[oats-sig] Web based symbol communication system with scanning

On 30/04/2008, info at oatsoft.org <info at oatsoft.org> wrote:

> The following content has been submitted for approval: The Web Page Communicator Templates are a set of Internet Explorer compatible web pages that are used to create web pages that behave similarly to dynamic display speech generating devices. Now many platforms capable of running Internet Explorer 4.0 or newer can be used as simple communications devices. The pages support multiple access methods including single switch and two switch scanning,  linear or row-column scans, and auditory scanning. formEdit is a template editor that makes it easy to build a useful communications page using the Web Page Communicator templates.  The current template set offers choice grids with 4 to > 24 cells.

http://www.oatsoft.org/Software/formedit-and-the-web-page-communicator-templates

Jim, thank you very much for submitting this to Oatsoft.org.
Did you create this software? If not could you pass this on as I
cannot locate in via Google. Could you also provide web site, source
code and license details using the OATSoft features?

The reason I am contacting you directly and cross posting is that this
is *very*interesting to me and a number of others who want to improve
alt access and communication.

I am interested in this as a significant part of the next phase of the
Jambu project which I have been working on (and off) with Mozilla
Funding and Chris Hoffman is looking at web On Screen Keyboards. There
is significant overlap between all our work.

As you say there is great potential so the big  question is why limit
it to IE only? That is a serious problem AFAIAC, especially for mobile
devices. Why is that and is it a strong dependency? I can only guess
you might be using ActiveX for input, as scanning with the simple DOM
events is a little tricky. Or perhaps SAPI (we could look at how
FireVox does it).

In terms of technologies Chris is looking at using JQuery and I
require SVG symbols/cells, even more so as I am working on a
so-to-be-released Open Symbol Set that will be available in SVG. I was
thinking about using a Firefox extension or XULRunner, but as much as
possible should be open and cross-everything and use the latest web
accessibility standards. I think ARIA will become important as the
functionality grows from simple features to some of the advance stuff
done by local apps like the Grid etc.

It might be that access to platform features outside the browser web
sandbox are best dealt with by creating a small cross-platform AT that
communicates with the web app via ARIA and the platform API (that
makes Dojo attractive as it has ARIA now).

This is great timing and I look forward to hearing more and opening
the debate to how we could collaborate and develop along the lines you
mention on the page  work and make it cross browser, cross platform
and use open standards. I'm starting to think about the roadmap for
the next phase and to secure funding. Perhaps you would like to join
the Jambu Group to discuss this in detail with others who are
interested in this area (low traffic). It doesn't mean you're
committed to Jambu, it's just a good place to discuss the subject.

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/jambu

-- 
Steve Lee
--
Open Source Assistive Technology Software
web: fullmeasure.co.uk
blog: eduspaces.net/stevelee/weblog

>  Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:38:48 +0100
>
>  This was submitted by Jim Luther ( jamjolu at hotmail.com ).
>
>  Please click the link below and review this content.
>  http://www.oatsoft.org/Software/formedit-and-the-web-page-communicator-templates
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>  (sent by the OATS website robot - do not reply to this message)
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