Re: want to contribute with some PlugIns for emacspeak.

["krishnakant Mane" <krmane@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/10/06, Tim Cross <tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi Krishnakant,
>
> Its great you want to contribute to emacspeak. However, there are a
> few points which I think you need to consider and some aspects of the
> emacspeak philosophy which you haven't grasped yet.
yes definatly.
> Firstly, forget about trying to provide things like font information
> when reading PDF or PostScript documents. The only way to access such
> documents from within emacs is to turn them into text, at which point
> you have lost the information regarding bold, italic or font details.
yes, I believe pdf is as it is converted to text in most of the screen
readers who make or try to make them accessible.
> With LaTex, texinfo and other markup languages, there is no point as
> this information is readily available from the markup tags. For
> example, in LaTeX, bold is denoted by \textbf{This text is bold}.
here is the problem I can point out.  if I want to view the ready
LaTex document before converting it to pdf etc.  I will like to
concentrate on the text and the tags will come in between and may
disturb the reading.  this is where I find screen readers like jaws
for windows at perfection.  while jaws will not anounce font
information on its own, if I press a key combination, I get all
details.  so while reading the text like text, I even get the format
information as and when I want.  if I will have to read documents with
their tags even when I am done with the document, then I will rather
create them under emacspeak and then read them out in windows.  but
that will be very sad.  so here is the need for accessing information
as much as I want and as and when I need it.  never the less the
auditory icons is a brillient idea, and I feel it is much better than
even what jaws does.  My idea might be mis understood so I am making
it clear.  point is that while I am reading text, I should know what
is having emphesis and which are the headings etc.
> this leaves rendered HTML documents. In this case, the information is
> already provided by emacspeak through the use of different voices.
> This is part of the philosophy of emacspeak. Audible cues, such as
> sound icons and different voices or speech tones are used to
> provide a functionally equivalent role to font attributes for
> sighted users. This facilitates Raman's goal of having a system which
> informs the blind user concerning content without adding additional
> words and in a way which is more closely related to natural speech.
exactly, this is what I am talking about.  although I have not been
successful to have it give me the auditory queues while using flite.
although I I am getting some beeps on blank lines and beeps of higher
pitch on indented lines.  that is really a good idea.  can some one
help me out with the eflite part of it?  I heard some voice change
while using mbrola, but the pronounce is no better than flite, infact
characters like u are not even pronounced properly.
> this aspect of emacspeak is something you haven't been able to
> appreciate because the speech synthesises you are using don't support
> multiple voices. Currently, when I access a web page, components of
> the page, such as headings, links and emphasised text are either
> spoken in a different voice, with a different tone or through the use
> of sound icons. As a blind user, I don't really care if the font is
> Times New Roman, courier or in 12pt or llpt, double spaced etc. This
> information is only relevant when I'm producing documents for sighted
> users, in which case, I'm using some sort of markup language and this
> information is available through the markup tags.
very true.  I agree completely but I am not getting it work with w3m,
I tried hard to get that info as you say.  so may be you can guide me
further.
> With respect to creating high quality formatted documents for sighted
> users, you cannot go past LaTeX. I often have to produce high quality
> documents in PDF or PostScript and I regularly get comments on the
> quality of the formatted output. As a side note, I also often get
> comments regarding how quickly I can produce well formatted documents.
> This is because LaTeX is much faster and simpler than using Word. Most
> Word users remark on how long it takes them after writing the document
> to get it formatted and looking good. This is something you rarely
> have to worry about with LaTeX. There are also numerous emacs tools
> which will allow you to create good quality documents in various
> formats, such as emacs muse, which will create HTML, XHTML, PDF,
> PostScript, DocBook RTF TexInfo and other formats from a single source
> document. Robert has outlined the various formats you can produce
> using texInfo and there are a number of other packages, like bhl,
> emacs-wiki nxml-mode, xslide, html-helper mode, etc, which can be used
> to create high quality documents in various formats.
very true.  I am very much impressed with LaTeX and want to use it
more and more.  only thing is I wish that same kind of auditory icons
could be used to anounce that the text has some importance like bolded
and italics (may be a different audio icon?).  and same as html, when
LaTeX output is viewed on the screen, I will like to know the headings
etc also through audio icons?
> Without wanting to appear rude, I would have to say I feel you are
> trying to run before you can walk. It is wonderful you want to
> contribute to emacspeak. However, I don't believe you have been using
> it long enough yet to know exactly where you could make the best  contribution.

no not at all, I know hackers are indeed considered to be rood, it is
another thing that I being a kernel hacker have never been rood.  but
I am never the less prepared for roodness from brillient programmers
wishing that one day gnu/linux hackers also earn a good reputation of
modesty.
since you are speaking the reality, it is ok.  I will only bring one
point to your notice though,
as you rightly said I am starting to use emacspeak, I at least
understand it to an extent that I can use it as my complete desktop.
what I only need is to get the formatted information of my documents.
now since you have provided the good idea of audio icons, may be you
can tell me more about it?
by the way I think I too am finding w3m much easier and user friendly.
 so I am planning to stick to it unless some one gives me a good
reason to switch to w3.
regards,
Krishnakant.

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