is customizing it so that it announces things like incoming messages, contacts signing on and off, transfer requests etc. When you install adium, you can use it with voiceover right away. My point is that by not mentioning this and by insisting that Adium works perfectly and is easy to use, this does a disservice to new Mac users and potentially damages the credibility of the Mac platform for visually impaired users. The good news is that it is possible to configure Adium to give the VO user a much more pleasant and useable chat experience. You navigate this HTML area using standard VO commands and in my experience, end up spending a lot of time listening to your own messages. In Adium, the messages from you and your friend appear in an HTML area, with the most recent message being at the bottom. When using MSN messenger, you have single keystroke access to the last ten messages, with message 1 always being the newest and message 0 the oldest. When using Adium, you hear a sound when a friend logs in. When using MSN messenger, you hear a sound when a friend logs in, a sound when they have sent you a message and have a keystroke to read that message to you. If we compare the experience of using MSN messenger on Windows, with a screen reader such as JAWS, to using Adium with VO, the difference is startling. The truth is that without some considerable configuration at the start, Adium is not usable in any meaningful way by a VoiceOver user. While these statements may be true, they do not tell the true story. Under Usability, it says “The app is fully accessible with VoiceOver and is easy to navigate and use.” Under Accessibility Comments for Adium in the Mac App Directory, it simply says “Works perfectly.”
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